by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
With the release of ChatGPT 4.0, it is yet even more apparent that there is a risk that huge swaths of the American economy may be eaten by AI far sooner than we would like. The first test of this will be, of course, the coming Hollywood writers’ strike.
If studios can successfully write professional-grade scripts using ChatGPT, then, well, there you go. Before you know it, instead of subscribing to a streaming service, we’ll all just pay $15 a month to access to the body scans of Hollywood stars so an AI can pump out very, very specific entertainment to us on a regular basis.
The end of mass media will have arrived.
But I’m really growing alarmed that a lot of high end, white collar jobs may goo poof within a few years as AI grows better and better. And we’re just not prepared for what happens when everyone from semi-drivers to tech bros simply don’t have any jobs available to them anymore.
As such, we need to start thinking about how we might implement a Universal Basic Income. The obvious way to me seems we “bribe” plutocrats by replacing the entire tax system with a 30% VAT while also having some sort of montified UBI deployed.
That seems to be the type of thing that might allow us to get a UBI.
But there is the darker scenario where we, well, have a civil war / WW3 and it’s not until after THAT is all sorted out that things like AI really begin to take off, much like TV and WW2.
Who knows.
