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re: An economic collapse scenario by Citrini Research:
Posted on 2/25/26 at 2:53 pm to Upperdecker
Posted on 2/25/26 at 2:53 pm to Upperdecker
quote:
This issue gets addressed at least partially. Citrini says (and I agree) we eventually move to a form of government benefits/UBI to subsidize the permanent loss of employment. Again, time period is pushed way sooner than I would expect. Citrini also says that they don’t figure out how the economy begins to grow out of the recession, and ends the article at that point.
That's where I was going. We know the knee-jerk reaction from government would be to increase welfare spending to compensate for all the new enrollees. The problem is we're already so deeply in debt that positive GDP growth is pretty much dependent on deficit spending remaining over $1T annually.
When there's far less in taxes coming in, all that's going to do is increase the speed in which the USD collapses under the weight of debt.
But what then?
We could guess there's a big push to tax the big tech companies even harder, but eventually even they will fall under such a scenario (all the QED in the world wouldn't be able to stop a crash at that point).
The only workable outcome I can imagine would be if AI (or AGI) becomes autonomous enough to be loaded into robots (Musk's or anyone else's) that could then harvest resources, refine and manufacture them into goods while also being able to manufacture, improve and repair themselves. At that point we would begin to enter post-scarcity, I would wager a majority of people simply aren't psychologically ready for that type of society.
1
Posted on 2/25/26 at 3:15 pm to Bard
quote:
The only workable outcome I can imagine would be if AI (or AGI) becomes autonomous enough to be loaded into robots (Musk's or anyone else's) that could then harvest resources, refine and manufacture them into goods while also being able to manufacture, improve and repair themselves. At that point we would begin to enter post-scarcity
This is what physical AI refers to - AI control of robotics. Jensen will talk about it tonight, and Elon talks about it. The faster we get to physical AI, the smoother the transition is when jobs are lost. Physical AI can make everything abundant essentially and make work obsolete
Posted on 2/25/26 at 3:17 pm to Upperdecker
quote:But the ethics of that is just
Physical AI can make everything abundant essentially and make work obsolete
Posted on 2/25/26 at 8:15 pm to David_DJS
quote:
How new will it be? Somewhere in this thread it was mentioned that up to 40 million jobs could be lost, but that's roughly the same thing we saw a hundred years ago with the mechanization/productivity gains in AG a hundred years ago? Yes, we'd be looking at a 10-10 year period for the AI dislocations to play out compared to 50 years with AG dislocations, but then again - everything has sped up compared to a hundred years ago.
I think it would be very new. A hundred years ago the vast majority of Americans (and even more of the world population) were far more agrarian, had non-municipal water and weren't so dependent on electricity. If they lost their job but still had a home, they could still eat and remain warm on cold nights.
Today?
It's a bit like if we were to have a recession with the current enormous amount of consumer debt. We've never had a recession where consumers went into it so far in the red already. It would be a painful wakeup call to many, many people and likely spin into a depression as the numbskulls in DC tried to fix it by dumping more debt-created dollars into welfare programs (thus making GDP even more addicted to deficit spending than it already is).
Posted on 2/25/26 at 8:20 pm to Upperdecker
quote:
The faster we get to physical AI, the smoother the transition is when jobs are lost. Physical AI can make everything abundant essentially and make work obsolete
Imagine everyone you know with nothing to do. How do you think that will work out for them.
I know I have friends who would find it constructive. They would work on their homes, their yards, learn new languages, etc. But I have other friends who would just spend their days drinking, smoking, shooting up and fricking.
While it was never meant to be prophetic, I think Idiocracy gives a good view of what that would likely mean for society.
Posted on 2/25/26 at 9:37 pm to Bard
quote:
Imagine everyone you know with nothing to do. How do you think that will work out for them.
I don’t know where I heard it but when 10/7 happened I heard someone say something to the effect of “unemployment is 50% with young men in Gaza, of course they are blowing shite up. They got nothing to lose”
It’s hard to read the doomer AI post without coming to the conclusion that there will be massive civil unrest
I am pretty skeptical of these AI articles because they are pretty much weekly now, lot of them seem to be pushing to sell AI products. Almost always a line about how the free version doesn’t give you the full picture
If anyone is motivated to get cash flow, it’s AI companies who are pissing cash out of a fire hose right now
This post was edited on 2/25/26 at 9:38 pm
Posted on 2/26/26 at 5:49 am to Bard
quote:
I think it would be very new. A hundred years ago the vast majority of Americans (and even more of the world population) were far more agrarian, had non-municipal water and weren't so dependent on electricity. If they lost their job but still had a home, they could still eat and remain warm on cold nights.
Every productivity revolution has been called unprecedented and likely catastrophic. What's being said about AI - and I mean almost literally the same rhetoric and same "solutions" (gov't work programs, gov't training, gov't income guarantees) - was said during the transition away from a workfrce that was 35% ag a hundred years ago. It was said about machinery and automation revolutions. In the 60's we were warned that technologically driven productivity gains would create a permanent unemployed/underemployed class - solutions included something tantamount to UBI. More recently, computers automated clerical and analytical work, and the internet wiped out entire categories of retail and media. Each wave felt existential at the time. But employment didn't vanish - it shifted and grew.
AI will move faster, this is true - but the modern economy also adapts faster. Capital reallocates more quickly than it did last century. Workers can be trained more easily/quickly. Information flows instantaneously. And we're far wealthier, more diversified and institutionally better equipped than leading up to past transitions.
I'm not arguing that AI won't wipe out a shocking number of jobs. It will. I'm arguing that one constant across eras is our propensity to believe that what we're about to experience is "different" and poses bigger and scarier challenges than anything before. And another constant that history says we can count on is this - the economy's capacity to adapt, reorganize, and redeploy to harness revolutionary productivity tools is always underestimated by the so-called experts going in.
Posted on 2/26/26 at 7:25 am to David_DJS
quote:
I'm arguing that one constant across eras is our propensity to believe that what we're about to experience is "different" and poses bigger and scarier challenges than anything before. And another constant that history says we can count on is this - the economy's capacity to adapt, reorganize, and redeploy to harness revolutionary productivity tools is always underestimated by the so-called experts going in.
There is an eventuality where AI and physical AI (robots) take everyone’s jobs. They work 24/7 without tiring, losing motivation, taking bathroom breaks, cost less, etc. Eventually they will be able to do every job. That could be hundreds of years from now, but the pace of advancement does appear to be pushing that long term future closer and closer. I think Citrini is pushing things too soon here, but I don’t think they’re wrong on how things eventually work out. Robots are stronger than us or more accurate than us. They can replace both surgeons and manual labor efficiently. AI’s ability to tackle tasks is increasing at a rapid rate, and theyre able to perform some tasks much faster than humans now. There’s a progression that will happen, but eventually it will replace everyone
Posted on 2/26/26 at 1:27 pm to Upperdecker
quote:
There is an eventuality where AI and physical AI (robots) take everyone’s jobs. They work 24/7 without tiring, losing motivation, taking bathroom breaks, cost less, etc. Eventually they will be able to do every job. That could be hundreds of years from now, but the pace of advancement does appear to be pushing that long term future closer and closer. I think Citrini is pushing things too soon here, but I don’t think they’re wrong on how things eventually work out. Robots are stronger than us or more accurate than us. They can replace both surgeons and manual labor efficiently. AI’s ability to tackle tasks is increasing at a rapid rate, and theyre able to perform some tasks much faster than humans now. There’s a progression that will happen, but eventually it will replace everyone
And robots will begin developing smarter/more capable robots - no humans involved, and in the end will proactively drive the extinction of the human race. Humans being nothing but a burden. Useless.
OMG. It'll be a terribleness like we've never seen before. And I bet those frickers will vote Democrat.
Posted on 2/26/26 at 1:30 pm to David_DJS
quote:
In the 60's we were warned that technologically driven productivity gains would create a permanent unemployed/underemployed class - solutions included something tantamount to UBI.
This actually occured..
Posted on 2/26/26 at 1:34 pm to Dawgfanman
quote:
This actually occured..
Not because of technologically driven productivity gains.
Posted on 2/26/26 at 4:03 pm to bayoubengals88
quote:
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's Block, formerly Square, Ticker XYZ slashes workforce by 40 percent...
Consistent with what I posted.
Posted on 2/26/26 at 4:11 pm to bayoubengals88
The stock is up 30% between the regular trading session and after hours. That’s a wild move for a stock that has been boring, dead money almost 5 years.
It’s kind scary if public companies saying “we’re getting rid of X percent of our workforce due to AI” is immediately rewarded with a major rally in the stock. That’s kind of what was happening 2 or 3 years ago with mega caps after Meta ran that playbook.
It’s kind scary if public companies saying “we’re getting rid of X percent of our workforce due to AI” is immediately rewarded with a major rally in the stock. That’s kind of what was happening 2 or 3 years ago with mega caps after Meta ran that playbook.
This post was edited on 2/26/26 at 4:17 pm
Posted on 2/26/26 at 4:19 pm to beaverfever
Yesterday I literally joked to my buddy “What if AI figures out how to design chips better than Nvidia” and then I gradually got uncomfortable.
Posted on 2/26/26 at 10:10 pm to jefforize
This makes the very faulty assumption that the company actually cares about having someone to blame. The company doesn’t care about having someone to blame, They only care about the results that come from the screwup. And in your scenario, the results that come from the screwup are the exactly the same regardless of whether you’re talking about AI or humans that make the screwup.
Posted on 2/27/26 at 7:22 am to GREENHEAD22
Deflation is great, unless you're in debt.
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