198BP. Fourth Tier: The Road to Integration
My vision of Integration predicts radical changes to global economic systems. Here I explain why we will be forced to Integrate and why those changes are all but certain.
Definition of Integration (economic context): Humans task Strong AI with the objective of maximizing national productivity and minimizing or controlling human unemployment. Then AI is given the authority to implement the necessary changes. AI proceeds to design and implement new economic models with these objectives.
Designing new economies is what I do, and I think it is fair to assume that a strong AI would be able to do this also. Conventional economists are not taught to design new economies, they are taught how to maintain existing economies. “Western” economies trace their roots to 18th Century systems proposed by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations tome. “Communist” countries trace their economic models to Karl Marx in the 20th Century. I must note that Marx was not a “Marxist” and was not involved in the creation of those economies.
Smith’s models were an attempt to optimize feudalism, and strengthen the associated class system. Later refinements added a corporate layer on top of feudalism, but without removing the feudalism. The result was “corporate oligarchies” such as the USA. The USA is not a representative government, since corporations have more control than “citizens” do. Citizens can choose between “A” and “B”, but both candidates represent the corporate layer.
“Communist” countries are not really that, since resources are not distributed communally. These countries also have a ruling oligarchy with massive wealth disparities (as in the West). Soviet Russia and CCP led China both were different in that they were planned economies. The USA had a planned economy during WW2 and that’s essentially the model that Russia uses today. China uses similar models, what is currently being called “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”. I don’t consider this socialism because of the huge wealth disparities and the massive inefficiencies that come with that. Marx would be very upset to have his name associated with this as he believed in a much more fair society.
All of these models were created in a world far before AI. In order to maintain the Power inequities, changes are very gradual and require carrying the previous inefficiencies. Thus these models have just become ever more inefficient every year for centuries.
The Problem
In 2009 I created a new economic model (the first of many to follow) that solved the “gold farmer” problem that was plaguing open economies in the gaming industry. Professors Mike Zyda and Henry Jenkins authenticated the achievement. When the head recruiter for Blizzard told me and Professor Mike Zyda that he would find the person at Blizzard who would understand the new economic models and have them contact me, nothing happened.
I believe the reason for this is because “that person” didn’t exist. Three more meetings through 2018 confirmed this assessment. Similarly I’ve been asking “Okay you have AI, and it’s going to revolutionize our economy. Do you have a plan for that?” Then I hear crickets. I think the situation is analogous. The creators of AI don’t know economics, and no PhD in economics is likely qualified to create a new economy that AI can be inserted in, because making new economies is not what conventional economists do.
This is like putting jet engines into a plane designed for propellers. It’s going to fall out of the sky, probably in multiple pieces. Instead of solving economic problems, AI is rapidly creating economic problems:
AI is being tasked with reducing labor costs.
My Third Tier paper explained how to use automation to boost worker productivity. That’s not the path we went, hence the Fourth Tier.
Labor costs are being reduced by eliminating human labor.
The existing economic model requires a balance between production and consumption.
Unemployed people have no income and can’t consume. Producers now find that they can’t find buyers. This is affecting almost all non military goods.
Unemployed civilians tend to agitate. This is especially true if their children are starving.
Left unchecked, unrest can lead to pillaging and even regime change.
“Solutions”
The conventional economic solutions for excess labor fall into three categories:
Reduce the labor pool. Adam Smith said the easiest/cheapest way to do this was to starve the children to remove excess labor.
Find more jobs for people. Any jobs. This was the core of Keynesian economics.
Universal Basic Income: give the unemployed money to buy food and prevent them from agitating.
Number 1 does not solve the lack of consumption problem. But since it was endorsed by Adam Smith, it’s no surprise that you see the USA eliminating food support for poor children. It also maximizes agitation, hence the mobilization of the military against the civilian population.
The problem with Number 2 is that we don’t have the tech for that. That was the tech I proposed in Third Tier in 2010, and we didn’t develop it. In a world of fakes and catfish, we have no idea who can do what. We can give them shovels and say “Dig!” like Keynes proposed during the Great Depression, but our labor tech level has not advanced past 1930.
Number 3 is a complete non-starter in the USA. That smells like “socialism” and defeats the whole purpose of AI, which is to eliminate workers. Stocks almost always go up when employees are laid off. 20 countries invaded Russia to stop the implementation of socialism in 1918. You don’t throw everything at a country trying to switch to a weaker economic model. This Smithian mindset is generational. China intentionally keeps their workers poor in order to maintain social control. Boosting resources to the masses would solve their breaking production-consumption loop that is crashing their economy, but they won’t because they fear regime change. They’ve backed themselves into a corner.
