Epistemic status: My own thoughts. Not predictions, just illustrations for the taxonomy. I think the taxonomy is still not perfect.
AI use: research, discussion of the taxonomy and examples, grammar and phrasing, fact-checking/editorial review, and footnote formatting.
I've read Capital Ownership Will Make You Go Crazy First.[1] At first, I felt like the post didn't fully specify the world in which the permanent underclass exists, but after a deeper look, I was able to see the argument. This reminded me that people use "permanent underclass" to describe lots of different outcomes, which makes discussing the topic very hard. Often, the outcome of such a conversation is realizing that we understand "permanent underclass" differently. This understanding is mostly based on the future we imagine, and the crux of the disagreement is the difference between these imagined futures. Thus, I'm curious to try categorizing these different uses of "permanent underclass" to make up my mind about it and use the term more easily in conversations.
To start, I use "upper class" to describe people who control AI directly or indirectly (including its infrastructure), and the people they care about and bring with them into the upper class. "Underclass" means everyone else: people excluded from wealth and power, with no way to change that.
Dimensions
I see the following relevant dimensions for describing a "permanent underclass" world. There are interconnections between the dimensions, so they are not perfectly orthogonal, which is why the taxonomy isn't perfect:
Living conditions - death → severe deprivation → basic subsistence → comfortable provision → luxurious provision.
Agency, with these subdimensions:
Personal discretion - what one can do with their life: activities, work, spending, relationships, and expression.
Collective influence - how much the permanent underclass as a whole can influence society. This is closely connected to how advanced AI is and how firmly the upper class holds power (e.g. weaponized barricades to keep the underclass out versus something more like modern society).
Exit - can one advance into the upper class? Can their children do it? Can any descendant do it? Or can they bypass the classification completely, for example by moving into a non-AI enclave?
Cognitive autonomy - can one form their own views in ways they personally endorse, or is everything practically dictated externally?
AI control - how many stakeholders control AI? No one? One person? Thousands? Are there competing providers? Does the underclass have access to AI? Is it a weaker version than what the upper class uses?
Concrete examples
Extermination - the upper class no longer needs the underclass, so all outsiders are actively exterminated. Basically an extreme case of the Intelligence Curse.[2] Nowadays, elites depend on ordinary people for labor, so countries are incentivized to keep ordinary people reasonably healthy, educated, and happy. In addition, ordinary people can hypothetically act as one entity and amass power that way, either politically (elections) or through violence (revolution). In this world, AI can do everything, and the elites, for some reason, don't want non-elites around (perhaps they just want Earth to be in a more natural state). I find this somewhat unlikely; abandonment seems more likely.
Abandonment - similar to extermination, but there is no active desire to kill the permanent underclass. Instead, they are just ignored. They don't have any power in the old society, but they have access to land and resources and have to fend for themselves in the wild.
Active oppression - a variation of extermination where the underclass is not killed directly, but is deliberately placed in harsh conditions that kill them slowly.
Modest UBI - everyone gets enough to survive, but remains on the verge of poverty. This happens either through the kindness of elites or through the masses preserving their political power.
Luxurious UBI - everyone gets access to AI abundance and lives a luxurious life. You are still clearly distinct from the elite; for example, their quality of life is better.
Elite UBI - everyone basically lives an elite lifestyle, and elite status is only nominal, based on ownership. It's hard to imagine how this could happen.
Conditional abundance - as long as a person accepts the rules set by the elite, they can live a comfortable life. Materially, they are doing well, but they have no independence.
Democratic abundance - the majority of people lose their jobs, but have enough rights and political power to access AI output and live a comfortable life. The upper class is still much richer and has a higher quality of life, but the distinction is not dramatic (basically comparable to today's society). In this example, it's not even clear that there is an underclass.
Independent enclave - the underclass has the option to leave the old society and join a new, completely independent non-AI society. It requires old-school work and offers a lower quality of life, but basically preserves the status quo from before AI.
Epistemic status: My own thoughts. Not predictions, just illustrations for the taxonomy. I think the taxonomy is still not perfect.
AI use: research, discussion of the taxonomy and examples, grammar and phrasing, fact-checking/editorial review, and footnote formatting.
I've read Capital Ownership Will Make You Go Crazy First. [1] At first, I felt like the post didn't fully specify the world in which the permanent underclass exists, but after a deeper look, I was able to see the argument. This reminded me that people use "permanent underclass" to describe lots of different outcomes, which makes discussing the topic very hard. Often, the outcome of such a conversation is realizing that we understand "permanent underclass" differently. This understanding is mostly based on the future we imagine, and the crux of the disagreement is the difference between these imagined futures. Thus, I'm curious to try categorizing these different uses of "permanent underclass" to make up my mind about it and use the term more easily in conversations.
To start, I use "upper class" to describe people who control AI directly or indirectly (including its infrastructure), and the people they care about and bring with them into the upper class. "Underclass" means everyone else: people excluded from wealth and power, with no way to change that.
Dimensions
I see the following relevant dimensions for describing a "permanent underclass" world. There are interconnections between the dimensions, so they are not perfectly orthogonal, which is why the taxonomy isn't perfect:
Living conditions - death → severe deprivation → basic subsistence → comfortable provision → luxurious provision.
Agency, with these subdimensions:
AI control - how many stakeholders control AI? No one? One person? Thousands? Are there competing providers? Does the underclass have access to AI? Is it a weaker version than what the upper class uses?
Concrete examples
Extermination - the upper class no longer needs the underclass, so all outsiders are actively exterminated. Basically an extreme case of the Intelligence Curse. [2] Nowadays, elites depend on ordinary people for labor, so countries are incentivized to keep ordinary people reasonably healthy, educated, and happy. In addition, ordinary people can hypothetically act as one entity and amass power that way, either politically (elections) or through violence (revolution). In this world, AI can do everything, and the elites, for some reason, don't want non-elites around (perhaps they just want Earth to be in a more natural state). I find this somewhat unlikely; abandonment seems more likely.
Abandonment - similar to extermination, but there is no active desire to kill the permanent underclass. Instead, they are just ignored. They don't have any power in the old society, but they have access to land and resources and have to fend for themselves in the wild.
Active oppression - a variation of extermination where the underclass is not killed directly, but is deliberately placed in harsh conditions that kill them slowly.
Modest UBI - everyone gets enough to survive, but remains on the verge of poverty. This happens either through the kindness of elites or through the masses preserving their political power.
Luxurious UBI - everyone gets access to AI abundance and lives a luxurious life. You are still clearly distinct from the elite; for example, their quality of life is better.
Elite UBI - everyone basically lives an elite lifestyle, and elite status is only nominal, based on ownership. It's hard to imagine how this could happen.
Conditional abundance - as long as a person accepts the rules set by the elite, they can live a comfortable life. Materially, they are doing well, but they have no independence.
Democratic abundance - the majority of people lose their jobs, but have enough rights and political power to access AI output and live a comfortable life. The upper class is still much richer and has a higher quality of life, but the distinction is not dramatic (basically comparable to today's society). In this example, it's not even clear that there is an underclass.
Independent enclave - the underclass has the option to leave the old society and join a new, completely independent non-AI society. It requires old-school work and offers a lower quality of life, but basically preserves the status quo from before AI.
Jan Kulveit, Capital Ownership Will Make You Go Crazy First. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Stzb33XDsr4uHNerX/capital-ownership-will-make-you-go-crazy-first ↩︎
Luke Drago and Rudolf Laine, The Intelligence Curse. https://intelligence-curse.ai/ ↩︎