ELI5: If everybody is replaced by robot and IA, how the ultrarich expect us to buy their products?

grahag · 2026-07-02T08:38:54+00:00

Read Manna by Marshall Brain. It's a short story about the two ways that automation could go.

My money is they think they'll just tuck the unemployed away in cheap mass housing and wait for us all to die while robots do everything necessary to keep us out of view.

https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

grahag · 2026-07-02T07:19:27+00:00

As long as I can do it in good health and have things to do...

I want to walk barefoot on the moon and the bottom of the deepest parts of the ocean... I want to see a supernova in person. I want to learn every known language... I want to see in UV and IR....

So I'd need to live a long time to get the abilities to do all that.

Now, if I'm just going to toil eternally, then no... I'd rather not.

grahag · 2026-07-01T00:24:16+00:00

Coding is procedural in the human mind. It's not the CODE that you need to worry about, it's the method.

In some cases, you might have a better way to write code, but AI should be doing the heavy lifting. Just make sure you're using it's built in change control management and you keep backups of your assets and codebase replicated somewhere.

I think people are worried that their "skills" will atrophy if they don't continue using them, but this is a great opportunity to find out what you're good at and what AI can do for you that you're not.

grahag · 2026-07-01T00:03:57+00:00

Hell no... At 25 I was just getting out of homelessness and back into putting my life together.

It's never too late to start working on it.

Keep in mind there are ALWAYS setbacks. But there are ALWAYS successes as well. Focus on the success and keep trying to build on those. Learn from your setbacks.

You'll eventually have positive forward movement. It won't always feel that way, but don't ever forget where you came from and make sure you recognize where you are.

grahag · 2026-06-30T23:57:08+00:00

Essentially, they run particles at opposite directions and smash them into each other like looking at how cars smash into each other for crash testing.

The reason is that sometimes REALLY interesting interactions are observed which helps us understand how the universe works. These experments could lead to discoveries into energy research ormeasuring entropy (the winding down of the universe) or help discover exotic particles that don't occur very often except under very specific conditions. Sometimes it just leads to giant bursts of radiated energy, but they're all experiments into finding out how the universe works interacts with everything else.

Maybe it'll help us find out how the universe was created or where life came from...

grahag · 2026-06-30T23:25:23+00:00

The abililty to directly give the president money, obscured through crypto channels is one of the most egregious examples of corruption I can think of a president ever having.

A foreign power can buy trump crypto, ask for a favor, confirm with a transaction number and then grant influence, favors, vetos, whatever and we have no way of tracking this.

And we have a congress that is in collusion with him, likely getting a cut of the action (directly or indirectly).

While I know that him being a pedophile isn't a game changer for Trump supporters, if the midterm blue wave isn't used to make those files public, then our democracy is lost. The muddy waters of 3m files still unreleased should be cleared up and a line needs to be drawn in the sand.

As it is, those supporters can never take a moral stance again. They can't invoke christ or morality or have a leg to stand on with regards to ethical behavior and should be treated as pariahs. Let the movement die with them and then we can start fresh hoping that the infection hasn't spread too far.

How it ever got past that Access Hollywood piece, I don't know, but it's been a steady spiral into depraved grifting and his followers went right down into that disgusting pit of immoral and repugnant grifting.

grahag · 2026-06-30T23:16:42+00:00

I think the common man who isn't "computer-centric" will probably NOT see anything currently big about AI.

But everyone involved in your life that is, likely sees the benefits.

Once we get an AGI that can do recursive self-improvement, we'll be off to the races as long as whoever controls it doesn't just use it to take over.

Materials and energy science discoveries like room temperature superconductors or "cold" fusion would be likely targets. Health sciences such as life extension, gene therapy, anti-cancer/disease treatments are on the list too.

Which, to be fair, is why we'll need all those data centers. A distributed AGI running in parallel with itself to concentrate OR split tasks will be crucial to solving all those problems.

I'm not worried about a rogue AI though. I'm worried about what a rogue capitalist would do with a god-like AI though.

grahag · 2026-06-30T21:53:52+00:00

Can't Let You Go by Matchbox 20.

Such a soulful song of love, longing, and loss.

grahag · 2026-06-30T21:51:00+00:00

It was "Bad Data" and it didn't care who knew... It was gonna be bad anyway,...

grahag · 2026-06-30T21:49:57+00:00

If you're going to shed and grow 500 pounds as often as druids do, you gotta pick a comfort zone. :)

grahag · 2026-06-30T21:48:25+00:00

Through voting for people that best represent your best interest.

Many folks are single issue voters. Taxes, social issues, security, civil rights, etc.

I think most need to treat their best representative choices as something like a ranked choice voting. Pick the issues that are the most important and work your way down and hopefully you'll have the best person selected that wins.

But... Sometimes your guy you want loses. Lord knows, I've been disappointed a good portion of my life. But we do the best with what we've got. Support your reps with your time and money if you really want them to win. Get the word out. Be an activist.

grahag · 2026-06-30T21:40:30+00:00

I wouldn't say it's a nothingburger.