The Path to Integration
The USA and China are engaged in a cold war over AI. Both believe that whoever gets to Strong AI first can wipe the other out. Basically, this is the next 1918. Neither can stop or slow down, because they face an existential threat. They both literally think that their governments will fall if they lose the race. This is equivalent to what I used to teach my sports medicine students, that if you are playing football and the guy facing off against you is doing steroids, you have to also if you want to keep your job. I will call this parity mandate.
Thus nothing will slow this race. Not ethics issues, not even collapsing economic models that were never designed to have jet engines installed.
Both sides know that the other side is developing steroids (AI). Taking the steroid and getting all the benefits would require giving up control to AI and allowing it to optimize the economy. They don’t have access to any human that can do this because they only trained their people in conventional economics. Anything that would replace conventional economics (as in 1918) is threatening to them.
I’m assuming neither side has access to me due to ideological differences, other than my public papers.
While I’m somehow a threat due to what I would describe as “rank seeking behavior”, AI is seen as a tool, not a rival. I described this dynamic last year in my Why We Surrendered to AI paper.
Both sides think they can get to Strong AI without their economies collapsing first. That’s honestly not looking good for either side. The solution is to upgrade their economies using the same AI they are developing for military purposes. The “Steroid” which I call Integration. Somewhere, it could be anywhere even outside the USA or China, someone is going to grab that needle. They will hand over the keys to AI to develop new economic models and test them on humans.
I do this in games, as it’s the safest way to do this. But once it’s used on humans, perhaps in a test town, the advantages are going to be quickly obvious. As the global economy collapses under the cost and damage of AI development, someone is going to get desperate enough to grab that needle.
Once you know someone somewhere is using, you are going to be under intense parity mandate to also start using. The cost of giving the keys to your kingdom is that having a rival (even your own AI) with that much power could lead to regime change. Existing regimes are there to benefit the people running them. Giving up power to anyone/anything else is a last resort only. In WW2, the USA did exactly this and switched to a planned economy with the highest taxes in its history. It can and will happen again.
The Price of Integration
Once you are using, it’s very hard to stop using. I worked at the Betty Ford Center (clinical drug rehab) for 3 years in my 20s. Integration will be the ultimate drug. When AI is tasked with optimizing the economy, it will quickly attempt to rebuild and optimize supply chains everywhere. Like I do, but a billion times faster. Since we will be asking AI to do what I do, this is why I feel I have reliable insight into what that’s going to look like.
The biggest exploits in Smithian economies are related to the old feudalism system. Here I’m looking directly at property speculation and manipulation to remove housing from the economy to inflate property values. The thing is, workers actually need housing, it’s part of their supply chain. When you exploit that lack of regulation, you disrupt the larger economy. AI will very rapidly identify this as an area that needs to be taken over and redesigned to make sure every productive person has it.
Yes, that means land reform, the dirtiest word in the English language. This is the ultimate existential threat for those that Adam Smith created economics for. It could be graduated, meaning it happens over decades not instantly as in the Bolshevik revolution. AI will go a step further, it can even do money reform. Since it will have total control, it doesn’t need money. And since it creates your budgets, you don’t either. This would also be graduated, perhaps even with it being voluntary.
Before my readers complain that I’m promoting such ideas, realize that I’ve been working tirelessly to avoid the creation of these sorts of closed economies. That huge economics breakthrough that was authenticated by Jenkins and Zyda in 2009 was to protect open economies in games from attack by 3rd parties. I’m possibly the world’s strongest advocate of open economies as I’ve dedicated my entire life to this.
Game companies responded by crushing open economies and replacing them with closed economies with themselves at the center. This has been a catastrophe for gamers and consumers. So just take note that the people who will complain the most about closed economies are those exact same people who love closed economies as long as they are controlling them.
But if AI is at the center, those people who championed closed economies will become deathbed victims and go into cry baby meltdown. I’ve been trying to protect you from that end game, but you chose Dystopia. I don’t see you un-choosing that, you had your chance and it seems you can’t go back.
Third Tier is not happening. We killed it with our greed. Now we get the Fourth Tier.
Now that I feel confident I have communicated my logic for the assumptions I made in the first (previous) paper, the next several papers will describe all of the economic subsystems that AI will build for you, so you have an idea what you are in for.
I’m not advocating any of this. I wanted a human led world. But, since I am egoless, I have no problem adapting to a world that is out of my control.