Sam Altman is certainly getting a lot of attention these days. He is now one of the most watched figures in technology. The net result is that, whenever he says something, it gets massive coverage.
Recently he started to discuss the impact of AI. This led to the idea that we are going to see massive job destruction, leading us to a topic covered frequently on here.
What happens when labor income goes away?
As stated on a number of occasions, this is going to be something humanity will need to confront. How this is resolved is up to a great deal of speculation.
Altman's view is universal basic income, but with a slight twist.
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Compute For Everyone
One of the reasons I keep promoting Web 3.0 in these articles is because it provides a radically different ownership structure. In other words, the fruits of the economic output are distributed in a new manner. Here is where we can see change taking place.
Altman touches upon something interesting.
Over the years, we have compared the idea of income to ownership. Most focus upon income. How much do you make is often asked. What does the job pay?
Most of society is focusing upon income. Yet the wealthiest have a different metric: net worth.
Hence, the key is ownership.
Altman starts to touch upon this subject to a degree. His idea is for each to have a piece of GPT-7.
“2016 was a very long time ago. [...] I wonder if the future looks something more like universal basic compute than universal basic income and everybody gets a slice of GPT-7’s compute and they can use it, they can resell it, they can donate it to somebody to use for cancer research.”
This is not a bad framework to operate from.
Certainly, we cannot accurately comment on the prospect of this regarding this specific project since there are investors who are not simply going to give their stake away. The details of moving from basically a present system structure to something akin more to Web 3.0 is unclear at this point.
That said, what Altman is mentioning is what I think is at the core of any future solution. While income helps, the game changer are assets. Providing people with ownership is a radically new concept.
How that is achieved will be hotly contested (if it is even pursued).
Web 3.0 Is The Solution
There are many layers to Web 3.0. This is where the opportunity resides.
Consider for a moment, what we have today. There is infrastructure, base layer coins, sidechains, and applications along with games. Each layer can be tokenized, providing an incentive structure that garners participation.
This is something we can already see.
The challenge, which Altman is trying to address with Worldcoin, is the majority of the planet doesn't have the resources to buy in. It is the proverbial it takes money to make money. Infrastructure does come with a cost. While it is a solid way to generate a return, it is not guaranteed.
Worldcoin looks to change this by giving the coin away. Of course, we already saw major privacy issues related to this. Unfortunately, it is a situation where we have to trust Altman, something I am not willing to do. This is too much counterparty risk to take.
What if, however, people could receive tokens based upon their activity. This is a concept that Hive implemented years ago. By being active, base and second layer tokens can be accumulated. For the moment, the focus is upon content creation. That said, there were other experiments which delved into other areas of activity.
To his credit, Altman is thinking in the Web 3.0 direction. He is using AI (at least compute) as the asset base required for distribution.
This is in line with his thinking that compute is going to be the currency of the future.
Of course, tokenization is a quantified representation of that activity. Just look at the tokens used when doing a prompt in some chatbot.
The Scarcity Equation
We always have to keep looking at the abundance-scarcity equation.
Over time, scarcity changes. The question is what will be scarce in a decade?
My view is networks will be abundant. This means that, since people have so many choices, attention is going to be the premium commodity. However, if we go deeper, we see something even more fundamental.
If there are an abundance of networks, this means each is going to require a certain amount of compute. Altman latched onto this, taking this stance long ago.
It is ironic that cryptocurrency, tokens with market value that can be traded, are what alter the entire system. Tokens are nothing new. The challenge is most cannot be used for currency. They serve the purpose of quantifying compute yet do not enter the markets.
Cryptocurrency changes all that.
If compute is scarce, and is distributed, how is it monetized? Since Bitcoin came onto the scene, the answer is clear.
Abundance
Using compute as the currency of the future, how could that have any value if it is continually increasing?
This is the mistake people make believe currency is devalued simply with more of it generated. Actually, it is the opposite, if one condition is met.
Semiconductors have a CAGR of roughly 13%. This means that we saw the growth of the industry explode over the last half century. It is a metric, however, that does not take into account the actual compute. This is sales as expressed in dollars, which, at a minimum, followed Moore's Law.
Therefore, we see the actual amount of compute at a much higher level. Here is where the inflationists will start beating the drum.
Of course, it is a non-issue since we realize that compute is actually constrained. Over the next decade, the amount required is only going to keep expanding. Each time NVIDIA brings out a new chip, it is a major step up in processing over the previous generation, and they sell out like hotcakes on Sunday.
The scarcity model even arises with abundance if the growth is much higher. Considering what is being forecast in regards to our digital multi-world future and all that entails, it is easy to see how this will unfold.
Hence, whatever compute is rolled out will be swallowed up as technology advances further along. Just consider how much processing will be required for inference.
The question, as always, is who gets the financial benefits. Under the present system, we know it is a select handful of mega-corporations. This is where things need to change.
Altman is, at least on the surface, thinking of a new way of structuring things. He is the closest to the Web 3.0 world of any of the mainstream tech people.
We will see where this conversation leads.
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UBC instead UBI is an interesting idea. It kind of reminds me of the Matrix though. I appreciate more people thinking about this coming problem, and raising options like this will be helpful. We can hopefully find one that will work and benefit all.
Not sure how it is tied to the matrix. There is no doubt that computing is only going to have to increase. This is something that is going to be the foundation of all digital activity, which is expanding. in our world.
How this all figures into the replacement of income capital remains to be seen. Altman has his issues in terms of being power hungry but he does think about bigger issues.
Not sure if I want his solutions anymore than I want Zuckerbergs (who is at least open sourcing stuff these days).
Yeah, I don't think we want to use the suggestions of these billionaires as is. Most often than not, they will be profiting a lot from it. But we can take good points from it to find the optimal solution. The UBC can be similar to decentralization where everyone is a contributor. That is a good angle to look at.
The transformative potential of cryptocurrency in revolutionizing the concept of value and currency is indeed a thing in this contemporary world of ours. Altman's exploration of new structures aligns with the ethics and dictates of Web 3.0, which hints at a shift towards more equitable systems.
Worldcoin was something that generated a lot of controversy due to the fact of identity and security, but I remember endless lines of people scanning their eye to win some coins, I personally did not participate, besides that here in Venezuela this kind of thing is not seen very often.
I do not believe that AI will end employment, as much as technology is advancing I do not see a clear idea of how AI can become self sufficient without depending on humans, so in that way employment will always be there for everyone, it is just a matter of adapting to change and see that now AI can help us in many ways and that there are new professions thanks to AI.
It was interesting to read your article my friend, I hope you have a great start of the week.
I would say that, in the US, the labor force participation rate tells the entire story.
It peaked in 1998. Since that time, the percentage of working age people actually working had declined. Thus, I conclude there are less jobs as a percentage of the population. This is not surprising since we know technology only got more powerful.
If you see what OpenAI just released, you just saw two professions, call centers and translators wiped out.
Web3 gives us control and Taskmaster I'm real tempted to ask how AI and Blockchain are going to work hand in hand and how will it also merge with The Future of the Internet which most people think of as going to be : THE METAVERSE
Well if Altman has his way, they will not merge much. He wants everything centrally controlled, by him and others like him.
If we are to open things up, blockchain will have to be a mechanism of trust. For example, to prevent deepfakes, has the original posted on a blockchain (or tied to it) so it is trackable. Anything that is a fake will not mirror the original.
Wow this is truly an enlightenment.... There's so much potential I believe... In Blockchain merging.. the whole idea of Hive is so we don't have one group of people controlling everyone...
Absolutely power almost always corrupt absolutely
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