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> The difference between the AGI takeover and capitalism is just the choice of metric to optimize on.

Not specific to capitalism. The same thing occurs with any government/economic structure that is optimizing for a metric. Think of a communist government using “happiness” to drive decisions that just silently kills or drugs everyone who isn’t happy.

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The fundamental difference of capitalism vs the other instrumental forces you are describing or intimating is that capitalism is self-reproducing. Through the explosion of the profit motive and the harnessing of wage labour it continually opens new markets, and demolishes limits to growth.

I agree with you that this isn't really specific to capitalism, and is specific to using metrics as proxies for values.

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