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The core doctrine and capitalism of showbiz are always wanting more of them. Tech executives now promise everything, not just more.
The rallying cry that has been heard beyond Silicon Valley is that artificial intelligence will lead to a rich world of idealistic executives and engineers who want technology to solve epic problems like hunger, poverty, and illness. The use of abundance in this context is to reconstruct the current confusion as a pleasant destiny.
“The next decade will be about abundant intelligence and abundant energy,” Openai CEO Sam Altman told the US Senate this month. In January, the new dad said he hopes that his child’s future will retain “affluence” and “prosperity.”
This vision also provides a convenient sheen for short-term harm. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei created a rival chatbot Claude, urging executives and politicians to stop “sugar coating,” highlighting the possibility that AI could eliminate half of its entry-level white-collar jobs and increase unemployment by 10-20% over the next year.
The concept is not new. Abundance is the title of a 2012 book on a topic by futurist Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, written 10 years before ChatGpt exploded on the scene. It claims that a variety of emerging technologies, including AI, will create a positive future.
High-tech executives and venture capitalists Mark Andreesen and Vinodokosla are increasingly embracing the term, seeking to frame AI as the key to the future of “post-skull city.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told Bloomberg last month. He said he believes that AI can bring more social benefits than the Industrial Revolution. “Generating abundance, he said, “Then the question is what to do with that richness to create more surplus.”
His argument is economic. The hundreds of billions of dollars Microsoft is spending on AI will generate trillions of dollars from economic activity, claiming that data centers will lead to more construction, energy consumption and manufacturing.
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s Deepmind, claims that AI can help develop new energy sources such as nuclear fusion. More broadly, he added: “All of a sudden, much of the underlying elements of the capitalist world is not going to happen any longer, and we should be economically in this new era.”
As a result, he and others argue that a new political philosophy will be needed. New York Times journalist Ezra Klein explored in his most recent bestseller, called by nature, argued that liberals should embrace innovation and overcome the stagnation caused by overregulation.
But even those who pushed in abundance that AI could mean that our economic system would become unrecognizable. Speaking to then-Minister Rishi Snack in 2023, Tesla and Zai CEO Elon Musk said “there’s going to be some points where you don’t need work.”
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He set it as a positive scenario. There, working is a personal choice and there is a “universal high income.” Abundance is “a bit of magical magical matters. If there are magical genie gods who can give all wishes, then usually those stories don’t work – be careful of what you want.”
Abundant times may sound good, especially with ample resources. However, reality can become even more depressing when a person is unemployed and alone. A report from the World Economic Forum in April found that 40% of employers hope that AI will reduce the workforce that can automate tasks. The report expects 11 million jobs to be created as a result of the technology, but at the same time it will replace 9 million current roles.
While waiting for AI shakeout, you need to make sure your vision of abundance is backed up by actual plans. It needs to ensure that workers are trained, economic policy creation, and the true collapse of rewards. And if these promises are taken seriously, we should all be prepared for a very different future.
“If things go well, the whole concept of career seems as old-fashioned as the notion of being a serf,” David Dalimple, program director for the British government’s advanced research and invention agency, told me. “We should imagine a meaningful and fulfilling life that doesn’t involve what we currently consider as a career.”
Cristina.criddle@ft.com
