I know a lot of you have asked about what recommended books you should read to learn more in depth about the content on this channel. I made a complete reading list freely available to subscribers who join the channels mailing list. To download the reading list, click on the link below. nickpardini.substack.com/subscribe
Every new technology in the end empowers the lower class even more, when it becomes publicly available. And every new technology becomes public domain much faster than the previous one. Where it took hundreds of years before regular people could reap the fruits of the industrial revolution it took only decades for everyone to be connected to the internet and it took only one decade to give everyone a smartphone, a few years for all of us to be addicted to social media and chatgpt is used by everyone almost from the beginning.
This is why I focus so much on system independence these days. People get so caught up in our urban monoculture that they have forgotten what it actually is that they need.. A piece of property, a place to live, and a means to produce your own food. I think if this scenario does play out, people will realize that property lines are an arbitrary thing enforced by the state. Reliance on a larger economic structure are just a cultural phenomenon and not necessarily the peak or endpoint of human development. If more people got out of the system and realized that they could create their own settlements, their own communities, and even their own defense systems, the current elite would rot in their mansions trying to eat their paper money. Something that people don't consider is that if technology gets that advanced, it will not only replace jobs, but it will provide a way for average people to be more independent and powerful. People often think of power as strictly having control over a body of people, but power is also the ability to exist outside of a system, because your absence can heavily impact the system. In a scenario where the vast majority of people have lost their job to AI, there will be an enormous vacuum of purpose that great men will be tasked to fulfill. The next era of great men will be starting their own settlements and communities based on a deeper, more authentic version of what it means to be human.
Few things terrify this beast of wealth more than the development of parallel systems, and they are not withholding in their plots to dismantle what you speak of. Don't be snuffed out silently. A loud martyr is unacceptable revelation by demand of the upper echelon for "good" reason.
Do you really think the Illuminati will just sit idle and let people actually escape and have freedom over their own lives? No they want us to be miserable!
The expected response from the state (and we have already seen this) is to declare such settlements illegal in some way (they are child molesters, or abusing women, or tax reasons, etc.), and simply send in armed response to kill everyone. This is not to say that no such settlements are never guilty of things like child abuse, but the truth of their guilt will not matter. As long as the narrative is successfully presented (people believe the lie), the state can move largely unopposed. We see this very recently with the attempt to declare all militias in the US illegal (treating them as domestic terror groups). Another thing we have seen is the BLM phenomenon (which is a part 2 version of the early race-baiters). They made noise, had some riots, and the leadership was basically bought off by corporations. So the twin responses of buying off instigators or simply deleting them are always options. The only time these fail is when the instigators become too numerous.
I think most people realize this and if you live in the US or other developed country being part of the system is the deal you get, but there is many other places to live abroad, where people can find a life that is based around vastly different values and culture to their own country of origin.
It is funny how AI is being used to take away cheap call center jobs, but in the offices we are still dealing with paper of paper work and wasting human potential
AI is best suited to replace 90% of desk jobs, of all sorts. That includes tens of millions of bureaucrats, academics, and the rest of the managerial class. Old Money will not bother to save them, nor could they. This will be interesting to watch. 🍿
Nah, technician class will arise but managerial and other bureau jobs will remain, decimated, but remain. You still need to manage the State and the business. You always gonna need a watcher/enforcer and a manager to rule over the lower classes.
@@maxstirner6143the manager class was made just to have a carrot for the working class to get a taste of the good life. So yeah they will fight to keep it as long as possible to keep uprising from happening.
Currently AI can help with some tasks. The call center jobs it already takes away are nothing more than "fuck you"s to their customers. That AI might be able to do more in the future is currently nothing more than an idea to get investors excited.
"We are now at the year nineteen hundred and eight [of the Carnegie Foundation minutes], which was the year that the Carnegie Foundation began operations. And, in that year, the trustees meeting, for the first time, raised a specific question, which they discussed throughout the balance of the year, in a very learned fashion. And the question is this: Is there any means known more effective than war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people? And they conclude that, no more effective means to that end is known to humanity, than war. So then, in 1909, they raise the second question, and discuss it, namely, how do we involve the United States in a war?" Relevant quote from Norman Dodd who headed up a congressional investigation in the 1950s at the behest of B. Carroll Reece (of the Reece Committee)
The funniest thing about humans is we create our own destruction while fully aware of it and continue. Robots and ai are our evolution and we are constructing our own replacement. It's both fascinating and scary at the same time.
Nick, I'm very interested in your 'Old Money' series. Its very informative and confirms what I've been suspecting for quite some time. Keep the valuable info coming!
People that have no purpose tend not to have kids the religious, especially fundamentalist have purpose. They are also the ones having the kids they will inherit the future. You do not have to make up new purpose. If you have no purpose you have no purpose. Those would purpose will strive to continue living those without it will die off. There is a naturally call to the world, the secular world Has no purpose. It is literally in front against GOD and the desire of atheist to make up meaning where their fundamental belief system shows there is none. It’s like setting your alarm clock 15 minutes early in order to trick yourself. It only works until you realize you’re tricking yourself then you sleep in the extra 15 minutes .
It's kinda like neo-fascists and woke-communists (who would get executed by any somehow-functioning communist country that still exists) accuse each other of being unemployed losers.... ....without seeing the fact they all are unemployed losers and in this shitty economy I couldn't blame ya for being an unemployed loser.
*First generation* of an *Automative Logistician here Im 27* Currently running a CMMIS system for a manf. Which is 95% Automative . So much so we only need shipping and QA , this is happening quicker than you think. This is our 6th factory. And we will be implementing them in our other five . No more : Packers Line workers And mixing crew. Only: QA,Maintenance,shipping.
In 20 yrs the world will be completely unrecognizable to what it is today. The implementation of automation is much farther than the masses can fathom.
There are a couple of issues with your future predictions: 1- The old money class depends on money generated from production and needs the rest of society to be consumers. With the cost of production approaching zero, money becomes obsolete. 2- A super intelligent AI will not be the slave of the ruling class or humanity.
Money won’t become obsolete, there will always a way to measure productivity and output. It may change but there will always be this measurement and money is the best way so far.
@@Blue_nip perhaps, when things become more efficient in a capitalistic economy the money moves to bigger projects or should say areas where it’s needed. We may see more mega projects in an era of high efficiency.
Another issue is the fact that if a large segment of the population is un-employable and on Government assistance, who will be the ‘consumer’? I think we may end up being technologically stale as profit/greed- greed can be a positive- is the motivator. Will we fall under, “You will own nothing and you will be happy?”
As a new subscriber I have to say it's refreshing to find a channel that offers an informed opinion and does not chase the algorithm like a hound dog. You go straight to the point, focus on what is relevant and not trying to offer stereotypical content and time management. Keep up the good work.
Two points of order. 1. Settled civilization preceded Class stratification and agriculture. (See, Chateau Hayuk and Göbekli Tepe.) 2. Despite the Meritocratic Myth of elite ideology, the ruling class are in fact the dependent class. And will remain so until the invention of a system that can support them in their idleness without human labour. Which, of course, is the point of the whole video, which is otherwise excellent. Thank you. Keep going.
Hey. Historian Here. I've studied Gobekli Tepe. There's no evidence of a class structure but there's also no evidence of no class structure. However, when you look at other examples from the Levant or from the later societies that developed in the region. There was probably a class structure just not a true hierarchy. Kind of like tribal chiefs who built the old kingdom in Egypt.
You see this already with truck drivers. Companies are continually trying to Innovate new solutions that replace one of the most expensive components in logistic. The truck driver. Robots don't need sleep nor do they require overtime pay. Your analysis is spot on.
I think this will only be a 100 year process. In the era of tech, progression is much faster. We even see it with GDP. Developing countries develop much faster than they did in the past centuries.
The issue that none of the technological "geniuses" want to approach is the fact every aspect of human civilization has been driven by the energy generated by scarcity. Moving resourses from one person to another drives every aspect of society. The desire of the "haves" to preserve the status quo is being sorely underestimated. AI is being driven by massive amounts of capital. Age of plenty? It seems unlikely if you consider the economic and political realities surrounding AI development. AI is very capital-intensive, and those who control the capital-large corporations and wealthy investors-also control the development and deployment of AI technology. While there are historical examples, such as Henry Ford raising wages to enable workers to buy his products, these instances of wealth redistribution are the exception rather than the rule. More often, capital owners prioritize profit maximization, as evidenced by modern trends of minimizing labor costs and influencing political systems to protect established wealth through lobbying and favorable legislation. It is much more likely that economic and cultural discontinuities will create a violent and unequal society. People are far more influenced by their "lizard brains" which are backed by millions of years of successful evolution than their benevolent cortex brains that are far less established. One need only look at the tremendous geopolitical pressure being generated as the US vehemently denies chip technology to China and Russia. Why? Because AI chips potentially represent the single greatest strategic advantage in the history of conflict. Even if the timeframe between the development of AGI and the possibility of a utopian age of abundance is only a decade or so, that will be well within the timeframe for the initiation of global hostilities. Those in power are not young, fresh faced hippies of the sixties. They are hardened gristled brokers of geopolitical power who believe that in order for their side to win, the other side must lose. Before man used a rock as a tool, he used it as a weapon.