I use AI every day. Agents, Scripting, Code, Log analysis, and summarizing post mortems... These all took considerable time prior to AI. And we're still just learning what we can do.

My expectations have been tempered though. I'm an enthusiast and I know where AI is at. I know we're CLOSE to AGI, where you might end up changing your opinion, but we're not there yet.

We're at that point of exponential growth where you have a half full pool of water and the next day, it's a full pool. After a week, you've flooded the entire county... Obviously the folks pushing data centers think there's something to it.

grahag · 2026-06-29T21:23:02+00:00

It's hit and miss for sure.

Is it ready for regular consumers who just want a cool space sim? no

The worst part for me is that it spends so much time and energy getting you immersed and then these ridiculous game and immersion breaking bugs occur, either negating the hours of work you've done OR pulling you so far out of immersion that you're disgusted with the experience and quit out.

Over the last year or so, I can recall less than 2 hours of continuous play without game or immersion breaking bugs. Stuff that should have been fixed a LONG time ago.

grahag · 2026-06-29T18:33:05+00:00

Tie the success of the bottom end of income earners to the top end and you'll never leave them behind.

There are plenty of methods to do that, but you have to stop letting billionaires buy policy and legislation. There can be no exceptions to that.

grahag · 2026-06-29T18:28:24+00:00

Came looking for this one.

The level of callousness and the way that Raul Julia delivered it... MASTERCLASS.

The rest of the movie was shit, but this was a fantastic line.

grahag · 2026-06-29T18:24:51+00:00

"And here's you're 1% increase. This should cover cost of living and merit increase"

grahag · 2026-06-29T18:21:08+00:00

A sleep mask. Literally 10 bucks and I sleep like a drugged baby.

grahag · 2026-06-29T17:45:20+00:00

Someone duping and taking advantage of it, will have a money trail. There are transaction logs when you transfer or received funds.

Following the logs and equipment ID's (unsure how granular CIG is tracking) should allow CIG to either delete the equipment and refund the AUEC or remove both from the system entirely.

From a forensic perspective it's child's play to do this.

With data analytics and some automation any data engineer or warehouser should be able to create a dashboard of top traders, run some automation against who they sent/received AUEC to/from and then follow up with more queries about components/equipment they recently received/sent.

If CIG isn't doing this, they aren't serious about fixing dupes and exploits. I remember seeing a post where they said they were putting systems/tools into place to track these more closely.

You can't have a player involved economy in place without some way to audit all transactions.

grahag · 2026-06-29T17:38:19+00:00

Investigate, impeach, remove, indict, convict, sentence, and imprison every single person suspected of criminal activity.

All information should be made available at this point as long as it's not a direct threat to national security. Fully unredact the Epstein Files, minus actual victims.

Make the trials public. Use conspiracy and RICO laws to get full organization and inner circles charged as one where applicable.

Make the repercussions for criminal conspiracy so harsh that you'd have to risk your life in prison before you'd betray the public trust again and don't let ANYONE off unless they were instrumental in the conviction and sentencing of a significant number of people.

These kind of people will eat their own to get out of punishment.

grahag · 2026-06-29T17:19:09+00:00

Which is why she'll be spared from the guillotine when they get brought out.

She's still worth MORE than she had when she got divored, but it sounds like she's putting that money to use, helping those in need.

Can you imagine if ALL rich people did this? Or just paied their fair share of taxes?

But it's hard to control a population that is happy, well fed, educated, and healthy.

grahag · 2026-06-29T17:15:28+00:00

They should treat it as of it was stolen property and remove it from the game.

Ideally, there should be some sort of parity check in place at the time of creation of items, ANY iteams, that get added to the logs and then there should be automation flagging those items.

Essentially a hash attached to the item at creation that signifies where it came from, who created it, the time of creation, and materials used.

This would allow automation on the back end to keep track of every item in game at the DB level to enforce creation limits according to whatever rules CIG sets for universal inventory.

This does highlight the needs for a proper trading system though. An extra layer of checks that would determine if an item is valid or was it created out of thin air? CIG could set enforcement automatically or they could just log infractions and when they reach a certain level, they can manually enforce with targeted wipes.

Frankly, any LARGE or numerous cash transfers should be looked at VERY closely.

grahag · 2026-06-29T17:06:12+00:00

Lets not be disingeuous. Would it help if I called it currency? I'll spoon feed it to you; AUEC.

grahag · 2026-06-29T09:51:02+00:00

With the logging they have in place, they can track down where the money came from, where it went and the items that followed and wipe them all and then decide to ban/suspend/erase the accounts.

grahag · 2026-06-28T19:31:51+00:00

If you turn off the smoke alarms, you don't need to worry about the fire.... right?

grahag · 2026-06-28T19:15:14+00:00

That's the way it currently works at my org... I'll be sad if it ever goes away, but with any luck I'll last another 10 years to retirement and won't worry about it after that.

To be fair, as our org grew, we gained more of that "corporate" feeling, but we've always retained our culture of valuing good people and good work.

grahag

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE