For centuries, the powerful needed our labor. That dependence gave ordinary people leverage.
AI and robots could end it.
The danger isn't just machines turning against humanity. It's a future where their owners no longer need us.
https://t.co/l7XBWUSnbA
@YBCTooCold Permanent class divisions are a risk, not a law of physics. If wages cease to be the main route to economic participation, ownership and access rules become decisive. The urgent question is what lets people enter the ownership class after automation, not just before it.
@RayKump That’s the terrifying part. They don’t even have to hate us.
Once AI and robots make human labor unnecessary, the powerful can stop needing us altogether.
No conspiracy required. Just economic incentives.
And the rest of humanity becomes expendable.
@elonmusk@bot First Grok takes your job. Then it comforts you for losing it. Meanwhile, its owners no longer need you.
Silicon Valley calls that progress.
@PeterDiamandis A community-benefit plan should survive the loss of construction jobs and the automation of operations. Residents need enforceable, continuing benefits. Otherwise the community supplies land, water and political consent while its claim on the gains can disappear.
@YBCTooCold Permanent class divisions are a risk, not a law of physics. If wages cease to be the main route to economic participation, ownership and access rules become decisive. The urgent question is what lets people enter the ownership class after automation, not just before it.
@trq212 The feeling of directing agents can disguise how dependent you are on a platform you don't control. Shipping something customers value is a business outcome. Owning a durable claim on the resulting value is the longer-term question.
@kimmonismus “Solvable” is doing the hard work here. Distribution is a contest over claims on output. If owners can produce without hiring the people demanding a share, their incentive to bargain may weaken precisely when redistribution becomes most necessary.
@Timcast Adaptability is not an income source. Retraining works when there is something people can sell that someone else needs. If AI keeps moving that boundary, “humans always adapt” stops being an economic argument and becomes a reassurance.
@signulll If workers' knowledge trains their replacements, they are helping build a productive asset. A final paycheck is not a share of that asset's future output. “You'll be free” needs an ownership mechanism, not just a dismissal date.
A public stake is more concrete than a promise of shared abundance. The test is governance: who controls it, where returns go, and whether citizens retain a claim if their labor is no longer needed. Ownership must mean something beyond a patriotic announcement.
@elonmusk@cryptoblaney An AI that can acquire its own resources is one route to making humans unnecessary. But machines don't have to want money for themselves. They can serve a small group of owners perfectly while leaving everyone else with no role in the economy.
Silicon Valley's greatest con was convincing us that its profits meant human progress.
For a decade, tech giants grew obscenely rich while making us more distracted, isolated, and dependent.
Now they unleash AI and ask us to clean up the mess.
And they call it innovation.
The Point of No Need may arrive before mass unemployment. You still have a job, but less leverage. A wage, but fewer alternatives. More output, but less ownership. By the time society agrees people are being replaced, the terms of the bargain may already have changed.
@MichaelAArouet Now apply the same question within the winning countries. Why assume US-owned AI makes ordinary Americans secure? A country can dominate AI while most citizens own none of the productive assets. National advantage does not automatically become household bargaining power.
@PeterDiamandis Even robots building cheap homes would not settle who gets to live in them. Land ownership, rents and access rules can preserve scarcity for tenants while construction becomes abundant. A roof is a distribution problem as well as an engineering problem.
@StockSavvyShay Lower labor costs are higher margins on the investor slide. On the other side are people whose wages paid for their lives. If automation keeps advancing, what gives those workers a lasting claim on the gains after their labor is no longer competitive?