The AI Paradox

We can't deny that the world is changing at a pace that is quite difficult to follow and AI is taking a more and more important role. We see new things coming out, not on a monthly or yearly basis but on a daily basis. There are new models, new ways of working, new interfaces, new user experiences that AI makes possible.

Nowadays, it's not just a question of whether AI can actually substitute jobs. It's already doing that at a large scale. Companies like Meta are laying off a lot of developers and substituting them with AI. AI is here to stay and AI is evolving. Probably most of us don't really realize at what speed this is happening.

Some people still think that there are a lot of jobs that won't be affected by that but it's not the truth because AI doesn't come alone. There is so much development at the moment around robots that are actually powered by AI that will replace jobs like electrician or cleaning personnel.

The problem with that, and what I consider an AI paradox is that if people lose their jobs on all fronts, we will have on one side a whole sector of the population that has reduced income and on the other side things, products, and services that get cheaper and cheaper to purchase. But who is going to purchase all that if people don't have any money anymore? The economy lives from the consuming population and if this population can't consume anymore, what will happen?

This is something that Ford understood when he started mass producing cars. He made sure that all his employees were earning enough that they could afford to buy a car.

It's a question of what system the future holds for us because the capitalist system that is relying on people getting wages for their work seems to be at a dead end. There is a second level because our government structures are also based on this concept of people having a salary and getting taxed on the salary.

Crisis ahead ?

So if employees don't have any money, if governments run out of money, we could think that the economy will come to a kind of standstill. I believe that this is already happening at the moment, that we have actually reduced consuming activity in all the different categories. What is worst for people is that they don't have the security that their income will last.

Let's say that you are a software engineer and then you see that other people are laid off. It brings fear to you. What do you do? You start to reduce your expenses, you save because you don't have trust into the stability of your future employment. This means that less money is circulating. This is a circle that leads sooner or later to an economic negative growth or a crisis.

So maybe we shouldn't put too much energy into fearing for our jobs. Maybe we should think about how our future could look like in the face of AI and robots taking over a lot of the workforce that exists now. This is the big question and I think that it's worth thinking about.

Geopolitical challenges of the future

One other thing that I would like to point out. If products are very cheap to produce and there are no more wages to be paid, there are other things that start to matter even more, like the things that the whole AI economy requires:

energy
soil
primary resources
water

These four elements are the future strategic items that the governments are fighting for. Even if we are not aware of this directly at the moment, it is already happening when you see billionaires that try to go to space to figure out how they could use the resources from space. When China is thinking about building a huge power plant in the atmosphere that would collect the solar energy, when we see China and other countries fighting over our arable land in Africa, all such things contribute to the same picture. This is the future challenge that we all face. The struggle of power will be to have access to these key ingredients: water, energy, soil, and primary resources.

How do you see it? How do you think the evolution will happen? Will there be a big crash, a big crisis or will it be an organic transition?

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