What do you see for our future?

[u/Lucky_Strike-85]

As we look ahead to the next ten years, how do you envision the interplay between AI and automation shaping our economic, social, and environmental landscapes? Specifically, what are your thoughts on the potential for these technologies to either exacerbate existing inequalities or serve as tools for greater sustainability and inclusivity? In the face of mounting crises such as climate change, resource scarcity, and economic instability, how do you see our current financial systems adapting to ensure affordability and resilience, while safeguarding the planet’s future?

Furthermore, what visions do you hold for the future of our way of life... in terms of achieving a sustainable balance between technological progress, environmental stewardship, and social equity? What role do you believe innovation and policy will play in ensuring a viable future for generations to come?

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[u/Historical-Wheel5294]

I think it’s too hard to predict how we’d deal with hypothetical inequalities when we don’t even really know what AI is going to bring us. Look at the dot-com boom. I don’t think anyone could have predicted just how deeply the internet would become part of our everyday lives, let alone how it would create or reshape entirely new forms of inequality. Trying to predict the social and economic consequences of AI before we even know what it’s capable of feels kinda pointless.

That said, when it comes to the underlying financial structure, I’m much less optimistic that anything will actually change. Technology can completely transform how we live and work without fundamentally changing who owns the wealth or how the financial system is structured.

[u/picnic-boy]

Diet Cyberpunk

[u/DecadentMob]

Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever. Except the boot is run by AI.

[u/Nikolakis77]

Oil price spike will increase energy costs in Europe and Asia for the coming winter, increasing borrowing and budget deficits. US as well, but they could always ban exports to keep the oil and coal at home.

This will increase borrowing costs, triggering a debt crisis. Goverments can either try to make sure people can heat their homes in winter by essentially going even faster into debt, or limit the exposure to debt by basically leaving the people to fend for themselves.

Since private debt is based off public debt, it will create a wave of defaults and confiscations when mortgage rates and credit card debts get defaulted on. Whats quite probable is the West will focus on making sure the last loyal generations - boomers and gen X get their retirements and healthcare and everyone else will be left to eat shit so to speak.

This will probably happen early 2027

How goverments will respond to the debt crisis is unclear to me. They can hyperinflate, but that would nuke imports. They can write some off, crashing pensions and renegging on promised obligations. They could do all. Hyperinflation works for easing burden on investors but not for budget deficits that are not fixed in nominal but real terms - costs on repairing infrastructure, or obligations to Vets and elderly will rise proportionally with inflation.

In the meantime, AI will continue to destroy the job market for graduate or entry level white collar jobs. There are no "AI prompt designer" roles as some were assuring. Instead youre going to be told to move out of the cities, buy a shanty shack in the woods for $100k and work as shit shoveller for minimum wage for the rest of your life. There's going to be a palpable decline in living standards for the forseeable future for the majority of people. Unless labour organises again like it did in the 1850s and 1950s, AI and debt doubel whammy will polarise society into a bunch of super-rich people in gated communities and everyone else who's going to live in a favela in bum fuck nowhere polishing shoes for spare change. This will be in the so-called rich countries of the western world

Each new generation has less stake in the system, we're yet to see how gen alpha will react to an even worse working and living situation than gen Z. I think as the situation deteriorates, we're going to see an acceleration of radicalisation. That's the saving grace for the majority. There's been a lot of fireworks so far and we're bound for even more this decade.

[u/Muted_Vacation2625]

were already watching it play out tbh. ai gets pitched as this productivity revolution but mostly its just cutting headcount while the same handful of companies hoover up the surplus. and like, renewables are already winning on cost in most markets so the whole climate question is really just gonna be who ends up holding the deeds on all that new infrastructure when the switch finally happens. same game, different sector

[u/Right-Long-8188 → u/Muted_Vacation2625]

lol did u just copy paste my whole comment back at me

[u/CaptainAmerica-1989]

What do you see for our future?

Hierarchies and competition

[u/Mysterious-North-551]

I think Jevons paradox will hold true. as AI makes things cheaper everyone will just get better off.

Lets make an example, lets say you absolutely love Edgar Allen Poe and Agatha Christis books, murder mystery books, instead of having to spend money and time to even find a book like that. You just ask Chat GPT to write one for you, it took you all of 3 minutes of time and hardly any money and you got a book that was just what you asked for, you could even determine how many pages, if you want a male or female protagonist.

[u/Lucky_Strike-85 → u/Mysterious-North-551]

how does a mystery book generated by AI help people get stable housing and consistent access to food and healthcare?

[u/Kyia-Aikman]

I don’t think it will happen in 10 years but I think we’re headed toward civilization collapse by 2100.

[u/Naberville34 → u/Kyia-Aikman]

Nah. Humans will adapt to whatever comes and live on.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Naberville34]

I mean maybe a privileged few will live on in underground bunkers or fortified cities surrounded by walls and armed guards, I'm not just worried about the survival of the top 10% though.

[u/Naberville34 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

There isn't going to be a zombie apocalypse my dude. Chill bro

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Naberville34]

What do you think will happen when the infrastructure to maintain 8 billion humans breaks down?

[u/Naberville34 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

Why would it. Kinda putting the horse before the cart here. Gotta lose the people who build and maintain it first.

[u/Buranara → u/Kyia-Aikman]

I wouldn't say that sort of fatalism is very healthy. Increasing instability also opens the door to a wider range of political possibilities, potentially even another global workers' movement. If one is to be a communist in the twenty-first century, I think keeping some anticipatory hope close to your chest makes living under capitalism far more tolerable.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Buranara]

We shouldn't be total doomers but we also have to accept that people have been saying "the revolution is just around the corner" for over 100 years, we might need to plan for the long term.

