Perhaps I am afflicted with the "if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail" syndrome.
As I delve more into the discussions surrounding AI, especially generative AI, it keep coming back to the same thing. People are trying to determine where things are going along with the impact of it. Naturally, if this technology proves to be as impactful as many state, we are going to see some major issues confronting society.
One of the areas that people are starting to focus more attention is on income. The camp that sees the elimination of jobs as a growing threat is growing. With each new major iteration, there is a lot of hype that gets people thinking. Even if that generation of training doesn't offer what is claimed, we do see it emerge rather rapidly.
We know the pace is what we have to look at. No longer are we dealing with change over the course of decades. Instead, we are looking at 5-7 year windows.
What does this means for the structure of society? How are people going to protect themselves against the economic devastation that could hit middle class families all over the world?
This is what many are questioning.
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Web 3.0 Solves This
I am in the process of reading through Broadening the gains
from Generative AI: The role of Fiscal Policies](Perhaps I am afflicted with the "if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail" syndrome.
This sums up the problem:
A critical distinction between gen AI and past disruptive technologies (such as the steam engine, electricity, and early computers) lies in its potential for rapid diffusion. The sheer scale and speed of the transformation pose risks to labor markets.
We have asked this question repeatedly: what happens when labor capital disappears? What are people left with?
The answer, according to the IMF is, not surprisingly, government. Social entitlements are always what they turn to. Let the government and, in turn, the politicians fix everything.
I have stated this is where they will go. There is no choice. Nowhere in the document, at least as far as I read, do they mention Web 3.0. Again, that doesn't surprise me at all.
Few are thinking in these terms.
As a side note, I did not look into the authors but I am going to bet they are economists. These people even out pace weather people with regards to being wrong.
Therefore, to look at the solutions they are presenting as viable is foolish. They will be more failed policies, just like we see coming out of organizations like The Fed. The IMF is no different.
But, to their credit, they have at least isolated the problem. Unfortunately, this is nonsense in an age when people like Jensen Huang are looking at making even coders obsolete.
Education and training policies must adapt to new realities, help prepare workers
for the jobs of the future, and be better placed to offer lifelong learning. Sector-based training,
apprenticeship, and upskilling and re-skilling programs could play a greater role in helping workers transition to new tasks and sectors.
Re-education? Have these people looked at exactly how fast this is going?
Therefore, problem identified with no solution offered.
Wealth Inequality
Ultimately, this is going to lead to the discussion of wealth inequality. For this sake of this article, we are going to confine our discussion to this being the metric based upon technological dominance.
We saw, over the past 40 years how the digital world can quickly turn into a "winner take most" scenario. This takes on added meaning when we look at the competitors and realize there is only a small number of players to begin with. For example, with search, even when we move past Google, how many options are there.?
Thus, the entire market value is captured by only a few players, with one being overwhelmingly dominant.
How this this translate when digitization spreads even further?
While we cannot say with certainty, it stands to reason that we will see a repeat unless something else steps in. Of course, entities like the IMF will offer up ideas of more regulation and, perhaps, even taxation, as fixing the problem.
The issue comes down to one of ownership. Here is where the basis of Web 3.0 pops up.
Who owns the technology that is rolling out? The answer is clear. Since it requires huge money to get involved, it is Big Tech. Here is where the ownership of the average individual is non-existent.
When it comes to digital platforms, this is the core issue. The companies making the biggest changes in the world and, hence, generating the most value, are held by a small number of entities. When we look at the stock ownership, we see large institutions has the majority shareholders. We know the average citizen is not involved with the funds.
Thus, we see the potential where, like search, we own nothing. This is starting to sound like Klaus Schwab.
Web 3.0 takes a different perspective. Through tokenization, we see how people are not prohibited from being involved. Of course, we see how governments want to step in and take this away from people, all in the name of protecting them. By doing this, it cuts off their lifeline and puts them in the enslaved state.
Sure, why not hand it all to the "accredited investors"?
Fortunately for us, Web 3.0 is global. This is not something that governments can stop. Cryptocurrency is beyond their reach. The evolution keeps expanding daily, making it harder to reign in.
This is but the beginning. Just like we see with the transfer and storage of value, this concept has to move to AI and other technological areas. The process is the same, simply altering what we are dealing with.
At the core, it is identical. We are dealing with data. That is all cryptocurrency is. Tied to this is code (software) that runs specific operations on said data. algorithms are created to provide information and services as required.
The same is true for AI. We can start the process of shifting things in another direction.
If we do not, we all have a pretty good idea how this will unfold.
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