by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m listening to The Week In Startup and I’m flabbergasted in the mentality of Jason Calacanis and Molly Wood. I think some of my shock comes from something we don’t talk about a lot in America — class. They’re both really, really rich and so of course they would rather think up ways to screw over workers rather than pay people more.
A lot of America’s problems come from income inequality. If we would just tax billionaires out of existence and pay the average person a living wage then I think a lot of our problems would be dramatically mitigated.
But that’s just not what’s going to happened.
We’re going to use, on a macro basis, automation and AI to destroy a wide range of jobs that we assume will always be there. Off the top of my head, I find myself worried about the 3 million high paying transportation jobs that will vanish whenever Elon Musk hooks AGI to an EV semi.
One thing that was touched upon during This Week In Startups is that as long as what AI does is “just good enough” then it will be used. If you hook up AI to androids then virtually overnight the need for a Universal Basic Income is going to become clear.
A UBI solves a lot of problems and yet it would also cause a lot of problems. Most people are lazy and they just won’t do shit if they get a UBI. What’s worse, there are also people who are extremely ambitious and they would demand the right to have SOME job, just to be able to have somewhere to go during the day and have some sense of self-fulfillment. So, it seems as though some sort of “value added” stipend would be included in which if you can do some sort of job that AGI can’t do very well then you will extra momney.
Or something.
The point is — I’m really worried about America’s instability going forward because of income inequality. There seems as though there might be a real risk of the “Petite Singularity” causing a huge pushback involving the rise of neo-Luddites.
These neo-Luddites will demand huge carve outs whereby only humans can do some jobs. Only time will tell.
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