Why AI Will Break Capitalism
AI is not just a new form of technology, but a brand new class of capital which automates the ‘last’ parts of humanity: thinking.
I’m a big believer in capitalism today.
We live in a world where not everyone’s effort is equal. Yes, capitalism is grossly unfair in some parts — based on your birth, inheritance and a range of other factors. But it’s also one of the only systems we have that accounts for the effort you put in to produce things that other people want to use.
And yet, I can also see an end. Capitalism’s greatest threat is its own progress. The technology capitalism has created is systematically undermining it. Which is why we may have to rethink it.
Automation is coming. And with it, the tasks you and I would normally do for jobs aren’t going to be there.
Automation Is Coming
The Luddites were an archaic movement against technology as they believed it automation would replace workers in their jobs. Most people at the time believed jobs would simply move, the Luddites actually had a longer-term point that’s now starting to be realized.
Automation is coming. And with it, the tasks you and I would normally do for jobs aren’t going to be there. There will be few jobs in the future where manual, repeatable work is available to lots of people.
John Sculley, ex-CEO of Apple puts it well:
In many cases, jobs that used to be done by people are going to be able to be done through automation. I don’t have an answer to that. That’s one of the more perplexing problems of society.
Bill Gates, whilst not as grim on the subject, also positioned job automation as a big trend for the future in his Reddit AMA:
I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned.
Just think about that for a second. When work is automated exercise, what do the humans do?
Elon Musk had another view to add to this, warning in his Re/code speech, indicating that the people who controlled AI’s would have a disproportionate amount of power early on, as they’d be able to more rapidly automate most of their work.
In a sense, capitalism at its worst. Rather than a monopoly on products, you have a monopoly on ‘thinking power’ — the very thing that eroded capitalist monopolies originally.
Some history: Infographic: Rise of the Chatbots
AI as a New Form of Capital Class
Putting aside the ethics for a second, AI is essentially a new form of inter-species slavery. Instead of relying on our fellow species, we’re creating automated, non-human slaves. AI are just cattle versions of intelligence (once is created/bred for meat, the other for intelligence).
Ethically that may pose a problem, but conceptually, it positions AI differently to ‘owned’ property — mostly because it shifts the market based on who owns them. Rather than capital now being a source of ownership and minor wealth generation, it can now be a source of exponential wealth creation — simply because AI continuously evolves and builds upon itself. It’s unique because it isn’t a static capital item.
AI isn’t just a static piece of IP. It’s capable of building entirely new monopolies, businesses and ‘things’ all by itself.
Peter Thiel has an interesting thesis around monopolies which adds to this case:
But the world we live in is dynamic: We can invent new and better things. Creative monopolists give customers more choices by adding entirely new categories of abundance to the world. Creative monopolies aren’t just good for the rest of society; they’re powerful engines for making it better.
But when you own the product that creates creative monopolies, suddenly this thesis is far less fair.
Capitalism has been fueled by the ability to create creative monopolies and be rewarded for it. But the shift we’re about to experience is profound — for the first time, capital will become a source of those creative monopolies rather than just a product.
This Makes ‘Innovation’ Harder
Innovation has long been helping people and lifting them out of poverty, but only because the market has had the forces to do so. People being lifted out of poverty has created new markets and new ways of doing business.
Here’s a stark reality: innovation is also much, much harder in a world driven by individuals owning large swathes of AI resource. Why? Because innovation will increasingly be defined by world views of a single person, rather than the thinking power of many.
Think of it this way. Today’s great leaders must empathize with the perspectives of many and convince people that they’re making the right choice. It’s tricky and often means concessions and understanding problems outside of specific world views.
If they could solve problems however they wanted with whomever they wanted, that paradigm shifts. You might start finding that someone in control of AI resources only solved problems for themselves. Humans are, after all, selfish creatures.
Imagine if Elon Musk just wanted rich people going to Mars. Scary, huh?
Featured CBM: Bots, Chat, Voice, Zero UI, and the future of Mobile Apps.
AI Breaks Capitalism
Universal Basic Income isn’t a new concept, but it is one that’s been picking up steam of late. The basic premise is this: as more jobs get automated, it’s better to give people income to free them up to fulfill their true potential. Whilst it’s very novel it’s also the type of thinking needed in a world where most of our jobs are quite literally being automated away.
Sam Altman from Y Combinator puts it well:
I think it’s good to start studying this early. I’m fairly confident that at some point in the future, as technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we’re going to see some version of this at a national scale.
If you don’t believe the automation argument, take a look at the below graph. Every industry has the potential to be automated. Fishing can be done by drones. Farming too. There’s very little examples of a menial task that can’t be done by a robot.
And when thinking is done as well? That’s a step up again. It’s starting to feel like humans have made themselves redundant in their own economy.
That sounds like utopia, but until we recognize that it means whoever has the most money will win forever, it’s going to be a pretty shocking life for most of us.
That’s why it’s important to recognize that AI is not just a new form of technology, but a brand new class of capital which automates the ‘last’ parts of humanity: thinking.
If AI Breaks Capitalism, What Next?
We already started to hint at it before, but humans could become a layer over the top of AI. We’ve automated all of our jobs out of existence, which means we no longer have to do them (to an extent). We’re free to pursue what we want to do.
Arguably we can already buy brainpower. But the great thing about human labour is there is some form of negotiation — mostly in the form of the vote at the ballot box which defines workers rights, unions and a number of laws and checks and balances.
With AI it’s hard to see what rights the AI will have unless it is completely independent (a problem in a class of its own). AI is sentient but created for a purpose. Does that strip it of its right to autonomy? I’m not sure.
What’s more likely is that when we create AI that is break point for capitalism. Any variable to success can be bought and sold, and that means for those who have wealth, they can buy success instead of creating it. It’s a shift in the ‘fairness’ of capitalism, and the reward for someone putting in effort. When capital can beat humans on thinking, it’s hard to create a marketplace that doesn’t resemble feudalism (albeit minus the harsh living conditions).
On the flipside, humans no longer have to work. The old concept of capitalism being there to reward those who worked hard starts to fall down, as there no longer is a requirement to work hard for the economy to function and provide for everyone.
When Robots Do All the Work, Tax and a Universal Basic Income Make a Lot of Sense
If we accept that AI is a new class of capital which also allows for (relatively) unlimited work to be done, then we also have to start to realize that we no longer need to be around in our own economy.
Of course, we can’t let AI sit in the hands of the few.
And there will be less and less jobs for people to do.
So the solution seems obvious. Make AI common property, tax it and use the new automated/robotic workforce to fuel our work. Use the labour that AI creates and the wealth created to give people a Universal Basic Income.
People can still work, but it will be far more focused on ‘fun work’ or work that doesn’t necessarily have to have an economic imperative to it. Or work that has a long term goal. Even crazy projects that have a 10% chance of paying off (what rational AI would think to do that sort of project?). Who knows?
Humans become change agents within our own economy, rather than worker bees.
In the end, it isn’t going to be a revolution that breaks capitalism. All the things capitalism has given us is going to be what brings it undone. When you put AI, automation and capitalism together, it’s clear that we don’t just need new technologies. We need a new social system.