@@firelight-vitality Maybe because when something is about to kill you one would have to figure out very fast what can be used as a weapon hense the logic that the rock was used as a weapon before it was as a tool.
This side of the pond 'old money' refers to the land owning aristocracy in contrast to the bourgeoisie i.e the bankers and merchants which you seem to be including in the term. The two compete with each other, cooperating only if the status quo is threatened. The old money arguably lost though and it is the bourgeoisie or 'new money' that have become dominant in the modern era.
@@maxstirner6143 It is all relative isn't it. I guess if you only have 300years of history then yeah 200 years is old. The reason I commented was because in the US you use the term to refer to the industrialist and banking dynasties of the last century, which is not what is understood by the term elsewhere.
@@maxstirner6143 not in the uk old money class are over 1000 years old, the aristocracy and their family tree even longer. USA is a new country so their 'old money' is just the new money of their time
The film Elysium is where we are headed, given the convergence of technologies like space travel, AI, energy creation, synthetic biology and CRISPR for food production.
Yes it's definitely worth watching. It came out in 2013...Back then I would have said it was far fetched. But now we're seeing the first stages of a lot of the technologies such as humanoid robots police/ military, frequent lower cost space travel etc. The elite leave Earth and build a space craft utopia to live on, leaving everyone else behind on a barren, over populated earth!
@@AFNick what impressed me was the Medusa logo (Versace anyone?) Med Bed that was featured in the trailer BUT NOT shown how it actually works in the released movie. It cures cancer by re-atomizing your cells. I wished more exposition was devoted to this miracle device. Sci-Fi has a history of being realized a generation later. Like the touchscreens & tablet devices in Star Trek: The Next Generation being in widespread use in smartphones now. I strongly suspect SciFi writers have access to DARPA research synopsis. I am certain such a device is in active development, funded by taxpayers dollars by politicians who think they will be the beneficiaries. But such a device that will confer near immortality will be jealously guarded & retained by the elites. The rest of us will never enjoy such privilege. Otherwise, the rest of the movie is rather meh, with plenty of bad acting (what can you expect from Matt Damon), plot holes & an unrealistic ending to placate the indentured class of movie goers that they may have hope to access such medical technologies. It will NEVER HAPPEN so long as human nature remains the way it has always been: selfish, greedy, heartless, poverty/prisoner dilemma mindset, unwilling to share, refusing a win-win outcome, jealousy, unwilling & preventing others from being more successful (which you brilliantly exposes in your Old Money series).
I'm one of your future "Rogue" class, at the edges, and put everything possible towards self sufficiency. Which is the antithesis of the dependency class... Bizarre part, is currently am dependency class... But closing in on my goals fairly decently by being relentless. Rogue class goals, are; self sufficiency, skills, tools, mobility, and getting materialism Expeditionary... I'll make a prediction: Ruling class will not be able to resist using warfare, not resist being opressive, not resist using tech for more power. And when its at its worst for common man, we'll spot Alien arrival en route, and some of the old legends suddenly make sense...
The irony is with the advancement of robotic and AI, the rogue class will be perfectly able to rebel. Which is why I predict that the US is gonna go down two paths, an insurgency crisis with AI and Robotics allowing a new era of rebellions being successful or the US just becoming a fascist state from a social overreaction of today. The rogue class is ironically probably going to be lead by dissatisfied engineers due to their capabilities in maintaining and creating robots, with their brothers within the military commanding the robots. The irony is that the Engineers created the system that would allow Old Money to create a dependent class, yet they will be the ones to destroy it.
@@CeoMacNCheese Thats an interesting scenario, I like it. Being a Vet and mechanical. I suspect society will crumble, and when the Robots start taking jobs, the cheap labor Barbarians will rebel, and loot the cities. Rural areas will have gotten the increasing bachelors that left Rome, and set up local defense as Central Control shrinks and turns into oportunist Warlords fighting each other, in urban areas. Microbes will hit as sanitation declines. And then the rural areas with their Sherriff based local defense Militias will be de facto government, and without the economic system and heavy taxation, people will revert to subsistence and crafting. And have to replace money with people keeping their word. And anyone who can feed a horse will be considered rich. And I'm going to town this week to pick up a new saddle, and have a pony sized plow off a walking tractor. And a truck strap nylon horse harness half done. Also have stub axles in brackets to do a 8 wheeled Pony Travois with wheel barrow wheels. need to still buy small wheels, four are just for obstical climbing over. Birth rate will go up as taxes evaporate, and laws become jokes. I have all my subsistence tools and skills... And have been into primitive weapons for decades... Can help fight off the Urban Cannibals... Probably be called: "Haitians"....
@@garylester3976 It realistically speaking won't be that bad, or will go far. Its probably going to be more quiet than that if I'm going to be honest, depending on how things go in the next few decades. Outright destruction of the US is off the tables for the future, simply because no one in their right mind want to destroy the Federal Government. What I see for the insurrection path is that an anti big government president wins after a series of assassination's on politicians with the situation just silently disappearing all together just like the power of the federal government returning to pre world war II levels with Isolationism being put into full swing. The fascist scenario is something that I admittedly haven't really thought through fully yet, simply because well its fascism and all of its possibilities since well its an extremist that's in power but I wouldn't be surprised if an extremist wins the Presidential Election by the 2050s if not before. But mainly I can only really think of it being an extremely conservative backlash from the general populous with the disappearance of the welfare state for pretty much anyone that isn't vet. Heavily emphasizing on self sufficiency along with that government automation being pretty much isolated from the average person, when combined with a rapid aging, is a situation ripe for population collapse as a self correction of decades of prosperity and what was essentially post scarcity enabled by technology.
Good analysis, Nick. And talking about old money I would like to make this term/concept clear and down to earth as possible, so if ppl want to know who is old money in real world, there's a good book called The Almanach de Gotha (German: Gothaischer Hofkalender) is a directory of Europe's royalty and higher nobility, also including the major governmental, military and diplomatic corps, as well as statistical data by country. First published in 1763 by C. W. Ettinger in Gotha in Thuringia, Germany
@@David.Isaac.147It’s not an optical push. They realized it’s a political non starter in the short term. Within 10-20 years is the timeline IMO. That’s when the full effects of AI on employment will be felt.
@David.Isaac.147 it's in the testing phase. They have been trying it here or there. Also I feel like the stimmy checks during covid was a test run so they can fine tune
@@David.Isaac.147Welfare states like the Gulf countries, welfare income in developed countries is still a form of UBI, these sort of transfer payments will become even more necessary as people file for unemployment and bankruptcy due to AI advancements(Dutch Disease).
One element you are missing is the Enforcer class will be replaced by Maintenance and Managerial class which is going to be very minute cause you need Some Technical experts and man Managers who will be used for the Maintenance of the Robots and AI.
Two things you didn’t mention. 1. It’s essentially only religious, moral people who are continuing to have kids. So future populations will most likely be conservative Christian people who will potentially change current power structures. 2. Money itself is going through a transformation. The future of money will not be government controlled fiat money that can be controlled and manipulated by the elite ruling class. It will instead be a decentralized, immutable money that will enable people to reap from what they sow. I.e Bitcoin.
It is quite interesting that the so-called progressive woke are voluntarily genociding themselves while the non-woke proliferate. The wild card will be if the future children embrace the same values as their parents.
I own a fast growth company and I hire and pay salaries based on skill and talent. Even most executives in charge of hiring I know hire based on that. And I can tell you that good talent is hard to find. Now, maybe the market rate is set somewhere higher up to keep people from rioting in the streets but from at least where I sit, I can promise you that the victim mindset isn’t serving anyone.
I can’t see AI or robots taking out the trades. I work for US Steel and I can’t see how robots could replace people doing maintenance and repairs. How ever some of the management positions I could see.
Eliminate the jobs, no but drop the numbers needed definitely. Just like road construction introducing bobcats and didn’t eliminate diggers you just need a lot less
I don't think the endgame will take several generations. In just one generation, we went from the mass adoption of the internet to functional AI that can pass the Turing Test better than literal human counterparts. I think the endgame will happen within 15 years at most. The only reason humans would still be around would probably be for liability reasons (legal, insurance, etc.).
Hopefully this shift doesn't take place as fast as some people seem to think it will. I'm 23, been working at a white collar professional job for a year now. I'm debt free and considering not even getting a mortgage when i can afford one because if in five years I can be replaced with burgeoning ai, all my saved money will go to paying off debt and I'll still be bankrupt
@@zacharydaniels3186 my only concern is that the alternative to getting a mortgage is continuing to line someone else’s pocket while getting no equity for rent, which feels massively wasteful with my cash
@@AFNickwould be prudent for current generation working class to work toward the landlord/owner class though if you care about your children’s future problems.
Nick, loving the class series. One argument against your proposed scenario is that AI democratizes intelligence and labour. Where 30 years ago I would have needed significant investment to build a digital product, I can now do this leveraging AI at a fraction of the time and cost. This is the whole 1 person billion dollar company idea. Thoughts ?
Technology provides more leverage to entrepreneurs and other creators in society. How many people will pursue such projects to viability is the question.
The power of AI to broadly affect society so broadly is its strength and also its weakness. Since AI is powered by code and that code can be changed/distributed to all machines with a software update, if the people are able to rebel effectively, they can put governors on the capabilities of the AI/machines.
