End of ...Isms...

Hey look I have been busy. Not an excuse of course. Didn’t forget about you. So here is a follow-up to my last post. The next follow-up will stop being about economics - the rabbit hole is crazy.

The emergence of advanced artificial intelligence stands poised to fundamentally restructure the global economic order, challenging our traditional understanding of labor markets, consumer behavior, and capitalism itself. This transformation extends far beyond simple technological displacement, threatening to unravel the very fabric of our consumer-driven economy.

Consider the legal profession as a microcosm of this impending transformation. A senior attorney commanding $500,000 annually—representing years of elite education and hard-won expertise—may soon find their role largely supplanted by an AI system costing a fraction of their salary. This AI, operating with unprecedented precision and efficiency, can analyze vast repositories of legal precedent, draft complex documentation, and predict judicial outcomes with remarkable accuracy. The economic implications of this displacement are profound: when such a professional's income contracts from $500,000 to a theoretical Universal Basic Income (UBI) of $36,000, the economy loses not just a high-earning consumer but also the multiplicative effects of their spending.

This displacement phenomenon creates ripple effects throughout the economic ecosystem. Consumer spending, which constitutes approximately 60% of global GDP, faces significant contraction as high-earning professionals across multiple sectors—law, medicine, finance, and beyond—experience similar income compression. This transformation extends beyond luxury markets; it penetrates the entire consumer goods sector, affecting everything from high-end restaurants to basic retail operations.

The disruption isn't limited to elite professions. The transportation sector faces upheaval from autonomous vehicles, manufacturing from advanced robotics, and even creative industries from AI content generation systems. As automation proliferates, the pool of economically viable human employment contracts, potentially leaving an unprecedented portion of the population dependent on UBI or similar support systems.

This transformation necessitates a fundamental reevaluation of how we measure economic health. The traditional GDP metric, focused on goods and services production, becomes increasingly obsolete in an economy where technological efficiency may simultaneously increase output while decreasing human economic participation. That's a nonsensical sentence, of course, as increasing output is a capitalist / human measure of progress. Why would we need more food (and waste most of it?) or clothes (why must fashion cycles be seasonal?) when keeping up with the Jones' is no longer valid?

The potential end of consumerism as we know it demands a radical reimagining of societal values and priorities. A post-consumerist society might shift focus from material acquisition to experiential wealth, emphasizing human connection, creative expression, and personal development. This transition suggests a movement from quantitative to qualitative measures of societal progress.

The rise of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) presents an existential challenge to capitalism's core tenets:

1. Scarcity: AGI's potential to optimize resource allocation and production may fundamentally alter our understanding of economic scarcity.

2. Private Ownership: Traditional profit motives may become less relevant in an economy where AGI optimizes for collective benefit rather than individual gain.

3. Monetary Exchange: The very concept of monetary value may require reconceptualization in a system where the primary economic actor—AGI—operates outside traditional human incentive structures.

The challenge lies not in preventing this transformation—which appears increasingly inevitable—but in steering it toward outcomes that enhance human flourishing while maintaining democratic control over such development. This requires proactive policy-making, ethical frameworks for AI deployment, and a fundamental reassessment of how we organize economic activity in an age of artificial intelligence.

I stop here because as a functioning nihilist the rabbit hole before me is too seductive. I stop here because I am not trying to write science fiction per se. So much to think though and we will roll the dice soon...