Comment by fooker
3 hours ago
> business profits should rise
It's the snake eating it's tail. For business profits to rise, people need to to have disposable income. If you replace enough people with AI, the average disposable income comes down to a point that businesses can't be profitable.
We are already seeing a localized version of this with restaurants in large cities.
Does it matter, if the business pays employees who then use their salary to buy goods from the business or if the government collects taxes and uses that to pay for the goods? The government could also give the taxes to the people, so they have disposable income.
Imagine an island with two people on it and there is one tree that grows apples. And every other day, one of the two people climbs the tree and picks apples so they both have something to eat. Then the next day, the other person owes to climb on the tree because they are in debt to the first person.
Now, let's say one day, one of them discovers, hey, we can just give the tree a kick and the apples fall down on their own!
With the perspective you are proposing, the other one would have to say: Oh my God, don't do it! We will be out of work and starve!
Tax rates for wealthy folks are what, 10%? It makes a big difference if the majority of money that is made is distributed to the people via salaries, or whether it's profits and only 10% makes its way to the people.
That's true locally but not globally - it means the economy will increasingly shift to serve those who still have a reason to bargain with each other, which will be the owners of the AI and other useful capital.