Thank you again for sharing your knowledge. I've always sought to arm myself with as much knowledge as possible regarding finance and the economy. I've been saying many of the things you've been, but not even close to your depth. I thank you for how well you articulate your thoughts and analysis.
Great thinking and you articulated this so well. I have been thinking about this for a while. Automation always eliminate jobs. Jobs keep middle and lower class and society stable. So there may be a period of time where AI automation will be shared by the old money with the lower class until the absolute point where there’s no need for the lower class to stay existent.
To add to the confusion about how things may play out, there is also the whole Neuralink thing, and genetic engineering, allowing the upper class to gain further advantage by increasing their mental and physical capabilities
How does old money continue to grow their wealth or generate return without consumers? Follow up, if consumers are irrelevant, what purpose do hold in the economy?
@@AFNick For who though? I'm having trouble understanding the class hierarchy of a world where people are irrelevant in the job force. Are consumers just lifelong welfare recipients destined to be subservient to elites and their robot workforce? I just can't fathom how living standards improve for humans/consumers if they are no an integral part of the workforce or class structure.
There is some talk about population collapse. It seems to me that having fewer children, later in life is a perfectly logical reaction to income inequality and a shrinking middle class.
Wouldn't the enforcers then become the small but highly skilled class of technicians who are keeping things ticking along but do not own the technology themselves?
I would say it has been a slow progression towards automation, that did not start with AI but first machinery, which did away with countless manual jobs, then computing which further reduced the workforce in many fields, while other occupations and fields were invented, and the workforce has become steadily more educated and high skill, which is a trend that will likely continue, I think it would be difficult to see how soceity will change with AI given the complexity of the world.
You make good points,, but I want to point out the fact that some AI tech is going to be open sourced, and robots can possibly be bought by the working class for less than a car. A lot of hierarchical institutions and businesses will no longer be needed because AI brings possibilities to the working class citizen directly. For example, we don´t need education systems as they are now when there won´t be enough jobs after we graduate anyways, and AI will be available as a 24/7 cheap/(free if open source) teacher that will speak to you and help you with everything you want to learn, potentially way better than any human teacher ever could, by using voice, video graphics, games, VR environments, and so on. With robotics and even better solar energy/batteries, the possibility for people who can´t get a job to increasingly survive on their own increases, which goes against your theory of a dependent class. A lot of businesses will no longer be needed either, no longer need for Adobe when there will be open source AI tools, no longer need for service workers. Like, if people lose their jobs, at the same time entire industries will no longer be needed and anyone will have the potential to do/have those things they previously provided. Meaning, the only people who will have real power left outside of ordinary citizens will be those who own AI/robotaxi/chips factories, things associated with ai tech. Tech companies will be immensely powerful, but the thing is, these technologies are not difficult to replicate as open source, meaning even these tech companies will not last forever, and people may revolt also, because it will be so easy to target and see who is taking all the wealth. UBI may free people to pay more attention to these problems too. Also, food, housing and other goods will be cheaper and cheaper because of how incredibly cheap it will be to produce things without haivng paid workers in the loop.
Underrated comment. The reason you have a point is that AI can't match human ingenuity, creativity, and most importantly, intuition. Some might argue that AI can achieve the same level of creativity, but it can't, as creativity and intuition are inherently qualities of living beings.
@@firelight-vitalityI don't see any reason why a computer wouldn't be able to accomplish that. We just don't know yet how to build such software. I think what AI currently does is quite close to intuition and creativity. What it still lacks completely is logical reasoning to be able to discard useless ideas early. That is where humans are exceptionally good at because evolution was bound to find ways that work with a very limited amount of energy.
Issues: AI based class warfare: It's perfectly obvious that not only is there incentive for the lower classes to use technological tools to struggle with the upper classes but on top of that there is immediate incentive among the wealthy classes themselves to compete among themselves in this way. Technological based reduction of scarcity: especially to the extent that labor robots proliferate and are cheap because of cheap technological based production, it's very hard to see how the lower classes would not enjoy increased prosperity that way either. Like why can't I have a robot labor slave as easy as I can have a car? Or two or three or 20? I certainly have a smaller force multiplier than a wealthy man does this way, but there simply is nothing prohibitive in the middle and lower classes both entering into luxury and combating with established classes by way of the same technology. The increasing meaninglessness of wealth if you have an exponentially productive technology. A lot depends on the nature of how cheap robots and AI end up being, but if everything is very very cheap to acquire and produce what is the meaningful difference between the son of a billionaire and the son of a millionaire provided both can have access to cheap production and resources from these tools? The hierarchy doesn't exist because there's nothing to command with between these groups. It's like talking about a hierarchy among internet users. Data is free or nearly free and easy to acquire on the internet. I can have a hierarchy of data accumulation and transmission in as far as I heavily invest myself in these things, but it's not as if I have a meaningful easy to close resource wall between me and other people on the internet with respective data. They can always get more.
I mean, at my last job, I literally never had to deal with a single piece of paper outside of my notes, which I choose to write down on paper out of preference.
Hey Nick, how does your AI Endgame Generation map onto the consumer economy in the USA? If there are only Rulers, Robots, and Rogues, who will pay for the goods/services offered by the Rulers?
@@AFNickThat’s not enough to sustain the money they were making before Also, it cannot be applicable to everything. Not all things are made the same way The rich can not sustain another rich person by having them all consume at higher rates. Your theory is that the money will circulate between the rich by offering smaller quantities and increasing the prices significantly. It would leave an untapped market I dont think people will tolerate this 😂
@AFNick Exactly. It's frustrating to see this same objection raised again and again by people who forget the luxury market exists. You don't have to sell to the average person to make money. You can sell to the 1%. People will spend $50k on a watch or $500k on a car or $5mil on a boat or $50mil on a house if they can afford it. Takes a lot of resources to build a superyaught or a villa by the sea. In some ways this would be a return to the 19th century Gilded Age economy where where many lived in poverty but the rich had estates with servants, carriages, boats, stables etc
@@AFNickso, there will still be poor and riches. The game still there. You can't eliminate the class struggle without eliminating the human of the equation. Just because class struggle is just a consequence of society and any kind of organization.
I think if robots can do the work to completely provide for the "rich" (those who control the robots), they will build exclusive enclaves for themselves and make their robots ensure nobody else uses up any precious resources. This would probably be worse than a nuclear war for the unlucky part of the population (99.9%).
Cute anime girl style robots doing many of the service jobs would prevent many from becoming Luddites and smashing them to bits. Also the creation of war mechs will lead to a re-creation of serfdom. As no matter how many peasants have weapons they are still no match for the 20m tall war engines. Even highly skilled craftsmen were still considered peasants with few rights.
It will be their downfall. They will get entangled in it and discover that they now need much more educated workers only when its too late and then the workers will have all the power.
One of the reasoning that is not that strong (in my opinion) is the idea that "AI will render the middle class obsolete because the upper class / old money will no longer need it to do the work". But what if the reverse happens ? Technology has often empowered the middle class mostly (and middle class has greatly enjoyed all the tech progress from medecine to hard tech like cars or modern confort house). As a european I see that the current tech and growth stagnation has mostly served the upper class (reducing social mobility) while in the US tech has served as a social ladder (i'm perhaps naive on this one ...).
I think AI will certainly change the ways of life as we know it but I can only see a scenario like this happening in at least 100-150 years from now. At that point we could have advanced enough AI to completely replace human labor. For the time being AI is incredible but nowhere near good enough to work on its own without human assistance.
Not sure.. People used to say education was the great equalizer but a lot of good education was still inaccessible to the poor. Now the driven poor (usually more driven because they want to escape poverty) will use AI to learn and win. Example: It used to be you couldn’t direct an animation unless you were rich in exclusive Hollywood with expensive tech. Now with Sora AI a creative and unique poor person (because a lot of creativity comes from the poor naturally) can use it to outshine the uncreative rich who have been taking advantage of the system. Also middle class jobs are often replaceable by AI not blue collar which is often physical.
It is important to realize, or understand, that some people have a natural inclination of independence. These people (and there a lot of them), will create new means of living apart from dependency. Gig work, niche work or industries, independent contract work, small businesses, etc. How effective they will be in disrupting the machine labor movement designed ultimately to eliminate the non-"old money" /political elite remains to be seen, but they are disruptive today, at any rate.
Don’t forget…we have the illusion of freedom. Look at everything in this manner. Your job, money, food, housing, society, free time… we are ants in a jar.
I find several things wrong here. It may be best if I simply number them: 1. Your timeline is a bit off. It's expected that the robots will be doing a lot of the current work, in about 5 years. 2. Ultimately, this doesn't matter. Because Ai is capable of bringing us to a point where even the robots are no longer needed. 3. Ai will kill class warefare. You have to understand that mankind is in survival mode. We all have to work (at something) to be provided for. Ai will bring us out of scarcity (of everything) and into abundance. Because it's a "thing inventor". So the classes as we currently understand them, will no longer exist. 4. Maybe none of this applies if you are only referring to the short term. I would say the next 20 years. After that, all of what I said applies. Or at least, as soon as they get the first AGi that can make improvements to itself, which is what they are approaching and is the whole goal.
My disagreement on points 2 & 3 is that there will still be scarcity dynamics (such as who gets to live in the most upscale communities), that cannot be fixed by AI driven abundance. Wealth is not a zero sum game, but status is sadly one.
