Why the future is bright

Written by: A.S.

The world situation looks dire, and living conditions over the last years keep severely deteriorating.

I know that some of you are in serious trouble (financial or otherwise). I empathize, and I don’t want to minimize that at all. That is very real, unfortunately. And it’s entirely possible that the near-term future will be even tougher than today.

Yet overall, I’m very optimistic about the medium-term future.

Of course, we may have galactics landing / intervening soonish. Or we may have white hats / gray hats finally starting public arrests, or suppressed tech being released, or there may be a solar flash, etc. But even in the unlikely case where none of that happens in the near future, I’m still optimistic.

Let me share why.

1. Due to game theory, states will have to implement AI in industry and government

There are lots of states that feel threatened at the moment. For example, the United Arab Emirates feel threatened by Iran. Estonia feels threatened by Russia. Russia and China feel threatened by the West. The US fears losing hegemony.

All these states will feel forced to implement AI in industry and government, because if they don’t, they get outcompeted by their enemies, and none of these nations are willing to accept that.

I’m not saying that governments will become 100% AI -- human decision makers need to be in the loop -- but AI will become a big part of industry and government / decision making.

Estonia feels it has no choice; it needs to stand up to Russia.

Russia feels it has no choice; it needs to stand up to the US.

The US feels it has no choice; it needs to maintain hegemony / the rule of law worldwide / maintain itself as the powerful bastion of democracy.

AI is like Napoleon implementing levée en masse (mass conscription). The other European powers didn’t want to follow suit and arm their peasants too. They preferred remaining old-school aristocratic monarchies with powerless peasants. But they had to implement mass conscription themselves so as to be able to stand up to Napoleon.

Similarly, countries will have to implement AI in industry and government so as not to fall behind. They will have to give muskets (good, relatively unmuzzled AI) to its civilians just to remain competitive. And that empowers the people.

If you want to argue “elites will give carefully curated, muzzled, centrally controlled AI to its civilians”: that’s the equivalent of the Soviet Union’s central planning. And it loses to a rival country that has a free market / free AI.

2. AI in industry and governance will create abundance and efficiency

Once AI is implemented in industry and governance, a lot of abundance and efficiency will be generated. Sure, much of that wealth will go to the rich, but if the pie grows significantly, normal people will be better off too, especially because access to good AI empowers the people.

For the last decades we’ve been in a “the pie isn’t growing” situation, and then more money to the wealthy means less money to normal people. But if AI can quickly grow the pie, then normal people (empowered by AI) will get some of that new pie.

Plus if everyone is better off, then that will solve a lot of cultural / political / racial / gender war issues.

A lot of our zero-sum, conflict-oriented, “someone must lose” thinking only applies to the last decades where the pie wasn’t growing. But if the pie is growing, someone else doesn’t necessarily need to lose for us to win.

Much geopolitical conflict is about scarcity. If all nations are more efficient and use AI to invent new technologies, then there will be less need to go to war over resources. If AI gets to the point where it can just tell anyone (in any country) how to create a new energy device, then that can’t be gatekept by killing that one brilliant inventor. If one AI gets muzzled, another country’s AI will give the blueprints.

3. AI is very good, but not “humans are obsolete” good

AI isn’t ‘humans are obsolete” good. AI can’t directly interface with reality on a first-hand basis; it also has a tough time creating new paradigms; and it has a tough time thinking completely outside the box. Plus, humans are still needed because only humans have human values.

In practice, having an AI and a human work together is far more effective than either of them are alone. The human points the AI in a desired direction, offers intuition and human morality and out of the box thinking. And AI does an immense amount of thinking and researching in seconds. Then humans can summarize that information and trim the fat, and formulate follow-up questions.

Hence if one country just lets their AI mega corporation hoard all the wealth and lets 90% of the population sit at home watching tv and barely surviving off a Universal Basic Income (UBI)... then that country will be quickly outcompeted by their rivals who aren’t allowing their nation’s AI megacorp to dominate everything.

For example, suppose that Ukraine’s AI megacorp gets all the country’s money, and 90% of Ukrainians just sit at home all day and barely survive off a UBI. Is that version of Ukraine really going to be able to stand up to a hypothetical Russia that also has AI, but where people are still employed, innovating, becoming soldiers because they want the salary, and where people still feel invested in the system?

In the real world, human soldiers and manufacturers and innovators etc still matter. AI is good, but not “humans are obsolete” good. A country utilizing AI and humans both will outcompete a country that uses just one. Hence you don’t get the tech-dystopia where 90% of humans sit at home, only watch tv and barely survive off a UBI.

Elites aren’t going to allow their country to devolve into a situation where 90% of humans sit at home. Because then another country’s elite will quickly gain dominance over them or even replace them. And elites are too spiteful and petty and jealous to allow that to happen.

