Majority of CEOs report AI brings no financial benefits

[Mnementh]

sc94597 said:

pokoko said:

The wealthy will sell to the wealthy.  They're going to have all the money, anyway.

This only works for luxury goods, services, and investments. Any industry that depends on selling a normal or inferior good (the majority of industries and GDP) is going to be hit hard. The wealthy might buy bigger yachts or mansions, but they're not going to be buying more bread, milk or smartphones. These things only have a limited capacity to "get better", so you probably won't see much investment in making luxury versions of them. Likewise, you can only have so much production of yachts and mansions before those markets become saturated and the values of these "assets" stall. 

The wealthy also tend to under-consume for their wealth-share, instead hoarding their wealth. This especially becomes true during a deflationary spiral. 

Well, that might not be completely true anymore. This video was an eye-opener for me and kinda scary. It means, that an big economy can already mostly operate on only the most wealthy 10%. Which is not great. Because the powerful and rich will not feel as much need anymore to satisfy the need of the poor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2OHjHPkUzM

To circle back to the Culture for a moment: I remember this scene, where someone was maintaining a rest point. They were asked why they do it, if a drone can do as well, and they answered because it made them feel good. This is the important part: the Culture also doesn't need the majority of people for the economic functioning of the system. But the wealth produced by the system is still shared with the people.

Our current system does link wealth distribution to economic participation (aka work), but that is just not working anymore, with or without AI, simply because the economy got more and more effective and will keep doing so, reducing the need of bodies to function. We need a new wealth distribution system, because if we keep relying on the market, we will slide into mass poverty (or actually already starting to) and this destabilizes societies as the people are losing their faith in the system and are more and more willing to utilize extreme actions.