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ozgung

Finding 4 is a must-read:

> Finding 4: Labor vs. capital share: The pie will grow, but a larger share might go to capital

> Today, of each dollar the economy produces, about 60¢ goes to workers and 40¢ go to capital.

Modest scenario: 40.6% to capital in 2030 (labor share down 0.6 points)

Substantial scenario: 43.9% to capital in 2030 (labor share down 3.9 points)

Extreme scenario: 54.8% to capital in 2030 (labor share down 14.8 points)

So all the growth goes to capital. For knowledge workers: substantial unemployment and declining wages. For other workers: wages may increase on paper, but not really for actual purchasing power. (note: all of their estimates are for 2030, not for a distant future)

Very dystopic indeed.

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>For other workers: wages may increase on paper, but not really for actual purchasing power.

This is not necessarily a conclusion you can draw from that statement. It's possible that as the economic pie grows, workers' purchasing power increases compared to the counterfactual (a non-AI world), but their purchasing power does not increase as much as the capital owners' does.

Correct. But…

According to data in the site and paper [0] labor income is estimated $20T for all four scenarios (including no AI) in 2030. Which means capital takes ALL of the new pie coming from AI.

Also, I am not an economist but I assume if you are not growing as much as GDP, it basically means you’re shrinking. Relatively shrinking, but since everything is relative in an economy you are actually shrinking. Table 4 in paper gives the numbers.

[0] https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/files/4zrzovbb/website/cf58f84...

I think that would only follow if the rest of the world’s purchasing power also grows at the same rate (unlikely), or if you were to cease all international trade (uhh…).

It's crazy how we all have to build the AI that will render us unemployed.

How do we fight that ?

I'm thinking on this topic a lot lately - how do we change the system so that the bigger the company, the harder it becomes ? It's more of a political / societal issue. Similarly to housing - I believe it should be cheap to buy your first home, more expensive to buy a second one, and very expensive afterwards.

We can definitively punish bigger companies. The issue is the geopolitical positioning, and basically agreeing that we accept smaller companies in our country / society while another country might develop bigger companies, and in theory have more power. Maybe more actual military power.

So unless it's a worldwide agreement, really hard to make this happen.

If you're in the US, two days ago was your annual reminder of exactly the answer to that question.

IOW, "What economic future?"

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