If history has shown one thing, it is that it is much easier for the working/lower class to overthrow the upper class, than the opposite.
Not when AI bots do all of those things. This is the point, once that is reached the working class no longer has any sway over the upper classes and can be wiped out by an autonomous drone swarm that was built by an autonomous drone factory network.
I do not think so. The whole process would have to be redesigned from the bottom up. And I mean everything, gathering resources, refinement of those, packaging, transport, assembly of more complex parts, energy distribution... Everything basically to operable by not humans but by some kind of unified autonomous drones of similar design. And those drones would have to be part of the same industrial process so made and maintained with similar drones. This is not easy to achieve within bounds of our current civilisation. Probably something as simple as regular screw would have to be redesigned or replaced. I was trying to teach my kid to tight one of those not so long enough and it is not such easy thing to do for small child. Would autonomous drone would perform better? If specialised maybe. But you can't have hundreds of specialised drone designs if you want to build whole civilisation with them. After all human beings are mostly the same and we managed to built what we have now.
- Figure: https://youtu.be/Z3yQHYNXPws
- Unitree: https://youtu.be/iULi4-qz22I
- 1X: https://youtu.be/uVcBa6NXAbk
and those are just the ones I know about. I'm sure the US and Chinese militaries are weighing up their options, too.
Of course, they don't need to be humanoid in the end: that just helps them maximise compatibility today. As they take over more of the process, they can specialise and scale up. Once you have robots working the entire process, the sky's the limit.
I do not think we are everywhere near self-sufficient robotics.
For replication, probably not by themselves, but as part of an industrial system run by elites? Sure, why not? You progressively automate all the prerequisites to the manufacturing of your robots until the entire supply chain is automated. If they're unlucky, The Machine Stops [0]. If they're not... well, they won't need us.
AI bots aren't close to doing all those things, but I'm glad the billionaires bought into the hype and tipped their hand prematurely.
Today, the equation is flipped. Rather than ignoring the masses, the rich have been indoctrinating them for 3-4 generations now. Pacifying them. Removing their own ability to generate their own thoughts and replacing them with thoughts purchased and dispersed through advertising channels.
On top of that westerners haven’t been truly poor in about a hundred years. We allege that we can just go back to french revolution sentiments where we are all poor and stealing, well that is a lot harder if you have never had to steal or be good with a knife in your life thus far. The western mind and body have both been coddled. They are not the grizzly parisian of 1789 in a Phrygian cap. They might have never even thrown a punch before.
Given this, why should the rich be worried? We are cattle in this generation, not wild bulls.
History never had such powerful tech as we have now (or soon). Look at how it works in China, now add on top of this some AI which can better monitor your thoughts / education / etc. Future generations will be better "formatted" than we are
Who needs companies when you have communities? Who needs a central dictatorship or a party if you have a faster and more efficient democracy? State controlled media? We can have better decentralized ones.
The key thing is that the alternative has to be obviously better.
Same goes for democracy, it is a very complex system. That is why it is always under threat.
The way I see it, first tribes were fighting. In middle ages, cities were fighting each other. Later states started to fight. Finally we have a handful of superpowers fighting. It is part of globalization and earth is getting too small to scale that mechanism further.
The more insightful ones see the end goal as one where humanity has been obliterated, with the successor expanding through the light cone, devouring all in its path. The (unspoken) rallying cry: "They will replace us." Naturally, this isn't a good popular slogan, so they ride along and let useful idiots do their thing.
Oligarchy, feudslism, dictatorships and other non-free forms of government is definitely not necessarily doomed to fail. Unfortunately.
I fear that with modern technology, controlling the masses is even easier, and we loose democracy. If not forever, at least for a long time.
There's a lot more logistical options for them these days. You'd only catch them if they made a serious blunder.