US Per-capita real income tracked productivity growth until about 1975. After that, productivity continued to climb, but per-capita real income did not. This is why life sucks worse than it used to for everybody but the top 10%.
With AI coming along, productivity is about to get another boost. Maybe a big boost. But will most people benefit from it? Under capitalism as currently implemented, no. That's the meaning of Sam Altman's “I think that AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world. But in the meantime, there will be great companies created with serious machine learning.”
Universal basic income is not the answer. That's welfare 2.0, leading to high-rises of useless people. Altman doesn't have the answer. Wang doesn't have the answer. They both see the problem coming but suggest no viable solutions.
This is a problem.