Comment by palmotea

> The industrial revolution was very similar. Initially, workers suffered. Conditions were unsafe. Pay was poor. Worker rights were non-existent. Things got worse for the majority before social change caught up and imposed a more equitable distribution of the dividends.

> We should be under no illusion that this time will be any different. The rich and powerful are no less selfish than they were a quarter millennium ago.

Yeah, it could be worse. During the industrial revolution, the rich and powerful absolutely needed workers (and lots of them) to run the machines, and that gave the workers power.

The whole point of the AI revolution is to no need workers anymore, or far fewer of them.

> It is possible to get ahead of the problem, but the people running AI companies won't be the ones to do it.

It's possible, but dumbass software engineers missed their best chance, because they were too busy misunderstanding themselves as capitalists and embracing their bosses' libertarianism thinking, when they should have been unionizing to consolidate their former economic power.