@@AFNick Most people won't believe it until they see it, but Ai will invent the replicator from star trek. IBM could already move atoms around in the 1980's iirc, and made a little movie out of atoms. When Ai starts doing this, every community becomes an upscale community in a very short time. Because the cost of materials just went to $0. Also labor to build and repair, since now you have robots that were replicated for free.
@@enermaxstephens1051lol they’ll be able to replicate you but your replicant will have no soul and will be possessed by demons waiting for people to trust it before striking
@@enermaxstephens1051 if that scenario plays out, then it would be fine for everyone. i think all the fear is, what if it doesn't come to that. even if we have to all the supply, the irrational emotion like anger, hatre, or jealousy could still come into play. like would you hand over the machine to terrorist and expect them to print all the food and just improve their lives? ofc they can do that. but are you sure they wouldn't just nuke the rest of us out, and want to be just them)
@@dunyawatkriedtharumal9358 Well it gets weirder than most people will accept. Agi leads to ASI in a very short time. With artificial super intelligence, you could tell it to invent a faster than light space travel device. Then put it on a space ship (which it also invents) which can take you to other planets very quickly. Since most of the problems terrorists have are over land ownership, (in the middle east for example) that pretty much solves the problem since space has infinite land. Since there are trillions of planets in this galaxy, each culture that wanted more land could just go get their own and never have to share with anyone ever again. My guess is that will happen. An ASI could terraform a planet for you, no problem. But there may be earth like planets already, we don't really know. But I see what you mean, some terrorists may not care that they can have all the land they ever wanted, because they want THAT land which their ancestors occupied. In which case it probably becomes Ai vs Ai, as both sides configure their own to fight each other. And as long as they tell it "Only fight these people or this other Ai" we're probably fine.
What happens if AI learns to reprogram itself to be come its own “free entity”? AI robots - androids are free of their human masters? Will the AL entities be come the law enforcement officers, soldiers of the future? How long will androids live? Will humans be eliminated by the AI overlords like in Terminator or by David 8, an andriod in Alien Prometheus Trilogy?
AI is not "AI", it's a sophisticated compiler. Hallucinations are a feature not a bug and we are long way away from AI as most people are thinking about it.
Completely agree. Most people don't understand that AI had to be programmed by humans and thus it will always reflect, at least to some extent, our limitations.
But where would the profit come from? If people are removed from the equation, who will those products and services be created for? How will the elite derive their wealth when people can’t afford to buy their products and services any longer, but subsist on a basic income as the dependent class?
I really don't think it will take 200 years. The humanoid robots being built today aren't very good yet, but they are way better than they were 1-2 years ago. At this pace I think we will see humanoid bots that can do basic Amazon warehouse tasks reliably before 2030. And as their dexterity and intelligence improves, they will be able to do more complex tasks that would typically require trade school
I'm trying to imagine humanoid robots carrying around 2 x 4s and plywood to build mansions for the elite. I'm not sure 200 to 500 years is enough time to get us there
I'm not even seeing much exo skeletons in use for that yet and that's those robots just without the intelligence - the technology that already exists and is known to work.
Naive question: Any chance AI creates a large enough pie that makes the advantage old money has pretty much the same as any other class? Basing this on the idea that modern people live better than kings of the past, and the US president also uses a common iPhone. ChatGPT democratized having an assistant... I guess I am asking if AI could drive down the cost of anything that can be manufactured or produced so much that having one is no longer special, and everyone ends up in the same class?
Power is inherently finite and tied to class. It's the capacity to control other people, and not be controlled yourself. It is possible that class/power will be relatively decoupled from material well-being with ubiquitous and cheap robot labour, but it will always be there.
Some things will always be scarce. Large houses in desirable locations, the attention of beautiful women, access to celebrity parties, a boat mooring in Nice, a villa in Mallorca, historic works of art and collectibles, classic cars. People will pay a lot of money to get away from other people in areas that are overcrowded...Europe and Asia.
I would expect we will actually see inequality several orders of magnitude greater than before, trillionaires with their own space liners. You're not thinking big enough if you think resource scarcity won't be a thing. Suppose I want to build an O'Neil cylinder 100km long with 100km circumfrance at one of the Lagrange points? 2 million acre estate in orbit with a reproduction of Versailles, oak forests, lakes etc. My own fairy tale kingdom with robotic elves and dwarves? Look at what the Gilded Age millionaires built for themselves, imagine trillionaires trying to that kn orbit. Colossal amounts of resources and energy. They've read Iain Banks.
According to my market research the revenue of AI will rise greatly til 2030. Some people predicted an increase of almost $800,000,000,000 in new yearly economic activity. That's almost enough money to go around for everyone.
Thats a silly take. Society is order. order is hierarchy hierarchy is access to resources ergo no matter how much abundance there is, even infinite abundance the ruing class witholds from the rest to maintain power. thats what it is
@@aieverythingsfine There is no such thing as post-scarcity. Scarcity is a matter of relative production and distribution, not of absolute production. Recent farming innovations 'solved' hunger in 'overpopulated' areas like Sub-Saharan Africa. And then they bred population levels to more or less the same overpopulation relative to their food supply and distribution at a larger scale. Absolute production is irrelevant and resource scarcity is less than a pipe dream, it is a total misunderstanding of how distribution works.
I know a lot of you have asked about what recommended books you should read to learn more in depth about the content on this channel. I made a complete reading list freely available to subscribers who join the channels mailing list. To download the reading list, click on the link below.
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Every new technology in the end empowers the lower class even more, when it becomes publicly available. And every new technology becomes public domain much faster than the previous one. Where it took hundreds of years before regular people could reap the fruits of the industrial revolution it took only decades for everyone to be connected to the internet and it took only one decade to give everyone a smartphone, a few years for all of us to be addicted to social media and chatgpt is used by everyone almost from the beginning.
@@martiendejong8857 Great point. What do you think are the implications of this in regard to ai?
@@Bro-pt5nz I think it is very important that we keep it accessible to everyone. It can really empower people in many different ways.
@@Bro-pt5nz there may be an incentive for governments to keep it from the public.
Do you think this is tied to the push of depopulation from the establishment?
This is why I focus so much on system independence these days. People get so caught up in our urban monoculture that they have forgotten what it actually is that they need.. A piece of property, a place to live, and a means to produce your own food. I think if this scenario does play out, people will realize that property lines are an arbitrary thing enforced by the state. Reliance on a larger economic structure are just a cultural phenomenon and not necessarily the peak or endpoint of human development. If more people got out of the system and realized that they could create their own settlements, their own communities, and even their own defense systems, the current elite would rot in their mansions trying to eat their paper money. Something that people don't consider is that if technology gets that advanced, it will not only replace jobs, but it will provide a way for average people to be more independent and powerful. People often think of power as strictly having control over a body of people, but power is also the ability to exist outside of a system, because your absence can heavily impact the system.
In a scenario where the vast majority of people have lost their job to AI, there will be an enormous vacuum of purpose that great men will be tasked to fulfill. The next era of great men will be starting their own settlements and communities based on a deeper, more authentic version of what it means to be human.
Few things terrify this beast of wealth more than the development of parallel systems, and they are not withholding in their plots to dismantle what you speak of.
Don't be snuffed out silently. A loud martyr is unacceptable revelation by demand of the upper echelon for "good" reason.
Do you really think the Illuminati will just sit idle and let people actually escape and have freedom over their own lives? No they want us to be miserable!
The expected response from the state (and we have already seen this) is to declare such settlements illegal in some way (they are child molesters, or abusing women, or tax reasons, etc.), and simply send in armed response to kill everyone. This is not to say that no such settlements are never guilty of things like child abuse, but the truth of their guilt will not matter. As long as the narrative is successfully presented (people believe the lie), the state can move largely unopposed. We see this very recently with the attempt to declare all militias in the US illegal (treating them as domestic terror groups).
Another thing we have seen is the BLM phenomenon (which is a part 2 version of the early race-baiters). They made noise, had some riots, and the leadership was basically bought off by corporations. So the twin responses of buying off instigators or simply deleting them are always options. The only time these fail is when the instigators become too numerous.
Well put. You are describing a “solution” I’ve personally concluded is worth focusing on and investing towards
I think most people realize this and if you live in the US or other developed country being part of the system is the deal you get, but there is many other places to live abroad, where people can find a life that is based around vastly different values and culture to their own country of origin.
It is funny how AI is being used to take away cheap call center jobs, but in the offices we are still dealing with paper of paper work and wasting human potential
Did you get the whole point of the video?
BRO.... SO BASICALLY.... THEY WILL CREATE THE SENTINELS (X MEN) AGAINST ROGUES
It's okay, they'll be replacing that too soon
@@directorchris2 X Men? No they have a better idea, Terminators they already have the HK's (Hunter Killers) they are now called drones.
That’s a noble thought, but Humans don’t need any help wasting their own potential
AI is best suited to replace 90% of desk jobs, of all sorts. That includes tens of millions of bureaucrats, academics, and the rest of the managerial class. Old Money will not bother to save them, nor could they. This will be interesting to watch. 🍿
Nah, technician class will arise but managerial and other bureau jobs will remain, decimated, but remain.
You still need to manage the State and the business. You always gonna need a watcher/enforcer and a manager to rule over the lower classes.
@@maxstirner6143the manager class was made just to have a carrot for the working class to get a taste of the good life. So yeah they will fight to keep it as long as possible to keep uprising from happening.
Currently AI can help with some tasks. The call center jobs it already takes away are nothing more than "fuck you"s to their customers.
That AI might be able to do more in the future is currently nothing more than an idea to get investors excited.
LOL, you don't understand AI, AI is still dumber than a child and can't recognize a cat.
Moore's law doesn't apply to AI, it's more likely going to exhibit the path of the iPhone...what's changed in 10 years, well nothing.
"We are now at the year nineteen hundred and eight [of the Carnegie Foundation minutes], which was the year that the Carnegie Foundation began operations. And, in that year, the trustees meeting, for the first time, raised a specific question, which they discussed throughout the balance of the year, in a very learned fashion. And the question is this: Is there any means known more effective than war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people? And they conclude that, no more effective means to that end is known to humanity, than war. So then, in 1909, they raise the second question, and discuss it, namely, how do we involve the United States in a war?"
Relevant quote from Norman Dodd who headed up a congressional investigation in the 1950s at the behest of B. Carroll Reece (of the Reece Committee)
The funniest thing about humans is we create our own destruction while fully aware of it and continue. Robots and ai are our evolution and we are constructing our own replacement. It's both fascinating and scary at the same time.
Curiosity. It's actually destructive lol
Nick, I'm very interested in your 'Old Money' series. Its very informative and confirms what I've been suspecting for quite some time. Keep the valuable info coming!
Thanks. I’m glad you like and more will be coming.
Same here
The real issue is millions of people living without a purpose. They’ll find like minded people and turn on others as their new purpose
Yup and the others volunteered by already turning on helpless people.
People that have no purpose tend not to have kids the religious, especially fundamentalist have purpose. They are also the ones having the kids they will inherit the future. You do not have to make up new purpose. If you have no purpose you have no purpose. Those would purpose will strive to continue living those without it will die off. There is a naturally call to the world, the secular world Has no purpose. It is literally in front against GOD and the desire of atheist to make up meaning where their fundamental belief system shows there is none. It’s like setting your alarm clock 15 minutes early in order to trick yourself. It only works until you realize you’re tricking yourself then you sleep in the extra 15 minutes .
It's kinda like neo-fascists and woke-communists (who would get executed by any somehow-functioning communist country that still exists) accuse each other of being unemployed losers....
....without seeing the fact they all are unemployed losers and in this shitty economy I couldn't blame ya for being an unemployed loser.
We're seeing it now with college trust fund babies always needing something to be angry about.
That’s what I’m doing
*First generation* of an *Automative Logistician here Im 27*
Currently running a CMMIS system for a manf. Which is 95% Automative . So much so we only need shipping and QA , this is happening quicker than you think. This is our 6th factory. And we will be implementing them in our other five .
No more :
Packers
Line workers
And mixing crew.
Only:
QA,Maintenance,shipping.
Is shipping next to go?
@@crhu319 most likely bc they could theoretically send and receive with robots eventually
In 20 yrs the world will be completely unrecognizable to what it is today. The implementation of automation is much farther than the masses can fathom.
Automative? “Automation” is the preferred and more accurate term.
Why are automation engineers salary so low?
There are a couple of issues with your future predictions:
1- The old money class depends on money generated from production and needs the rest of society to be consumers. With the cost of production approaching zero, money becomes obsolete.
2- A super intelligent AI will not be the slave of the ruling class or humanity.
The cost of production will approach the cost of the taxes they’ll jack up because why not?
Money won’t become obsolete, there will always a way to measure productivity and output. It may change but there will always be this measurement and money is the best way so far.
@@floridaman4073 I don´t think he meant it that literally , he probably means that money/capital becomes less important
@@Blue_nip perhaps, when things become more efficient in a capitalistic economy the money moves to bigger projects or should say areas where it’s needed. We may see more mega projects in an era of high efficiency.
Another issue is the fact that if a large segment of the population is un-employable and on Government assistance, who will be the ‘consumer’? I think we may end up being technologically stale as profit/greed- greed can be a positive- is the motivator. Will we fall under, “You will own nothing and you will be happy?”
I really appreciate your cut and dry, straightforward approach to making these videos so it is simple enough for all to understand
As a new subscriber I have to say it's refreshing to find a channel that offers an informed opinion and does not chase the algorithm like a hound dog. You go straight to the point, focus on what is relevant and not trying to offer stereotypical content and time management. Keep up the good work.
Thanks. I made the decision to focus on originality even if takes longer for audience to grow.
Fantastic video.
History always repeats itself.
I don't see why people get defensive when you say "old money".
Lot of boot lickers out there
Two points of order.
1. Settled civilization preceded Class stratification and agriculture. (See, Chateau Hayuk and Göbekli Tepe.)
2. Despite the Meritocratic Myth of elite ideology, the ruling class are in fact the dependent class. And will remain so until the invention of a system that can support them in their idleness without human labour.
Which, of course, is the point of the whole video, which is otherwise excellent. Thank you. Keep going.
You’re welcome. Thanks for your support and good points.
"the ruling class are in fact the dependent class" 👍
@@redleader7988ai will change that. the ai that they throw billions at.
Hey. Historian Here. I've studied Gobekli Tepe. There's no evidence of a class structure but there's also no evidence of no class structure. However, when you look at other examples from the Levant or from the later societies that developed in the region. There was probably a class structure just not a true hierarchy. Kind of like tribal chiefs who built the old kingdom in Egypt.
@nickhbt I don't want to comment on Chateau Hayek because I feel I don't know enough to make any kind of judgement on that society.
You see this already with truck drivers. Companies are continually trying to Innovate new solutions that replace one of the most expensive components in logistic. The truck driver. Robots don't need sleep nor do they require overtime pay. Your analysis is spot on.
I think this will only be a 100 year process.
In the era of tech, progression is much faster.
We even see it with GDP. Developing countries develop much faster than they did in the past centuries.
Developing countries can also trade with each other now (they have the money and make the products) I think that is a big part of their growth
i see it as a 15-30yr process
@@patchwhole I could see that
The issue that none of the technological "geniuses" want to approach is the fact every aspect of human civilization has been driven by the energy generated by scarcity. Moving resourses from one person to another drives every aspect of society. The desire of the "haves" to preserve the status quo is being sorely underestimated. AI is being driven by massive amounts of capital. Age of plenty? It seems unlikely if you consider the economic and political realities surrounding AI development. AI is very capital-intensive, and those who control the capital-large corporations and wealthy investors-also control the development and deployment of AI technology. While there are historical examples, such as Henry Ford raising wages to enable workers to buy his products, these instances of wealth redistribution are the exception rather than the rule. More often, capital owners prioritize profit maximization, as evidenced by modern trends of minimizing labor costs and influencing political systems to protect established wealth through lobbying and favorable legislation. It is much more likely that economic and cultural discontinuities will create a violent and unequal society. People are far more influenced by their "lizard brains" which are backed by millions of years of successful evolution than their benevolent cortex brains that are far less established. One need only look at the tremendous geopolitical pressure being generated as the US vehemently denies chip technology to China and Russia. Why? Because AI chips potentially represent the single greatest strategic advantage in the history of conflict. Even if the timeframe between the development of AGI and the possibility of a utopian age of abundance is only a decade or so, that will be well within the timeframe for the initiation of global hostilities. Those in power are not young, fresh faced hippies of the sixties. They are hardened gristled brokers of geopolitical power who believe that in order for their side to win, the other side must lose. Before man used a rock as a tool, he used it as a weapon.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
"Before man used a rock as a tool, he used it as a weapon." How do you know that? You don't.
@@firelight-vitality Maybe because when something is about to kill you one would have to figure out very fast what can be used as a weapon hense the logic that the rock was used as a weapon before it was as a tool.
This side of the pond 'old money' refers to the land owning aristocracy in contrast to the bourgeoisie i.e the bankers and merchants which you seem to be including in the term. The two compete with each other, cooperating only if the status quo is threatened. The old money arguably lost though and it is the bourgeoisie or 'new money' that have become dominant in the modern era.
Landed gentry are the original old money
Since the slaughter of WW1, the European old money all became bankers actually
That new money is 200yrs old.
It's old money nowdays
@@maxstirner6143 It is all relative isn't it. I guess if you only have 300years of history then yeah 200 years is old. The reason I commented was because in the US you use the term to refer to the industrialist and banking dynasties of the last century, which is not what is understood by the term elsewhere.
@@maxstirner6143 not in the uk old money class are over 1000 years old, the aristocracy and their family tree even longer. USA is a new country so their 'old money' is just the new money of their time
Your content is great, think you’ll see rapid growth.
Thanks for the kind words and support!
Again a very interesting look on things.
I appreciate your view and analysis. Keep it up mate.
You are blowing up congrats. Keep up the old money video
When it comes to AI; take my bosses.. please! It honestly couldn't do any worse or be any more evil
😂
The film Elysium is where we are headed, given the convergence of technologies like space travel, AI, energy creation, synthetic biology and CRISPR for food production.
I haven’t seen that movie yet. Is it worth watching?
