Is a society without mid-IQ white collar work a healthy one? Agreed that 50% of people read at a 6th grade level, and things work just fine. Also agreed that there will still be plenty of jobs after AI transforms the economy, and for the reasons you list. Nonetheless, haven't democracy and markets usually required a reasonably large bourgeoisie, usually of people involved in jobs AI will likely perform better than them? What would happen without an intelligent, propertied middle class, if AI primarily hollows out THOSE jobs?
Also, what will happen if, because of AI, that proportion of illiterates skyrockets to 80%? Or if people stop developing their minds, because AI can probably think better, so why bother?
These are all great questions that I honestly don’t know the answer to, if only because I haven’t thought of them OR because they’d be great empirical questions. I guess my lack of concern comes from a sense of light pessimism, in that I don’t think things are spectacularly/optimally efficient and productive in our economy as is, and the reasoning for that reality is more social than technological. I also tend to think the mid-IQ to high IQ people have traits tangential to intelligence, though not necessarily intelligence-related that lead to success in a capitalist economy (conscientiousness, etc). I’m just not confident that AI can displace those people at a fast enough rate that they won’t bounce back and add back to the economy. But who knows! I could be wrong about that!
As for your last paragraph/couple questions, I’d rather not upgrade my light pessimism to misanthropy, so I won’t contemplate the question until I absolutely have to (lol). Thanks for the great questions, I appreciate good comments, because most of the ones I get come from the people who only think they can read.
Is a society without mid-IQ white collar work a healthy one? Agreed that 50% of people read at a 6th grade level, and things work just fine. Also agreed that there will still be plenty of jobs after AI transforms the economy, and for the reasons you list. Nonetheless, haven't democracy and markets usually required a reasonably large bourgeoisie, usually of people involved in jobs AI will likely perform better than them? What would happen without an intelligent, propertied middle class, if AI primarily hollows out THOSE jobs?
Also, what will happen if, because of AI, that proportion of illiterates skyrockets to 80%? Or if people stop developing their minds, because AI can probably think better, so why bother?
These are all great questions that I honestly don’t know the answer to, if only because I haven’t thought of them OR because they’d be great empirical questions. I guess my lack of concern comes from a sense of light pessimism, in that I don’t think things are spectacularly/optimally efficient and productive in our economy as is, and the reasoning for that reality is more social than technological. I also tend to think the mid-IQ to high IQ people have traits tangential to intelligence, though not necessarily intelligence-related that lead to success in a capitalist economy (conscientiousness, etc). I’m just not confident that AI can displace those people at a fast enough rate that they won’t bounce back and add back to the economy. But who knows! I could be wrong about that!
As for your last paragraph/couple questions, I’d rather not upgrade my light pessimism to misanthropy, so I won’t contemplate the question until I absolutely have to (lol). Thanks for the great questions, I appreciate good comments, because most of the ones I get come from the people who only think they can read.