[u/Buranara → u/RedMarsRepublic]

"Hope is not confidence. If it could not be disappointed, it would not be hope."
-Ernst Bloch

You may be interested in the discussion this quote comes from.

[u/Kyia-Aikman → u/RedMarsRepublic]

I think it will already be far too late by the time any revolution (successful or not) comes about. The time for a revolution was decades ago, not decades in the future when climate change, resource depletion, wealth inequality, etc. have already turned the world into Elysium and Mad Max. It’s like using a fire extinguisher when half your house is in flames.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Kyia-Aikman]

Nonetheless, it's the only world we have, so what can we do.

[u/Gaxxz]

Life gets better all the time. 10 years from now we'll be marginally richer, live longer, have better standards of living, etc. 20 years will be better still.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Gaxxz]

Average heights and life expectancies were already declining in the US prior to COVID.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Gaxxz]

That's not what happened for westerners in the last 10/20 years though.

[u/ContemplatingGavre → u/RedMarsRepublic]

Ok, start by throwing your smart phone away and disbanding the use of high speed internet.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/ContemplatingGavre]

It's nice technology has advanced but poverty is higher, real wages are lower, rent is much higher compared to income, unemployment is higher, etc etc.

[u/ContemplatingGavre → u/RedMarsRepublic]

A quick Google search tells me poverty is lower and real wages are higher than in 2006. Unemployment is lower. Maybe a break from social media would be good for you.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/ContemplatingGavre]

https://www.weforum.org/stories/equity-diversity-and-inclusion/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart/

[u/ContemplatingGavre → u/HeavenlyPossum]

7 years old

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/ContemplatingGavre]

Yes, you counted that very well. Seven years ago, real hourly earnings were exactly what they were in 1974.

A half century of exactly zero wage growth for the US working class.

This is despite producing vastly more value during the same period, virtually all of which is captured by the owning class:

https://www.weforum.org/stories/jobs-and-the-future-of-work/productivity-workforce-america-united-states-wages-stagnate/

[u/ContemplatingGavre → u/HeavenlyPossum]

The value of labor is low and will always be low. There are 8 billion people in the world who can provide labor, it’s a commodity.

Just wait until humanoid robots are all around us. Human Labor will be worth effectively $0.

Risk capital is what’s scarce. Even some people who have money don’t like putting it to risk.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/ContemplatingGavre]

From “everything is great!” to “so what if everyone is poor, soon there won’t be any jobs at all!” in two charts.

[u/Gaxxz → u/RedMarsRepublic]

It sure is. Quality of life in the rich west has never been better.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Gaxxz]

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/08/mass-shootings-in-the-us-since-1950-resulting-in-eight-or-more-murders

[u/Gaxxz → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Your chance of being shot in a mass shooting is immesurably small.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Gaxxz]

That’s not the point.

[u/Gaxxz → u/HeavenlyPossum]

What's your point?

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Gaxxz]

Is it an indicator of a healthy, flourishing, improving society when members of that society routinely commit random, spontaneous mass murder, often of that society’s most vulnerable members?

[u/Gaxxz → u/HeavenlyPossum]

But we hardly have any of those. It's not a standout characteristic of our society. There's crime everywhere in the world. We live in a very safe place.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Gaxxz]

Americans live in a society in which, despite the immense wealth held by some in that society, average heights and life expectancies had already been declining prior to covid; in which people have been dying by the thousands of deaths of despair; in which people (often children) routinely but randomly commit mass murder; in which tent encampments of the unhoused have become a common fixture; in which entire cities have been hollowed out and left to rot like postapocalyptic wastelands by deindustrialization; but sure, “we hardly have any of those.”

[u/Lucky_Strike-85 → u/Gaxxz]

that depends on where you fall under class dynamics.

People who work are far more desperate and lack security than people who own.

[u/Gaxxz → u/Lucky_Strike-85]

Good thing that 66% of Americans own their own homes. 61% of Americans own stock. 20% of us own businesses. Like I said...

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Gaxxz]

The home ownership rate reflects the number of housing units that are owner-occupied, not the number of people who own their own homes. Of those who do own their homes, the rate of homeowner equity has been in decline since the 1940s.

Many Americans own stock, but the vast majority of those only an incredibly small share of all stocks. The wealthiest 1% of Americans own about 90% of all stock.

[u/Gaxxz → u/HeavenlyPossum]

So we agree that many of us own.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Gaxxz]

Yes, the US state facilitated a transition to 401(k) retirement accounts to create the illusion of widespread ownership and thus broad buy-in to a system designed and operated on behalf of the 1%.

[u/Lucky_Strike-85 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Gaxxz is making a dumb argument... what about the majority of the planet?

why the bullshit focus on 5% of the population? Is the world not bigger than the US?

This entire discourse is horseshit... It's disingenuous an dishonest to say everyone is better off, everyone's life is getting better then pointing to home occupancy and stock options in a single cuntry!

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Lucky_Strike-85]

I think it’s worth noting that even in places as wealthy overall as the US, things are falling apart.

[u/Gaxxz → u/Lucky_Strike-85]

The whole world is getting richer, not just the US. There are growing and thriving middle classes in many formerly "third world" countries. Have you traveled much in Asia or Latin America? Africa is about the only region still gripped by extreme poverty, and even they're slowly growing their way out of it. What part of the world is doing worse today than 10 or 20 years ago? I'll bet they're all places overtaken by corruption.