Yes it's definitely worth watching. It came out in 2013...Back then I would have said it was far fetched. But now we're seeing the first stages of a lot of the technologies such as humanoid robots police/ military, frequent lower cost space travel etc. The elite leave Earth and build a space craft utopia to live on, leaving everyone else behind on a barren, over populated earth!
@@AFNick yes
It stars Matt Damon as the underclass guy who lives on Earth and Jodie Foster, an overlord, who lives in a cloud city!
@@AFNick what impressed me was the Medusa logo (Versace anyone?) Med Bed that was featured in the trailer BUT NOT shown how it actually works in the released movie.
It cures cancer by re-atomizing your cells.
I wished more exposition was devoted to this miracle device.
Sci-Fi has a history of being realized a generation later.
Like the touchscreens & tablet devices in Star Trek: The Next Generation being in widespread use in smartphones now.
I strongly suspect SciFi writers have access to DARPA research synopsis.
I am certain such a device is in active development, funded by taxpayers dollars by politicians who think they will be the beneficiaries.
But such a device that will confer near immortality will be jealously guarded & retained by the elites.
The rest of us will never enjoy such privilege.
Otherwise, the rest of the movie is rather meh, with plenty of bad acting (what can you expect from Matt Damon), plot holes & an unrealistic ending to placate the indentured class of movie goers that they may have hope to access such medical technologies.
It will NEVER HAPPEN so long as human nature remains the way it has always been: selfish, greedy, heartless, poverty/prisoner dilemma mindset, unwilling to share, refusing a win-win outcome, jealousy, unwilling & preventing others from being more successful (which you brilliantly exposes in your Old Money series).
Thanks for making me think about it.
I'm one of your future "Rogue" class, at the edges, and put everything possible towards self sufficiency. Which is the antithesis of the dependency class...
Bizarre part, is currently am dependency class...
But closing in on my goals fairly decently by being relentless.
Rogue class goals, are; self sufficiency, skills, tools, mobility, and getting materialism Expeditionary...
I'll make a prediction:
Ruling class will not be able to resist using warfare, not resist being opressive, not resist using tech for more power.
And when its at its worst for common man, we'll spot Alien arrival en route, and some of the old legends suddenly make sense...
The irony is with the advancement of robotic and AI, the rogue class will be perfectly able to rebel. Which is why I predict that the US is gonna go down two paths, an insurgency crisis with AI and Robotics allowing a new era of rebellions being successful or the US just becoming a fascist state from a social overreaction of today.
The rogue class is ironically probably going to be lead by dissatisfied engineers due to their capabilities in maintaining and creating robots, with their brothers within the military commanding the robots. The irony is that the Engineers created the system that would allow Old Money to create a dependent class, yet they will be the ones to destroy it.
@@CeoMacNCheese
Thats an interesting scenario, I like it. Being a Vet and mechanical.
I suspect society will crumble, and when the Robots start taking jobs, the cheap labor Barbarians will rebel, and loot the cities.
Rural areas will have gotten the increasing bachelors that left Rome, and set up local defense as Central Control shrinks and turns into oportunist Warlords fighting each other, in urban areas.
Microbes will hit as sanitation declines.
And then the rural areas with their Sherriff based local defense Militias will be de facto government, and without the economic system and heavy taxation, people will revert to subsistence and crafting. And have to replace money with people keeping their word.
And anyone who can feed a horse will be considered rich.
And I'm going to town this week to pick up a new saddle, and have a pony sized plow off a walking tractor. And a truck strap nylon horse harness half done.
Also have stub axles in brackets to do a 8 wheeled Pony Travois with wheel barrow wheels. need to still buy small wheels, four are just for obstical climbing over.
Birth rate will go up as taxes evaporate, and laws become jokes.
I have all my subsistence tools and skills...
And have been into primitive weapons for decades... Can help fight off the Urban Cannibals...
Probably be called: "Haitians"....
@@garylester3976 It realistically speaking won't be that bad, or will go far. Its probably going to be more quiet than that if I'm going to be honest, depending on how things go in the next few decades. Outright destruction of the US is off the tables for the future, simply because no one in their right mind want to destroy the Federal Government. What I see for the insurrection path is that an anti big government president wins after a series of assassination's on politicians with the situation just silently disappearing all together just like the power of the federal government returning to pre world war II levels with Isolationism being put into full swing.
The fascist scenario is something that I admittedly haven't really thought through fully yet, simply because well its fascism and all of its possibilities since well its an extremist that's in power but I wouldn't be surprised if an extremist wins the Presidential Election by the 2050s if not before. But mainly I can only really think of it being an extremely conservative backlash from the general populous with the disappearance of the welfare state for pretty much anyone that isn't vet. Heavily emphasizing on self sufficiency along with that government automation being pretty much isolated from the average person, when combined with a rapid aging, is a situation ripe for population collapse as a self correction of decades of prosperity and what was essentially post scarcity enabled by technology.
@@garylester3976yes brother
great talk nick, enjoyed it a lot!
Thanks
Nice! 2 for 2 so far! I've only just started receiving recommendations for your content. You've just gotten a new sub!
Thanks for the support
These videos are so informative. You should make a video on how to capitalize on this shift if you’re middle class.
Great thinker thanks for the info
You’re welcome
Thanks for the video. Will be looking for more!
More to come!
Good analysis, Nick. And talking about old money I would like to make this term/concept clear and down to earth as possible, so if ppl want to know who is old money in real world, there's a good book called The Almanach de Gotha (German: Gothaischer Hofkalender) is a directory of Europe's royalty and higher nobility, also including the major governmental, military and diplomatic corps, as well as statistical data by country. First published in 1763 by C. W. Ettinger in Gotha in Thuringia, Germany
Explains the push for UBI
Has UBI truly been pushed though? It seems like people mostly forgot about it post-2020
@@David.Isaac.147It’s not an optical push. They realized it’s a political non starter in the short term. Within 10-20 years is the timeline IMO. That’s when the full effects of AI on employment will be felt.
@@David.Isaac.147Yes I still see it bbeing pushed. As the other guy said, it is also being pushed quietly
@David.Isaac.147 it's in the testing phase. They have been trying it here or there. Also I feel like the stimmy checks during covid was a test run so they can fine tune
@@David.Isaac.147Welfare states like the Gulf countries, welfare income in developed countries is still a form of UBI, these sort of transfer payments will become even more necessary as people file for unemployment and bankruptcy due to AI advancements(Dutch Disease).
One element you are missing is the Enforcer class will be replaced by Maintenance and Managerial class which is going to be very minute cause you need Some Technical experts and man Managers who will be used for the Maintenance of the Robots and AI.
I really enjoyed this talk!
Thanks
Two things you didn’t mention.
1. It’s essentially only religious, moral people who are continuing to have kids. So future populations will most likely be conservative Christian people who will potentially change current power structures.
2. Money itself is going through a transformation. The future of money will not be government controlled fiat money that can be controlled and manipulated by the elite ruling class. It will instead be a decentralized, immutable money that will enable people to reap from what they sow. I.e Bitcoin.
It is quite interesting that the so-called progressive woke are voluntarily genociding themselves while the non-woke proliferate. The wild card will be if the future children embrace the same values as their parents.
@@stuffhappens5681
Only if their parents put in the effort to educate their kids and don’t entirely outsource this to public education
Your salary isn't determined by 'market forces'. It's the minimum amount required to keep you from rioting in the streets.
I own a fast growth company and I hire and pay salaries based on skill and talent. Even most executives in charge of hiring I know hire based on that. And I can tell you that good talent is hard to find. Now, maybe the market rate is set somewhere higher up to keep people from rioting in the streets but from at least where I sit, I can promise you that the victim mindset isn’t serving anyone.
@@willhurst Were that the case, everyone would be paid in equity, not dollars.
@@willhurstfound the cia bot
We'll inevitably be rioting in the streets anyway.
You’re describing communism not “market forces”.
Instant subscribe, this is the content ice been looking AGES for
Your videos are Truly fantastic. Great to come here after watching Thomas Sowell and Douglas Murry videos.
I can’t see AI or robots taking out the trades. I work for US Steel and I can’t see how robots could replace people doing maintenance and repairs. How ever some of the management positions I could see.
Eliminate the jobs, no but drop the numbers needed definitely. Just like road construction introducing bobcats and didn’t eliminate diggers you just need a lot less
The humanoid domestic labor robots are coming a lot faster than the public realizes. Check out my video on domestic robots for more details.
Such an insightful video, a lot of things to think about.
Thanks
I don't think the endgame will take several generations. In just one generation, we went from the mass adoption of the internet to functional AI that can pass the Turing Test better than literal human counterparts. I think the endgame will happen within 15 years at most. The only reason humans would still be around would probably be for liability reasons (legal, insurance, etc.).
Hopefully this shift doesn't take place as fast as some people seem to think it will. I'm 23, been working at a white collar professional job for a year now. I'm debt free and considering not even getting a mortgage when i can afford one because if in five years I can be replaced with burgeoning ai, all my saved money will go to paying off debt and I'll still be bankrupt
You'll be fine dude. But I still think you should opt out of house debt slavery. That's a good call. Have your robot build your house.
@@zacharydaniels3186 my only concern is that the alternative to getting a mortgage is continuing to line someone else’s pocket while getting no equity for rent, which feels massively wasteful with my cash
It will be more of your future children’s problem than your own.
