I think if I was born into real real poverty in the UK, I think it's kind of a bit of a fantasy that I would — I think it would be a lot more challenging for me to be sat here with you right now. And I think that people don't want to engage with that too much because also a lot of our culture is saturated with these ideas of rags to riches stories and people overcoming. And I think for the most part it's a fantasy.
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"If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn't know ahead of time who you were going to be — what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you'd be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you'd be born into — you wouldn't choose 100 years ago. You wouldn't choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You'd choose right now."
Barack Obama
The fundamental danger isn't human obsolescence, it's that humans will be outcompeted for scarce natural resources. It's possible that AI will grow so valuable that its owners bid up the price of energy astronomically — so high that humans can't afford fuel, electricity, manufactured goods, or even food. At that point, humans would indeed be immiserated en masse.
Noah Smith
There was just one basic problem with college as America's primary unifying institution, which is that not everyone can go to college. First of all, college is difficult. To complete college courses, you need some degree of raw intelligence, but you also need work ethic and a certain degree of independence.
Noah Smith