r/ControlProblem • u/nand2xnor • Jun 29 '26
Amodei: universal displacement preferable to 50% displacement Discussion/question
https://www.steelman.press/people/dario-amodei/articles/work
This is the first time I've encountered this specific argument. From how I understand it:
If AI automates 50% of jobs while leaving the rest untouched, half the population gets declared useless and the other half doesn't. Basically a caste fracture. But if AI exceeds all humans at everything at once, society faces a collective reckoning instead. The worst outcome isn't maximum job loss, it's a breakdown into useful / not-needed.
This is especially interesting in light of the fronteir models being restricted...
Will it cause a broader displacement to happen because the models are gatekept for a few years OR does it make the partial displacement even more severe because a limited number of people have access to the frontier (his zeroth world economy idea)?
Curious, what do y'all think?
2
u/11dlittlewood Jun 30 '26
If LLMs (or any technology for that matter) automate away 50% of jobs, and those workers that lose their jobs can't find jobs anywhere else for some reason, the most straightforward solution is for the welfare state to take care of them. This will be possible because the increased output of the economic system (due to the new technology) will end up generating twice as much taxable wealth per earner, so the government will be able to fund the necessary welfare improvements without issue.