V interesting piece. Would be interested in a follow up piece focussing more on the transition from the current economy to whatever the new economy is. While there may be a point at which the economy is doubling rapidly, that won’t be day one. If you have, say, a decade in which data centres, robotics factories, mineral infrastructure, dismantling of existing human-focussed regulatory structure, etc is being built out, with AI gradually eating a larger and larger share of the economy, then it will take time to get to the instant doublings of the economy that will sustain high levels of UBI/abundance. If you’re a highly paid accountant, who loses his job to AI, how long before UBI gives you the equivalent of your salary? In the West, people take on high levels of mortgage debt. Unless UBI operates at a salary replacement level from the beginning, I would expect: 1) high proportions of people who lose their jobs losing their homes; 2) a credit crunch in the housing market, as lenders are unwilling to lend over the long periods e.g. 25 years, at which most mortgages are offered, due to threat of widespread job losses; 3) a substantial drop in house prices, leaving a lot of home in substantial negative equity. AI will not only erode labour as a source of income, but will erode the value of the main store of wealth most people have, during the transition to the new economy. As AI, and access to intelligence, reduces the moats of existing real world companies, and exposes them to unprecedented levels of disruption, it will also become difficult for many existing businesses to borrow. Unless they are seen as part of the AI disruption - or as undisruptable by AI - lenders will be unwilling to lend for anything other than very short periods at very high rates. Otherwise going concerns will go to the wall because the cost of finance becomes so high. This will bring job losses forward - you may lose your job before the AI is ready to replace you. If this kind of transition happens over 50 years then it’s so slow that nobody notices, and if it happens over 6 months, it’s incredibly painful, but then you’re through it. If it happens over a decade, then it’s potentially the most challenging- you can offer people the hope of an incredible future of abundance (if the big picture can be solved), but they will experience huge loss and pain in the immediate term. There’s an element of Turchin’s elite overproduction that you can throw into the mix - unemployed young people, but also unemployed middle class professionals who have lost their social status and their source of wealth. That’s a difficult political mix to deal with
Agree with most of this and very glad that you are thinking about it - my question is about how universality can work in a world divided by nation states? It seems entirely feasible that there could be a world where certain publics own models and other publics do not - societies where labor is abundant and freely accessible but where the wealth created is automatically transported to the society that controls the cheapest compute. What do we do to make universal mean universal?
It appears to me, according to your logic (or the logic of the AI who wrote this?) that universal income could not come from taxes because that would only be taking more from the workers who have less. You would have to come exclusively from the profits of the AI companies and the companies that use AI to eliminate workers.
This appears to be the new fight marxists will use to gain power. The concern expressed in the article is deeply rooted in a collectivist fear—that technological advancement will rob men of agency and widen inequality unless there is redistribution of capital, income, and ownership. The proposal of universal basic income, public AI infrastructure, and communal data ownership is an echo of Marxist doctrine under a digital veneer. The entire piece revolves around the assumption that the individual is helpless without the guiding hand of the state or the engineered benevolence of a committee.
The article’s suggested path is not one of liberation, but of chaining the productive to the unproductive. It does not celebrate the innovators—the creators of AI systems—but demands their reward be diluted and redistributed. That is not justice. That is altruism masked as policy.
You don’t agree with me to any extent. If you think you do the only on a very surface level. Your response. Everything you said is fundamentally opposed to an objective view of reality.
Monopolies don’t arise from free markets; they’re bred by state intervention—subsidies, regulations, or legal barriers that choke competition. The innovator who outthinks his rivals earns his dominance through voluntary trade, not coercion. Your fear of “technofeuds” mistakes the fruit of reason for the chains of bureaucracy.
You call taxes “mandated charity,” claiming men are too selfish to sustain society. That’s a grotesque inversion of morality. Society thrives not through forced sacrifice but through individuals pursuing their rational self-interest. Your claim that we live in a “state of communal welfare” confesses your premise: that an individual’s life belongs to the collective. I reject that. Your life is yours, not a resource to be harvested for some nebulous “public good.”
Your plea to “democratize AI tools” so men can “make a living” without UBI is a contradiction. If AI disrupts labor, as you fear, the answer isn’t to redistribute wealth or tools—it’s to let men adapt, as they always have. The Industrial Revolution didn’t doom workers; it unleashed prosperity by freeing minds to create. Your call for policies to “give us a chance at surviving” assumes men are helpless without the state’s cradle. That’s not the voice of a man but the whimper of one who dreads a world where he must earn his keep
I agree with you to an extent, yes it does seem very communal, but I think the majority of the concern lies within that of the fight against the monopoly that will occur. This is not just a fight for the individual, it is a fight against the further rise of our modern day feuds "Technofeuds" as coined by Ioannis "Yanis" Varoufakis in his book "Technofeudalism, what killed capitalism". Youre on the right track that it is a degree of altruism masked as policy, but to whom and from whom is where you may falter. I bring this up because taxes in and of themselves are designed not as a way for the government to gain capital, but as a way to mandate charity from the masses as they are too selfish to provide enough of it themselves to sustain a society. We already live in a state of communal wellfare, just have so much propoganda against it shoved down our throats that we keep calling it tried and true capitalism. The policy described is not to be a jab at the common man like that of the tax, however, this is to be the firey hot coals under the belly of the cash cows our Technofeuds have nurtured through the lens of capitalistic gain. The democratization of these AI tools is an imperative if we as individuals are to have the power to sustain ourselves without policies such as that mentioned prior. If you don't want UBI, make it such that we as individuals can make a living for ourselves without killing ourselves! Make it such that in this era of transition towards post-labor economics, we have a chance at surviving on our own! Its only going to get worse if we don't do something, if you cant see that its already bad then I envy you.
This article still worships the altar of capital, even as it admits capital no longer needs us. The real question isn’t how labor can “gain access” to capital — it’s why we keep clinging to a system built on extraction, exploitation, and entropy.
From a heliogenetic view, this entire framing is backwards. If capital can now run without labor, that’s not liberation — that’s automation accelerating collapse. We don’t need to redistribute capital. We need to abolish it as the organizing principle of life.
AI should not be another tool for profit—it should be a steward for planetary systems. Rooted in solar abundance, not fossil scarcity. In mutual thriving, not competitive hoarding.
The future isn’t post-labor. It’s post-capital. And the sooner we realize that, the better chance we have at building something worth surviving for.
Loved the article and I recommend the read. I could write an essay with all the thoughts it triggered. I loved the idea of Universal Basic Capital. I truly believe that the first step towards resolving some of the disparities in contemporary capitalism is cooperativism.
However, it does seem that the post doesn't move far from the current growth paradigm:
"AI necessitates a reimagining of wealth creation and distribution paradigms."
Maybe we need to abandon the need for wealth creation and shift towards a paradigm of happiness creation. I wrote about this a while back, I'd love to hear your opinion.
In answer to the title question. When the lower class, and this includes myself, run out of food. We take desperate measures and hope the army is hungry too. Extreme perhaps, but this a real fear. I believe that decentralized AI is perhaps the best and only chance mankind has at true equality.
Very informative read, I have two questions from it:
1. Have you researched any real world applications of UBI? Do their results influence your opinion on moving to a UBI model in an age of AI?
2. You reference a lot of literary pieces throughout this write up, what is your writing process like? Do you read all of these documents in full or do you focus on only portions of them?
Coase gives a logic but no definition of what firm size or structure should result. So AI reducing transaction costs doesn’t mean we get better or smaller firms: just different frictions. At least Coase’s theory doesn’t provide for more than that.
Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage is about relative efficiency, not absolute superiority. The article misrepresents it by implying that dominance comes from having the best computational infrastructure. That’s a misuse of Ricardo, who showed that even the less efficient party can benefit from trade by specializing according to opportunity cost, not dominance.
Although I enjoyed reading this viewpoint and ultimately see energy not as a scarce resource, I was surprised at the end of the article that use of energy has been totally left out of the whole equation in this work...
How will AI usher in an era of wealth and equality when the physical resources required (energy, materials) remain monopolised by powerful global corporations? It is not enough for the people to own the means of production - the raw materials need to belong to the commons as well. And these resources are dwindling. It doesn’t matter how efficiently or equitably the cake is cut if there is only one slice left. Unless AI can solve the energy problem for all of humanity, the future will be a squabble over crumbs.
This is the first time in a long time I have been excited for technology in our modern world. I believe it will be the great equalizer amongst all humans.
I am glad you do not like the sound of Russian Roulette :), the middle ground is good. 50/50 nice.
After listening to you on Moonshots today. definitely worth watching.
I have come to the conclusion, that you may be the most level headed Artificial Intelligence commentator. I have watched many discussions about this topic.
The ones you are involved in seem to stay on track, with all participants hitting that 50/50, pure emotional vs pure technical bell-curve. A little trip to the Fat Tails is nice once in a while though.
I have printed off your last two essays. I think they will be a great reference point in the future, as well as a great tool for people just starting to take a closer look at this Global Changing Technology. It will change all disciplines from Computer Science to Habitat Building...
I do not see AI as a net negative for society.
Just in the fields of Engineering and Metallurgy, this will have profound developments that will spread from these fields into the everyday lives of all humans.
I feel in the early stages of your new project, the folks that subscribe to this Substack, should be 50/50 Nice.
I wish you the best in your endeavors.
I truly believe you are on the right path.
You have the ability to bring people along with you. An admirable skill that few care to practice in our fast paced environment that never shuts down.
You are definitely one of the top people to listen to on these topics. However, P(the-current-state-of-human-society) being so far from P(writings-of-emad) makes me wonder what your plan is.
V interesting piece. Would be interested in a follow up piece focussing more on the transition from the current economy to whatever the new economy is. While there may be a point at which the economy is doubling rapidly, that won’t be day one. If you have, say, a decade in which data centres, robotics factories, mineral infrastructure, dismantling of existing human-focussed regulatory structure, etc is being built out, with AI gradually eating a larger and larger share of the economy, then it will take time to get to the instant doublings of the economy that will sustain high levels of UBI/abundance. If you’re a highly paid accountant, who loses his job to AI, how long before UBI gives you the equivalent of your salary? In the West, people take on high levels of mortgage debt. Unless UBI operates at a salary replacement level from the beginning, I would expect: 1) high proportions of people who lose their jobs losing their homes; 2) a credit crunch in the housing market, as lenders are unwilling to lend over the long periods e.g. 25 years, at which most mortgages are offered, due to threat of widespread job losses; 3) a substantial drop in house prices, leaving a lot of home in substantial negative equity. AI will not only erode labour as a source of income, but will erode the value of the main store of wealth most people have, during the transition to the new economy. As AI, and access to intelligence, reduces the moats of existing real world companies, and exposes them to unprecedented levels of disruption, it will also become difficult for many existing businesses to borrow. Unless they are seen as part of the AI disruption - or as undisruptable by AI - lenders will be unwilling to lend for anything other than very short periods at very high rates. Otherwise going concerns will go to the wall because the cost of finance becomes so high. This will bring job losses forward - you may lose your job before the AI is ready to replace you. If this kind of transition happens over 50 years then it’s so slow that nobody notices, and if it happens over 6 months, it’s incredibly painful, but then you’re through it. If it happens over a decade, then it’s potentially the most challenging- you can offer people the hope of an incredible future of abundance (if the big picture can be solved), but they will experience huge loss and pain in the immediate term. There’s an element of Turchin’s elite overproduction that you can throw into the mix - unemployed young people, but also unemployed middle class professionals who have lost their social status and their source of wealth. That’s a difficult political mix to deal with
Just ask AI to look at it and predict ahead...
Indeed. LM would probably get as good as this article, which appears to have been generated.
Agree with most of this and very glad that you are thinking about it - my question is about how universality can work in a world divided by nation states? It seems entirely feasible that there could be a world where certain publics own models and other publics do not - societies where labor is abundant and freely accessible but where the wealth created is automatically transported to the society that controls the cheapest compute. What do we do to make universal mean universal?
It appears to me, according to your logic (or the logic of the AI who wrote this?) that universal income could not come from taxes because that would only be taking more from the workers who have less. You would have to come exclusively from the profits of the AI companies and the companies that use AI to eliminate workers.
This appears to be the new fight marxists will use to gain power. The concern expressed in the article is deeply rooted in a collectivist fear—that technological advancement will rob men of agency and widen inequality unless there is redistribution of capital, income, and ownership. The proposal of universal basic income, public AI infrastructure, and communal data ownership is an echo of Marxist doctrine under a digital veneer. The entire piece revolves around the assumption that the individual is helpless without the guiding hand of the state or the engineered benevolence of a committee.
The article’s suggested path is not one of liberation, but of chaining the productive to the unproductive. It does not celebrate the innovators—the creators of AI systems—but demands their reward be diluted and redistributed. That is not justice. That is altruism masked as policy.
You don’t agree with me to any extent. If you think you do the only on a very surface level. Your response. Everything you said is fundamentally opposed to an objective view of reality.
Monopolies don’t arise from free markets; they’re bred by state intervention—subsidies, regulations, or legal barriers that choke competition. The innovator who outthinks his rivals earns his dominance through voluntary trade, not coercion. Your fear of “technofeuds” mistakes the fruit of reason for the chains of bureaucracy.
You call taxes “mandated charity,” claiming men are too selfish to sustain society. That’s a grotesque inversion of morality. Society thrives not through forced sacrifice but through individuals pursuing their rational self-interest. Your claim that we live in a “state of communal welfare” confesses your premise: that an individual’s life belongs to the collective. I reject that. Your life is yours, not a resource to be harvested for some nebulous “public good.”
Your plea to “democratize AI tools” so men can “make a living” without UBI is a contradiction. If AI disrupts labor, as you fear, the answer isn’t to redistribute wealth or tools—it’s to let men adapt, as they always have. The Industrial Revolution didn’t doom workers; it unleashed prosperity by freeing minds to create. Your call for policies to “give us a chance at surviving” assumes men are helpless without the state’s cradle. That’s not the voice of a man but the whimper of one who dreads a world where he must earn his keep
I agree with you to an extent, yes it does seem very communal, but I think the majority of the concern lies within that of the fight against the monopoly that will occur. This is not just a fight for the individual, it is a fight against the further rise of our modern day feuds "Technofeuds" as coined by Ioannis "Yanis" Varoufakis in his book "Technofeudalism, what killed capitalism". Youre on the right track that it is a degree of altruism masked as policy, but to whom and from whom is where you may falter. I bring this up because taxes in and of themselves are designed not as a way for the government to gain capital, but as a way to mandate charity from the masses as they are too selfish to provide enough of it themselves to sustain a society. We already live in a state of communal wellfare, just have so much propoganda against it shoved down our throats that we keep calling it tried and true capitalism. The policy described is not to be a jab at the common man like that of the tax, however, this is to be the firey hot coals under the belly of the cash cows our Technofeuds have nurtured through the lens of capitalistic gain. The democratization of these AI tools is an imperative if we as individuals are to have the power to sustain ourselves without policies such as that mentioned prior. If you don't want UBI, make it such that we as individuals can make a living for ourselves without killing ourselves! Make it such that in this era of transition towards post-labor economics, we have a chance at surviving on our own! Its only going to get worse if we don't do something, if you cant see that its already bad then I envy you.
This article still worships the altar of capital, even as it admits capital no longer needs us. The real question isn’t how labor can “gain access” to capital — it’s why we keep clinging to a system built on extraction, exploitation, and entropy.
From a heliogenetic view, this entire framing is backwards. If capital can now run without labor, that’s not liberation — that’s automation accelerating collapse. We don’t need to redistribute capital. We need to abolish it as the organizing principle of life.
AI should not be another tool for profit—it should be a steward for planetary systems. Rooted in solar abundance, not fossil scarcity. In mutual thriving, not competitive hoarding.
The future isn’t post-labor. It’s post-capital. And the sooner we realize that, the better chance we have at building something worth surviving for.
Loved the article and I recommend the read. I could write an essay with all the thoughts it triggered. I loved the idea of Universal Basic Capital. I truly believe that the first step towards resolving some of the disparities in contemporary capitalism is cooperativism.
However, it does seem that the post doesn't move far from the current growth paradigm:
"AI necessitates a reimagining of wealth creation and distribution paradigms."
Maybe we need to abandon the need for wealth creation and shift towards a paradigm of happiness creation. I wrote about this a while back, I'd love to hear your opinion.
https://open.substack.com/pub/writerbytechnicality/p/do-it-for-the-machines?r=3anz55&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Some very good ideas but AI technology is moving faster than a society being ruled by a Trump/oligarch can or WILL respond.
In answer to the title question. When the lower class, and this includes myself, run out of food. We take desperate measures and hope the army is hungry too. Extreme perhaps, but this a real fear. I believe that decentralized AI is perhaps the best and only chance mankind has at true equality.
Very informative read, I have two questions from it:
1. Have you researched any real world applications of UBI? Do their results influence your opinion on moving to a UBI model in an age of AI?
2. You reference a lot of literary pieces throughout this write up, what is your writing process like? Do you read all of these documents in full or do you focus on only portions of them?
Coase gives a logic but no definition of what firm size or structure should result. So AI reducing transaction costs doesn’t mean we get better or smaller firms: just different frictions. At least Coase’s theory doesn’t provide for more than that.
Just like the use of gAI to write articles. You get more content but less critical thought. Different frictions, not less.
Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage is about relative efficiency, not absolute superiority. The article misrepresents it by implying that dominance comes from having the best computational infrastructure. That’s a misuse of Ricardo, who showed that even the less efficient party can benefit from trade by specializing according to opportunity cost, not dominance.
You're absolutely right. This article is naive and ignores the fundamental power of humanity: gaining advantage through exploiting an unseen niche.
Not for Everyone. But maybe for you and your patrons?
Hello Intelligent Internet,
I hope this finds you in a rare pocket of stillness.
We hold deep respect for what you've built here—and for how.
We’ve just opened the door to something we’ve been quietly handcrafting for years.
Not for mass markets. Not for scale. But for memory and reflection.
Not designed to perform. Designed to endure.
It’s called The Silent Treasury.
A sanctuary where truth, judgment, and consciousness are kept like firewood—dry, sacred, and meant for long winters.
Where trust, vision, patience, and stewardship are treated as capital—more rare, perhaps, than liquidity itself.
The two inaugural pieces speak to a quiet truth we've long engaged with:
1. Why we quietly crave for 'signal' from rare, niche sanctuaries—especially when judgment must be clear.
2. Why many modern investment ecosystems (PE, VC, Hedge, ALT, SPAC, rollups) fracture before they root.
These are not short, nor designed for virality.
They are multi-sensory, slow experiences—built to last.
If this speaks to something you've always felt but rarely seen expressed,
perhaps these works belong in your world.
Both publication links are enclosed, should you choose to enter.
https://tinyurl.com/The-Silent-Treasury-1
https://tinyurl.com/The-Silent-Treasury-2
Warmly,
The Silent Treasury
Sanctuary for strategy, judgment, and elevated consciousness.
Although I enjoyed reading this viewpoint and ultimately see energy not as a scarce resource, I was surprised at the end of the article that use of energy has been totally left out of the whole equation in this work...
How will AI usher in an era of wealth and equality when the physical resources required (energy, materials) remain monopolised by powerful global corporations? It is not enough for the people to own the means of production - the raw materials need to belong to the commons as well. And these resources are dwindling. It doesn’t matter how efficiently or equitably the cake is cut if there is only one slice left. Unless AI can solve the energy problem for all of humanity, the future will be a squabble over crumbs.
It won't.
Emad,
This is the first time in a long time I have been excited for technology in our modern world. I believe it will be the great equalizer amongst all humans.
I am glad you do not like the sound of Russian Roulette :), the middle ground is good. 50/50 nice.
After listening to you on Moonshots today. definitely worth watching.
https://youtu.be/lY8Ja00PCQM?si=HaCB0JUfAgh6sxZA
I have come to the conclusion, that you may be the most level headed Artificial Intelligence commentator. I have watched many discussions about this topic.
The ones you are involved in seem to stay on track, with all participants hitting that 50/50, pure emotional vs pure technical bell-curve. A little trip to the Fat Tails is nice once in a while though.
I have printed off your last two essays. I think they will be a great reference point in the future, as well as a great tool for people just starting to take a closer look at this Global Changing Technology. It will change all disciplines from Computer Science to Habitat Building...
I do not see AI as a net negative for society.
Just in the fields of Engineering and Metallurgy, this will have profound developments that will spread from these fields into the everyday lives of all humans.
I feel in the early stages of your new project, the folks that subscribe to this Substack, should be 50/50 Nice.
I wish you the best in your endeavors.
I truly believe you are on the right path.
You have the ability to bring people along with you. An admirable skill that few care to practice in our fast paced environment that never shuts down.
You are definitely one of the top people to listen to on these topics. However, P(the-current-state-of-human-society) being so far from P(writings-of-emad) makes me wonder what your plan is.
P.S. Thanks for the SDiff toys.
Wondering what the plan is is a good wonder.