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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

The world will adapt when labor becomes scarce, it will have no other choice. The more scarce labor is, the more pricing power it has.

Arguing over “what if AGI” is like arguing about nuclear war and winter. It might happen, but no plans you form for it will survive contact with reality, so there is very little value in spending cycles on optimizing for it.

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Labor isn't really going to become scarce this century. Nigeria, etc.

Fertility rates are dropping across Africa too, and while the growth will continue for a few more decades, maybe until the end of the century, labour will increasingly be scarce where we need it. There'll be significant political and social upheaval while countries deal with figuring out how to compete for immigrants.

I have a cynical view (sorry) that labor will always be cheap somewhere. It's part of the globalization machine, there will always be a decline somewhere, and if there isn't, one will be created.

This view seems inconsistent. Artificial manipulation is not sustainable in the long term. The ability to continually create conditions that lead to cheap labor is limited and will eventually fail.

With AI+capital on the manipulating side I am not sure there are any limits.

AI is not magic, neither is capital for that matter. To perform any function in the world, it needs some type of physical form or device to do so. These devices take capital to manufacture and maintain. They're also vulnerable to intentional damage. There are obvious limits.

Capital = physical

AI = control of how to wield the Capital and defend against intentional damage

What are the obvious limits?

On the contrary, it seems that increase of income inequality is a natural trend.

Since when? 40 years ago? Yes.

400 years ago? Hardly.

What artificial manipulation?

Are you saying that you presume the inequality is the natural state of things? What are you basing that on? A world with governments and corporations that are capable of squashing the populace? Do you ever wonder what influence this has?

I’m not sure it’s globalization. There will always be rich countries and poorer countries. Like there will always be poor people and rich people. The gap may and should shrink between the two but not vanish.

And if there is not, we either have global poverty or a tremendous amount of force applied to the distribution of wealth.

China's Belt and Road Initiative suggests that they view the under-developed Middle East and African nations to be the next in line, the same as the US viewed China as a source of cheap labour.

The party has been making deep investments into the regions and is developing significant political and social capital at the same time that the West is retreating from them, cutting foreign aid, etc.

> China's Belt and Road Initiative suggests that they view the under-developed Middle East and African nations to be the next in line, the same as the US viewed China as a

I think it’s more “want” than “see.” They might see Vietnam as next in line but outsourcing to ME and Africa suit their interests better.

There will always be poor and they will be exploited. I guess nature is brutal to keep everyone happy.

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