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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3585 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 4, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Any thoughts on what stock one ought to buy right now, as someone whose gradual getting spooked by AI advances has finally passed a critical threshold, in order to be in a good position in the specific subspace of possible futures where most humans have become economically worthless but the current system of contracts and titles remains intact?

Specifically, the "the vast majority of the economy is one or a handful of AI conglomerates, plus whatever industry is required to keep them running; whoever has a share may be less screwed" scenario. I can just about think of Google (for DeepMind) and Microsoft (who seem to be OpenAI's closest openly traded partner), and maybe Nvidia if one expects their GPUs to continue being unrivaled as hardware platforms.

As a relatively rich person who would like to keep their money I’m not particularly enamoured with socialism, but if 90% of people are going to be victims of technological employment in 25 years time (I make no claims as to the actual timeline or likelihood of this) then I think it very unlikely that private property, at least on a large scale, would survive such a thing.

It's the opposite though. Private ownership of capital has surged and boomed, such as Forbes 500 wealth, despite increasing automation and wealth inequality.

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