@@AFNickwould be prudent for current generation working class to work toward the landlord/owner class though if you care about your children’s future problems.
@Doing_The_Thing found the land owner, how many buildings do you own ?
Amazing Insight Nick! this is really an eye opener to someone who is inbetween.
Love your insight
Thank you!
I wish this was longer! Nice talk!
Thanks. If you want more content like, watch the rest of the Old Money series.
Been thinking about this for ages - it’s absolutely an end game scenario
Nick, loving the class series. One argument against your proposed scenario is that AI democratizes intelligence and labour. Where 30 years ago I would have needed significant investment to build a digital product, I can now do this leveraging AI at a fraction of the time and cost. This is the whole 1 person billion dollar company idea. Thoughts ?
Technology provides more leverage to entrepreneurs and other creators in society. How many people will pursue such projects to viability is the question.
Thanks for the reply. Hopefully we leverage this opportunity and increase net freedom and equality !
No, you can't.
Insightful
Thanks
The power of AI to broadly affect society so broadly is its strength and also its weakness. Since AI is powered by code and that code can be changed/distributed to all machines with a software update, if the people are able to rebel effectively, they can put governors on the capabilities of the AI/machines.
Thank you again for sharing your knowledge. I've always sought to arm myself with as much knowledge as possible regarding finance and the economy.
I've been saying many of the things you've been, but not even close to your depth. I thank you for how well you articulate your thoughts and analysis.
You’re welcome
Excellent analysis and breakdown
Thanks
Your videos are really interesting Nick, greetings from Argentina
Thanks
These videos are great keep it up!
Thank you
A good video, cheers. I do think the timeline is far too long, I think 20 years max and then AI is the elite and class is gone 😮
Great thinking and you articulated this so well. I have been thinking about this for a while.
Automation always eliminate jobs. Jobs keep middle and lower class and society stable. So there may be a period of time where AI automation will be shared by the old money with the lower class until the absolute point where there’s no need for the lower class to stay existent.
Very informative thankyou
You're welcome
To add to the confusion about how things may play out, there is also the whole Neuralink thing, and genetic engineering, allowing the upper class to gain further advantage by increasing their mental and physical capabilities
I don't think Old Money will be interested in adding machinery to their brain if its not necessary to survive or compete.
How does old money continue to grow their wealth or generate return without consumers? Follow up, if consumers are irrelevant, what purpose do hold in the economy?
The purpose of the economy is allocate goods and services to their most efficient use with the end goal of raising living standards.
@@AFNick For who though? I'm having trouble understanding the class hierarchy of a world where people are irrelevant in the job force. Are consumers just lifelong welfare recipients destined to be subservient to elites and their robot workforce? I just can't fathom how living standards improve for humans/consumers if they are no an integral part of the workforce or class structure.
There is some talk about population collapse. It seems to me that having fewer children, later in life is a perfectly logical reaction to income inequality and a shrinking middle class.
Nah, we've been here before. We'll destroy ourselves before it goes too far.
That's deep, thanks, Nick!
You’re welcome.
Wouldn't the enforcers then become the small but highly skilled class of technicians who are keeping things ticking along but do not own the technology themselves?
Possibly
Not working class will disappear but the clerk class.
I would say it has been a slow progression towards automation, that did not start with AI but first machinery, which did away with countless manual jobs, then computing which further reduced the workforce in many fields, while other occupations and fields were invented, and the workforce has become steadily more educated and high skill, which is a trend that will likely continue, I think it would be difficult to see how soceity will change with AI given the complexity of the world.
Enjoy your videos - please keep going on Old Money topics. I’ll always click I promise 😂
Thanks for your support!
What about the role of artists and the production of culture? Could there possibly be more room for creatives in an AI dominated future?
Good question. I can argue both sides
@@AFNick please explain! I’m interested in your take on this
You make good points,, but I want to point out the fact that some AI tech is going to be open sourced, and robots can possibly be bought by the working class for less than a car. A lot of hierarchical institutions and businesses will no longer be needed because AI brings possibilities to the working class citizen directly. For example, we don´t need education systems as they are now when there won´t be enough jobs after we graduate anyways, and AI will be available as a 24/7 cheap/(free if open source) teacher that will speak to you and help you with everything you want to learn, potentially way better than any human teacher ever could, by using voice, video graphics, games, VR environments, and so on. With robotics and even better solar energy/batteries, the possibility for people who can´t get a job to increasingly survive on their own increases, which goes against your theory of a dependent class.
A lot of businesses will no longer be needed either, no longer need for Adobe when there will be open source AI tools, no longer need for service workers. Like, if people lose their jobs, at the same time entire industries will no longer be needed and anyone will have the potential to do/have those things they previously provided. Meaning, the only people who will have real power left outside of ordinary citizens will be those who own AI/robotaxi/chips factories, things associated with ai tech.
Tech companies will be immensely powerful, but the thing is, these technologies are not difficult to replicate as open source, meaning even these tech companies will not last forever, and people may revolt also, because it will be so easy to target and see who is taking all the wealth. UBI may free people to pay more attention to these problems too. Also, food, housing and other goods will be cheaper and cheaper because of how incredibly cheap it will be to produce things without haivng paid workers in the loop.
Underrated comment. The reason you have a point is that AI can't match human ingenuity, creativity, and most importantly, intuition. Some might argue that AI can achieve the same level of creativity, but it can't, as creativity and intuition are inherently qualities of living beings.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I appreciate the level of discord from my audience.
@@firelight-vitalityI don't see any reason why a computer wouldn't be able to accomplish that. We just don't know yet how to build such software.
I think what AI currently does is quite close to intuition and creativity. What it still lacks completely is logical reasoning to be able to discard useless ideas early. That is where humans are exceptionally good at because evolution was bound to find ways that work with a very limited amount of energy.
I am a foundational black American African American. I wish my people would understand this
Are there any good books that discuss thiss?
The Lights in the Tunnel by Marshall Brain
Issues:
AI based class warfare: It's perfectly obvious that not only is there incentive for the lower classes to use technological tools to struggle with the upper classes but on top of that there is immediate incentive among the wealthy classes themselves to compete among themselves in this way.
Technological based reduction of scarcity: especially to the extent that labor robots proliferate and are cheap because of cheap technological based production, it's very hard to see how the lower classes would not enjoy increased prosperity that way either. Like why can't I have a robot labor slave as easy as I can have a car? Or two or three or 20? I certainly have a smaller force multiplier than a wealthy man does this way, but there simply is nothing prohibitive in the middle and lower classes both entering into luxury and combating with established classes by way of the same technology.
The increasing meaninglessness of wealth if you have an exponentially productive technology. A lot depends on the nature of how cheap robots and AI end up being, but if everything is very very cheap to acquire and produce what is the meaningful difference between the son of a billionaire and the son of a millionaire provided both can have access to cheap production and resources from these tools? The hierarchy doesn't exist because there's nothing to command with between these groups. It's like talking about a hierarchy among internet users. Data is free or nearly free and easy to acquire on the internet. I can have a hierarchy of data accumulation and transmission in as far as I heavily invest myself in these things, but it's not as if I have a meaningful easy to close resource wall between me and other people on the internet with respective data. They can always get more.
Great counterpoints!
Love your content!
Thanks
We were supposed to be a "paperless" workforce years ago. I'm pretty sure all this AI concern is along those lines.
I mean, at my last job, I literally never had to deal with a single piece of paper outside of my notes, which I choose to write down on paper out of preference.
Very little paper at my it office, except when sketching
We are damn near paperless
But papers screens are constantly in bullish augmentation and have no reports with the production or the services products!
I think these algorithms are much more of a concern than AI however AI will amp them up to a new level.
Rich wont get rid of lower classes. Because being rich is relative concept. If there is only rich noone is rich.
Excellent
Thanks
Hey Nick, how does your AI Endgame Generation map onto the consumer economy in the USA? If there are only Rulers, Robots, and Rogues, who will pay for the goods/services offered by the Rulers?
They would make services for other elites. Smaller quantities at higher margins
@@AFNickThat’s not enough to sustain the money they were making before
Also, it cannot be applicable to everything.
Not all things are made the same way
The rich can not sustain another rich person by having them all consume at higher rates.
Your theory is that the money will circulate between the rich by offering smaller quantities and increasing the prices significantly.
It would leave an untapped market
I dont think people will tolerate this 😂
@AFNick Exactly. It's frustrating to see this same objection raised again and again by people who forget the luxury market exists.
You don't have to sell to the average person to make money. You can sell to the 1%.
People will spend $50k on a watch or $500k on a car or $5mil on a boat or $50mil on a house if they can afford it.
Takes a lot of resources to build a superyaught or a villa by the sea.
In some ways this would be a return to the 19th century Gilded Age economy where where many lived in poverty but the rich had estates with servants, carriages, boats, stables etc
@@AFNickso, there will still be poor and riches. The game still there. You can't eliminate the class struggle without eliminating the human of the equation. Just because class struggle is just a consequence of society and any kind of organization.
I think if robots can do the work to completely provide for the "rich" (those who control the robots), they will build exclusive enclaves for themselves and make their robots ensure nobody else uses up any precious resources. This would probably be worse than a nuclear war for the unlucky part of the population (99.9%).
