The AI researchers I know often say they expect the AI to replace their own jobs.
Are they expecting the equity they get in some AI company will save them personally from economic ruin, so they're fine with that outcome for everyone else?
Or are they expecting AI technology will magically make our society communist?
Yes. Basically based on my conversations with coworkers who went to these frontier AI labs: this is happening anyway, so they may as well make the money while they still can.
There's got to be a special name for that kind of treachery. I suppose "collaboration," but that doesn't have a nasty enough ring to it.
Like a fascist occupation, that dystopia isn't "happening anyway" without collaborators.
I just call these people "cowards"
Which is different from just being rich and chilling. Rich and chilling implies a stable society. But life isn't a video game where you hit some Absolute Level 99 and are impervious to everything. There's no outside justificatior for you - only you are. In this hypothetical society, when GrokBots rule the world, you think they'll care that you're a millionaire? You need to get into the inner circle.
I see some really smart professors/PhDs even, going to SV, starting startups, networking, etc. That is consistent with the worldview.
But someone who says that AI can replace them but just works at a lab, at least has the belief that they will be automated last. Maybe they believe they can become friends with the AI, I don't know. But let's stop and analyze the situation with a bit more nuance, for more than like, 5 seconds.
This is not the same thing as communism. You can still have private ownership, differing levels of wealth, entrepreneurship, and competition. It's just that having money is not necessary for survival or to lead a reasonably comfortable life.
And they don't believe it will magically happen -- it will take intentional action by governments to get there. This is, perhaps, the reason the AI labs are talking so much about AI replacing people's jobs. It's not arrogance, it's to make sure our leaders are thinking about this now instead of when it's too late to guide the outcome.
I thought they were talking about AI replacing people's jobs, because that's music to investors' ears.
Think about how much wealth concentration would happen if they could hit their goals eat that much of the economy.
IIRC, Elon Musk has literally compared the effect of AI on people to the effect of highway construction on an anthill (that's in the way), and kinda shrugged his shoulders.