Or imagine if AI provides access to extending life and youth indefinitely, but that doing so costs about 1% of the GDP of the US to do.
Combine that with a small ruling class haveing captured all political power through a fully robotic police/military force capable of suppressing any human rebellion.
I don't find it difficult to imagine a clique of 50 people or so sacrificing the welfere of the rest of the population to personally be able to live a life in ultimate luxery and AI generated bliss that lasts "forever". They will probably even find a way to frame it as the noble and moral thing to do.
What does AI, or even post-singularity robots do for the 50 richest people? They already live like it's post-singularity. They have the resources to pay people to do everything for them, and not just cooking and cleaning, but driving and organizing and managing pet projects while they pursue art careers.
> Or imagine if AI provides access to extending life and youth indefinitely, but that doing so costs about 1% of the GDP of the US to do.
That's a bad example even if you meant 1% of current USA GDP per person getting the treatment (i.e. 200 bn/person/year), because an AI capable of displacing human labour makes it very easy to supply that kind of wealth to everyone.
That level is what I suggested earlier, with the possibility of a world where everyone not in the elite is "merely" as rich as Elon Musk is today ;)
> I don't find it difficult to imagine a clique of 50 people or so sacrificing the welfere of the rest of the population to personally be able to live a life in ultimate luxery and AI generated bliss that lasts "forever". They will probably even find a way to frame it as the noble and moral thing to do.
I do find it difficult to imagine, for various reasons.
Not impossible — there's always going to be someone like Jim Jones — but difficult.
> That's a bad example even if you meant 1% of current USA GDP per person getting the treatment (i.e. 200 bn/person/year), because an AI capable of displacing human labour makes it very easy to supply that kind of wealth to everyone.
Clarification: I meant 1% per person of the GDP at the time the wealth is generated. NOT present day GDP. Medicine is one area where I think it's possible that costs per treatment may outpace the economic development generated by AI.
Any kind of consumption that the ultra rich may desire in the future that also grows faster than the economy is a candidate to have the same effect.
It's the same as for ASI X-risk: If some entity (human, posthuman, ASI or group of such) has the power AND desire to use every atom and/or joule of energy avaialble, then there may still be nothing left for everyone else.
Consider historical wonders, whether it's the Pyramids, the Palace of Versailles, Terracotta army, and so on. These tend to appear in regimes with very high levels of concentration of power. Not usually from democracies.
Edit, in case it's not obvious: Such wonders come at tremendous costs for the glory of single (or a few) individuals, paid for by the rest of society.
Often they're built during times when wealth generation is unusually high, but because of concentration of power, medium wealth can be quite low.
Combine that with a small ruling class haveing captured all political power through a fully robotic police/military force capable of suppressing any human rebellion.
I don't find it difficult to imagine a clique of 50 people or so sacrificing the welfere of the rest of the population to personally be able to live a life in ultimate luxery and AI generated bliss that lasts "forever". They will probably even find a way to frame it as the noble and moral thing to do.