An MBA's wet dream: you don't buy a bike or even a bowl or spoon. You pay for it every time you need it. It's the "give away the razor, sell the blades" model applied at a societal level.
I didn't get the sense that everything was free, just transport, energy, and communication.
I hate agreeing with this person on anything, but I do tend to think that general-purpose automation will likely drop the cost of basic goods down to just above to the cost of the raw materials used to produce them. But if the demand for scarce materials exceeds the supply they'd still have to account for scarcity somehow: either through charging rent or through rationing.
Of course there's no way "the algorithm" is going to be totally unbiased, so maybe they'll just build the rationing into it: "I'm sorry Dave; I'm afraid I can't do that".
The "algorithm" is going to have to be Social Credit++ and it deeply concerns me that way that this author depicts slavish obeisance to what, if it's not a bunch of Silicon Valley elites, would be something that's functionally identical.
I mean, about the only way that's going to work is if being discovered criticising - or worse, engaging in private enterprise, something that might compete with your owners - results in you being cut out from society completely, but that's what this is set up to enable. Your entire lifestyle is predicated upon permission from some unknown entity assessing your actions.
Still, if you're a good dog and beg in just the right way, you might get some more ticks on your ration card. Sit, roll over.
An MBA's wet dream: you don't buy a bike or even a bowl or spoon. You pay for it every time you need it. It's the "give away the razor, sell the blades" model applied at a societal level.
Except you don't, it's all "free", decided by an algorithm, because the only thing owned by anybody in that entire scenario is you.
I didn't get the sense that everything was free, just transport, energy, and communication.
I hate agreeing with this person on anything, but I do tend to think that general-purpose automation will likely drop the cost of basic goods down to just above to the cost of the raw materials used to produce them. But if the demand for scarce materials exceeds the supply they'd still have to account for scarcity somehow: either through charging rent or through rationing.
Of course there's no way "the algorithm" is going to be totally unbiased, so maybe they'll just build the rationing into it: "I'm sorry Dave; I'm afraid I can't do that".
The "algorithm" is going to have to be Social Credit++ and it deeply concerns me that way that this author depicts slavish obeisance to what, if it's not a bunch of Silicon Valley elites, would be something that's functionally identical.
I mean, about the only way that's going to work is if being discovered criticising - or worse, engaging in private enterprise, something that might compete with your owners - results in you being cut out from society completely, but that's what this is set up to enable. Your entire lifestyle is predicated upon permission from some unknown entity assessing your actions.
Still, if you're a good dog and beg in just the right way, you might get some more ticks on your ration card. Sit, roll over.