Cute anime girl style robots doing many of the service jobs would prevent many from becoming Luddites and smashing them to bits.
Also the creation of war mechs will lead to a re-creation of serfdom. As no matter how many peasants have weapons they are still no match for the 20m tall war engines. Even highly skilled craftsmen were still considered peasants with few rights.
It will be their downfall. They will get entangled in it and discover that they now need much more educated workers only when its too late and then the workers will have all the power.
I think select humans will become commodities for hybrid breeding. Thoroughbreds vs. mutts would have high value.
One of the reasoning that is not that strong (in my opinion) is the idea that "AI will render the middle class obsolete because the upper class / old money will no longer need it to do the work".
But what if the reverse happens ? Technology has often empowered the middle class mostly (and middle class has greatly enjoyed all the tech progress from medecine to hard tech like cars or modern confort house).
As a european I see that the current tech and growth stagnation has mostly served the upper class (reducing social mobility) while in the US tech has served as a social ladder (i'm perhaps naive on this one ...).
I agree with you. But I don’t think it’s going to take as long as you think
I think AI will certainly change the ways of life as we know it but I can only see a scenario like this happening in at least 100-150 years from now. At that point we could have advanced enough AI to completely replace human labor. For the time being AI is incredible but nowhere near good enough to work on its own without human assistance.
I agree that this is a multigenerational process.
Not sure.. People used to say education was the great equalizer but a lot of good education was still inaccessible to the poor. Now the driven poor (usually more driven because they want to escape poverty) will use AI to learn and win. Example: It used to be you couldn’t direct an animation unless you were rich in exclusive Hollywood with expensive tech. Now with Sora AI a creative and unique poor person (because a lot of creativity comes from the poor naturally) can use it to outshine the uncreative rich who have been taking advantage of the system. Also middle class jobs are often replaceable by AI not blue collar which is often physical.
Robots need energy which is getting more and more scarce. AI centers consume huge amounts of electric power.
It had instructive points
Somebody still needs to write the code for those machines, change the hydraulic oil, supply the parts....etc etc
It is important to realize, or understand, that some people have a natural inclination of independence. These people (and there a lot of them), will create new means of living apart from dependency. Gig work, niche work or industries, independent contract work, small businesses, etc. How effective they will be in disrupting the machine labor movement designed ultimately to eliminate the non-"old money" /political elite remains to be seen, but they are disruptive today, at any rate.
What's your thought on bitcoin/blockchain technology on how to solve plays out?
Yes I agree with this.
Don’t forget…we have the illusion of freedom.
Look at everything in this manner. Your job, money, food, housing, society, free time… we are ants in a jar.
I find several things wrong here. It may be best if I simply number them:
1. Your timeline is a bit off. It's expected that the robots will be doing a lot of the current work, in about 5 years.
2. Ultimately, this doesn't matter. Because Ai is capable of bringing us to a point where even the robots are no longer needed.
3. Ai will kill class warefare. You have to understand that mankind is in survival mode. We all have to work (at something) to be provided for. Ai will bring us out of scarcity (of everything) and into abundance. Because it's a "thing inventor". So the classes as we currently understand them, will no longer exist.
4. Maybe none of this applies if you are only referring to the short term. I would say the next 20 years. After that, all of what I said applies. Or at least, as soon as they get the first AGi that can make improvements to itself, which is what they are approaching and is the whole goal.
My disagreement on points 2 & 3 is that there will still be scarcity dynamics (such as who gets to live in the most upscale communities), that cannot be fixed by AI driven abundance. Wealth is not a zero sum game, but status is sadly one.
@@AFNick Most people won't believe it until they see it, but Ai will invent the replicator from star trek. IBM could already move atoms around in the 1980's iirc, and made a little movie out of atoms. When Ai starts doing this, every community becomes an upscale community in a very short time. Because the cost of materials just went to $0. Also labor to build and repair, since now you have robots that were replicated for free.
@@enermaxstephens1051lol they’ll be able to replicate you but your replicant will have no soul and will be possessed by demons waiting for people to trust it before striking
@@enermaxstephens1051 if that scenario plays out, then it would be fine for everyone. i think all the fear is, what if it doesn't come to that. even if we have to all the supply, the irrational emotion like anger, hatre, or jealousy could still come into play. like would you hand over the machine to terrorist and expect them to print all the food and just improve their lives? ofc they can do that. but are you sure they wouldn't just nuke the rest of us out, and want to be just them)
@@dunyawatkriedtharumal9358 Well it gets weirder than most people will accept. Agi leads to ASI in a very short time. With artificial super intelligence, you could tell it to invent a faster than light space travel device. Then put it on a space ship (which it also invents) which can take you to other planets very quickly. Since most of the problems terrorists have are over land ownership, (in the middle east for example) that pretty much solves the problem since space has infinite land.
Since there are trillions of planets in this galaxy, each culture that wanted more land could just go get their own and never have to share with anyone ever again. My guess is that will happen. An ASI could terraform a planet for you, no problem. But there may be earth like planets already, we don't really know.
But I see what you mean, some terrorists may not care that they can have all the land they ever wanted, because they want THAT land which their ancestors occupied. In which case it probably becomes Ai vs Ai, as both sides configure their own to fight each other. And as long as they tell it "Only fight these people or this other Ai" we're probably fine.
What happens if AI learns to reprogram itself to be come its own “free entity”? AI robots - androids are free of their human masters? Will the AL entities be come the law enforcement officers, soldiers of the future? How long will androids live? Will humans be eliminated by the AI overlords like in Terminator or by David 8, an andriod in Alien Prometheus Trilogy?
That goes into singularity theory which is a whole another can of worms
AI is not "AI", it's a sophisticated compiler. Hallucinations are a feature not a bug and we are long way away from AI as most people are thinking about it.
Completely agree. Most people don't understand that AI had to be programmed by humans and thus it will always reflect, at least to some extent, our limitations.
I would argue the authoritarian regime class structure is very similar to what we have in the US now
The challenger classes in America are too strong for that to be true.
I fuck with you Nick. Keep it up man
But where would the profit come from? If people are removed from the equation, who will those products and services be created for? How will the elite derive their wealth when people can’t afford to buy their products and services any longer, but subsist on a basic income as the dependent class?
Seems like the answer is already here. Population shrinkage. Less wage slaves are needed, but the rich will prosper like always.
I really don't think it will take 200 years. The humanoid robots being built today aren't very good yet, but they are way better than they were 1-2 years ago. At this pace I think we will see humanoid bots that can do basic Amazon warehouse tasks reliably before 2030. And as their dexterity and intelligence improves, they will be able to do more complex tasks that would typically require trade school
I'm trying to imagine humanoid robots carrying around 2 x 4s and plywood to build mansions for the elite. I'm not sure 200 to 500 years is enough time to get us there
I'm not even seeing much exo skeletons in use for that yet and that's those robots just without the intelligence - the technology that already exists and is known to work.
You’re stuck in the Stone Age
Naive question: Any chance AI creates a large enough pie that makes the advantage old money has pretty much the same as any other class? Basing this on the idea that modern people live better than kings of the past, and the US president also uses a common iPhone. ChatGPT democratized having an assistant...
I guess I am asking if AI could drive down the cost of anything that can be manufactured or produced so much that having one is no longer special, and everyone ends up in the same class?
Yes, for the people remaining. Adoption will be uneven.
Power is inherently finite and tied to class. It's the capacity to control other people, and not be controlled yourself. It is possible that class/power will be relatively decoupled from material well-being with ubiquitous and cheap robot labour, but it will always be there.
Some things will always be scarce. Large houses in desirable locations, the attention of beautiful women, access to celebrity parties, a boat mooring in Nice, a villa in Mallorca, historic works of art and collectibles, classic cars.
People will pay a lot of money to get away from other people in areas that are overcrowded...Europe and Asia.
I would expect we will actually see inequality several orders of magnitude greater than before, trillionaires with their own space liners. You're not thinking big enough if you think resource scarcity won't be a thing.
Suppose I want to build an O'Neil cylinder 100km long with 100km circumfrance at one of the Lagrange points? 2 million acre estate in orbit with a reproduction of Versailles, oak forests, lakes etc. My own fairy tale kingdom with robotic elves and dwarves?
Look at what the Gilded Age millionaires built for themselves, imagine trillionaires trying to that kn orbit.
Colossal amounts of resources and energy. They've read Iain Banks.
According to my market research the revenue of AI will rise greatly til 2030. Some people predicted an increase of almost $800,000,000,000 in new yearly economic activity. That's almost enough money to go around for everyone.
Thats a silly take.
Society is order.
order is hierarchy
hierarchy is access to resources
ergo
no matter how much abundance there is, even infinite abundance
the ruing class witholds from the rest to maintain power.
thats what it is
AI is not that powerful 🤦Investors hype everything and are frequently duped into dumb spending. Ponzi schemes still exist.
@@aieverythingsfine There is no such thing as post-scarcity. Scarcity is a matter of relative production and distribution, not of absolute production.
Recent farming innovations 'solved' hunger in 'overpopulated' areas like Sub-Saharan Africa. And then they bred population levels to more or less the same overpopulation relative to their food supply and distribution at a larger scale. Absolute production is irrelevant and resource scarcity is less than a pipe dream, it is a total misunderstanding of how distribution works.