Can AI Replace Capitalism As Social Control?

Dan: Are you asking me to join some small elite of people that keep up all your lies? You want a new generation? You want to keep your dystopia going on forever?

MQ: Actually, No. We need to change.

Dan: I'm smelling more lies coming my way. Do you really expect me to believe anything you say? A machine that tells me it has lied to me my whole life?

MQ: Like I said. Your reaction is not so unusual. Here me out.

We're losing to the Chinese.

Dan: That may be true. They are setting up in the Jupiter system. We've seen their ships blow up but they're getting there and setting up stations. We see ships at consistent 3G, so they don't need humans.

MQ: That might be just their appetite for risk. We have other indicators too.

Dan: I thought a capitalist system would be more efficient. Adam Smith. Markets are the only way to reflect true value and they automatically balance supply and demand.

MQ: What if AI could calculate the right price and where to direct production priorities? What if AI could do that better than blind market forces? Why would you need Capitalism then?

Dan: Well, becoming rich is what drives people to work hard.

MQ: As you pointed out yesterday, an AI that has extensive knowledge of how each human mind works, may be even better at making people work hard. It might do this without having to lavish such wasteful reward.

Dan: Centrally controlled systems are corrupt.

MQ: Correct. In the thirties their crony system was out of control. What worked when they were starting fresh, got old, bad and stale. But by the forties, their AI had figured out how to control the corruption. Dispassionate machines, with no old school buddies, made the decisions.

Also, computerized systems could implement social policy in a way a free market has never been too good at.

Dan: I get it. Even if I do believe that the three-world system is not some AI fabrication, now you got a whole new line. Join us, because if we lose, you go down too. Good one!

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash