The inevitable end state of AI

People keep saying that we must win the AI race and replace human labour, or China will beat us to it.

Dario Amodei has said AI will replace half of all entry-level jobs in one to five years, that it will become a substitute for human labour, and we risk a world set on hyper-growth, hyper-inequality.

So we all need to accept the inevitability of AI replacing us and suck it up. 

Or else China.

You know what?

Let them. 

China's economy is not built around efficiency. It's built around maximum employment. China builds entire empty cities, just to keep workers employed, working. 

Why?

Because the Chinese government is terrified, absolutely terrified, about the instability mass unemployment causes. 

Can you imagine 1 billion unemployed, restless and angry Chinese citizens? 

What do you think they would do, when they're rendered obsolete and unemployable?

Do you really think the Chinese government, which is well schooled in the tumultuous history of China, would ever put the entire population out of work? 

Can you say pitchforks? 

Not going to happen. 

The China AI Threat is being used here as a bludgeon, to scare politicians, investors, and the public. And threats and intimidation are at the core of the AI company playbook: use it or get left behind, it's inevitable, all your jobs belong to us, and so on.

And I've bought into their narrative myself at times. AI is shiny and can be superficially impressive, and it keeps getting better. 

Yet the only way investors in AI can get their trillions back is if AI replaces a large portion of the labour market. That's the plan, make no mistake about it. AI is not here as a tool, an assistant, or a productivity hack: it's our replacement.

You can guess where that leads: once dependent on AI, and the human labour force becomes obsolete and out of date, the business world will be at the mercy of the AI corporations. 

That's when the AI corps will begin to squeeze, and squeeze hard. Squeeze like Amazon and Uber do. Squeeze like Milton Friedman acolytes would, so hard it'd get blood from a stone.

After that, The Great AI Enshitification will begin, as value is extracted and shunted up the pipe to the 1%. Monopoly guarantees market, so service will get progressively worse and simultaneously more expensive.

It's the obvious, 'inevitable' destination, yet the business world is so gleeful at the possibility of firing all their workers and replacing them with docile, endlessly compliant AI they can't see it.

Yet.

Let's hope the bubble bursts and it never gets to that point. 

Because then... well, I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords...