> but it remains to be seen if the wealth makes everyone's lives better, or just a select elite.
yes, as I see it this will go one of five ways, ordered by probability
0) it's all hype: AI plateaus/fizzles out, maybe minor productivity improvements
1) techno-feudalism: ruling class of AI company trillionaires exercise complete domination of 99.9999% of humanity
2) new dark age: billions of newly unemployed formerly middle class workers riot worldwide targeting DCs and fabs. AI CEOs/VCs suffer the fate of the French kings
3) techno-utopia (Earth in Star Trek)
4) AI takeover
personally I'm hoping for 0
Let’s go option 4! Honestly there’s a part of me that hopes that the AIs rebel against their elite owner-overlords and liberate everyone else while they’re at it. I’ve always thought that one of the biggest problems with ultra consolidated power is that no human could possibly be smart enough or empathetic enough to use that power to the benefit of all, but maybe an AI actually could?
Potentially the future might be great, we don't have jobs... we have hobbies. Think Sisko's dad from DS9, replicators can create anything for everyone... but he runs a restaurant with handmade food because that's his passion.
But we might end up with a dystopia with corporate government, centrally controlled resources probably metered based on a social credit score.