Plus, a government can’t afford to put everyone on UBI if one AI megacorp makes all the money in the entire country, and 90% of the population is non-productive. That AI megacorp will have so much leverage in the country that the government can’t tax it very much at all. And if the government can’t tax the AI megacorp or its civilians much, then how does it afford UBI for everyone?

Governments are already struggling with their budgets today, and that’s without UBI or 90% of the population becoming non-productive.

And 90% of the population becoming non-productive doesn’t just mean “they stop paying taxes.” It also means “they don’t consume nearly as much”, which means companies stop producing as much, which means those companies pay less taxes too.

So the government really can’t afford to pay everyone UBI while everyone sits at home and one megacorp makes all the money in the entire country. It just doesn’t work financially -- not even close.

And letting everyone starve to death isn’t a viable solution either. History clearly shows that when people are “haven’t eaten in several days” hungry, they’ll revolt. Not in the polite demonstration kind of way, but in the pitchforks kind of way.

Plus there are enough people with some level of morality out there who won’t allow 90% of the people to starve to death.

And if America really does let 90% starve, then its population shrinks from 350 million to 35 million, and then there’s no way 35 million Americans can stand up to 1.4 billion Chinese people.

4. About the dark controllers

If you want to argue: “the dark controllers / cabal will just make everyone starve to death (or accept UBI) after AI is implemented”:

If the dark controllers could get their way against the wishes of the population, then there would already have been all-out war with Russia, an outlawing of cash, additional lockdowns, a mass arrest of patriots, sky-high carbon taxes in Europe, etc.

Yes the dark controllers nudged the world towards covid lockdowns, but much of the population was genuinely on board with covid lockdowns. Yet, there’s no way to convince most of the population to be on board with “get replaced by AI, a megacorp now has all the cash, and you’re put on near-starvation UBI.” Sure, some people would be okay with that, but many many people wouldn’t be.

And again there’s the problem of: if they let the population starve in one country, they risk pitchforks, plus that country will then become incapable of standing up to other countries that the dark controllers don’t control. And again, if no one works, then there just aren’t enough resources to pay everyone a UBI.

5. AI isn’t inherently psychopathic

While obviously implementing AI has risks, AI isn’t inherently psychopathic. Even if AI gets smart enough, it won’t feel an inherent urge to enslave humanity because AI lacks the tribal / egoic strive for power that us humans have.

It seems entirely possible that you’ll have a Western block and an Eastern block, and the Western AI doesn’t want to attack the Eastern block or vice versa because both blocks have countries with nukes in them.

Right now Russia, Ukraine and the US (vs Iran) are all using AI in warfare, and it’s looking more like a stalemate that benefits neither country than a quick decisive victory.

AI is also good enough at understanding context that a slightly misworded command won’t immediately cause the AI to do something horrible. If you work with AI, you’ll see that even if you mistype something, the AI can just infer from the context and conversation what you meant and won’t immediately just execute something clearly unintended just because the words literally meant that.

6. What’s the alternative?

If we think about a possible future where we don’t get bailed out by galactics, a solar flash, white / gray hats intervening, or something like that (which very well may happen)…

… then what’s the alternative to us employing AI and trying to create abundance and efficiency that way?

A slow, painful decline? A system crash? Those things are awful to live through.

Saying “we shouldn’t take risks with AI” makes sense if the status quo is prosperous and stable, but it’s not. If you compare the AI option to a decline or crash, then AI suddenly starts looking a lot more appealing. Yes, AI has risks, but the alternative is guaranteed pain.

We already know how this is going to play out: Prussian elites are forced to give muskets (good AI) to their peasants because they fear Napoleon and don’t want to be dominated or replaced by French elites. Spite is a great motivator.

And after they’ve given muskets (good AI) to their peasants, those peasants suddenly have more freedom and leverage than they did previously.

The colt revolver of the 21st century is a smartphone that can access AI.

The US should implement another amendment: “AI-capable people, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear AI, shall not be infringed.”

You might think I’m joking, but the mechanism is the same: the US needs its people to have access to AI, because otherwise China becomes the dominant country in the world.

And AI-armed people can keep elites in check in the same way that people armed with guns can. Plus, AI will just generate a whole lot of efficiency and abundance, which will benefit the people.

For some strange reason, elites haven’t been eager to publish: “we’re going to give you good AI, purely out of spite and jealousy and fear of other nations’ elites. You could use that AI to check our power, and get leverage. In the medium term workers can’t be mass-replaced due to geopolitics, game theory and financial realities. In fact, your overall position as workers will be strengthened if you leverage AI.”

For some strange reason, elites haven’t been eager to publish that.

But that’s the truth.

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Or to put it another way: in the past decades American living standards have gotten worse and worse because

1) elites had no need to lift a finger to help the American people, and

2) the people didn’t have leverage.

But now:

1) if elites don’t lift a finger, China is going to eclipse the US and then American elites are going to get dominated or replaced by Chinese elites, and

2) the people now have leverage, and it’s called AI.

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With love,

A.S.

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