The elites will soon have no need for us after AI.

[Shadow1980]

The problem with "A.I." and automation in general is that it's owned and controlled by the capitalist class. And every corporate board pats themselves on the back when they find new ways to cut overhead. They view every employee as a drain on the bottom line, and are always trying to axe as many jobs as they can. Layoffs are a favorite cost-cutting measure to pad margins for the fiscal period. The only reason they hire humans at all is because they have to, but now they've discovered something they think can make human workers obsolete. The best employee will always be a literal machine. It works tirelessly and ceaselessly. It doesn't need a paycheck or benefits. It won't call out of work because of the flu or a death in the family or whatever. It won't question orders. It doesn't need bathroom breaks. It won't go on strike because of low pay and shitty working conditions because it's less than capable of caring about such things. It doesn't get pissed off, it doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, and it doesn't laugh at your jokes. It just runs programs. All it needs is occasional maintenance. That's why so many businesses are excited about "A.I." That's why there's startups that have already prototyped fully-automated restaurants and retail establishments. All they see is an opportunity to slash most of their payroll.

The problem is, if everyone is fired and replaced with machines, the economy will collapse. There will be nobody left to buy most goods & services. Billionaires can't support an economy by themselves. Despite their great wealth, they aren't the primary drivers of consumer spending. These billionaires need us to buy their food and electronics and cars. But if nobody has a job, how are they going to buy anything? Establish a universal basic income? Okay. Who's going to pay for it? The people that used to pay most of the taxes aren't taxpayers anymore, so the tax burden for everything in general will have to fall almost entirely on the ultra-wealthy now, and they've been fighting tooth and nail for decades to get out of paying any taxes at all.

That's the problem with capitalism. It's built upon a series of contradictions that cannot be reconciled easily, especially if it's driven by the mentality that constant growth is necessary to satisfy their supposed "fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders." Nothing can grow forever in a finite world. Something has to give at some point. There are capitalist enterprises than manage just fine without shareholders and without the need for infinite growth. Local independent businesses are a good example, like that one restaurant or hardware store that has maybe one or a couple of locations that have been serving the same local community for decades. But publicly-traded corporations have for decades been driven by a "growth at any cost" mentality, similar to that of cancer cells. But even cancer stops growing at some point, either by killing the patient or by going into remission. We can only hope corporate capitalism goes into a remission of sorts instead of killing us all through short-sighted greed.

Also, "A.I." isn't A.I. in the first place. LLMs and text-to-image/video models are just glorified plagiarism software. That's why I always place it in quotes (and I use periods to avoid confusing it with people named Al).