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Comment by rokobobo | Hacker News Reader

I disagree with the other answers to your question. There's no guarantee that "the masses" would be able to lay claim and ownership on these automated factories. I very much think the world will move in a darker direction, where the owners of these factories ensure their perpetual control over the rest of us. As for what they get from it? The feeling of power and superiority.

As for the forms of control they will exert, I can think of a few options: media, access to healthcare, and employing you to be a useless drone just so you don't rebel--or to stroke their ego by beating you in a video game, like the link below:

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/clive-thompson-future-of-work-...

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Yeah it's likely that by the time the masses realize what the factory owners are up to, it's already too late and the mass produced AI-run robocops/robosoldiers can mow down any kind of violent protest. And the moment the elites realize that there's no guillotine waiting for them any more, they'll do whatever they want.

Even if we land in a UBI world where people don't have to work any more and enjoy a "good" life from their UBI, economic mobility will still be extremely reduced, so gaining relative wealth will become much harder. That alone is quite dystopian.

This was what had happened on Earth in the The Expanse. Most of Earth was on "basic", and you kept it provided you obeyed the rules (one of which was strict limits on breeding). But getting anywhere was almost impossible - in the series you have the street doctor who just can't get educated and trained as a real doctor because even being good at what you do, there's 10,000 more people in front of you who are just better.

https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Basic_Assistance

Wow, that's quite dystopian indeed.

That may be true. But the problem with such systems has always been that there is no guarantee that the kids of those in power are as competent as their parents. Wealth and power is inevitably squandered because talents are still distributed randomly in the population.

Now, when we get to increasing longevity, genetically engineered humans etc, that might change. But then it would also change the parameters of the equation... these future humans won’t resemble the humans of today.

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