Rahul Tripathy

I keep seeing headlines like this, but what’s rarely mentioned is that AI abundance can only happen if technological advances are coupled with major policy shifts. Keeping current policy constant, AGI will lead to an economic dystopia where, if anything, you should be saving *more* because your kids won’t be able to earn a living from their labor. Capitalism works because most people are endowed with the capacity to earn an income through labor. In the world technologists like Musk envision, labor will be unnecessary. So how will the vast majority of the population thrive if they can no longer earn an income? Will companies provide UBI out of the goodness of their heart? Will the govt increase taxes on firms and redistribute the money? If the last few years have shown us anything, this will be *extremely* difficult to implement. So yes, AI can potentially increase the possibility frontier tremendously. But “not having to save for retirement” will require large policy changes. If technologists like Musk want to push utopia visions, they should be advocating for specific policies as well.