If AI makes human labor obsolete, who decides who gets to eat?

"How will we be fed? That's the biggest question not seriously being addressed amid all this talk about whether or not artificial intelligence will end up taking over all of our jobs. Formidable though the technology appears, similar fears have popped up repeatedly since the Industrial Revolution, and most working-age adults remain employed. Still, what is sorely missing is a serious debate about what to do if this future in fact materializes."

"For Open AI's Sam Altman the future can be vastly better than the present because AI will make us stinking rich. But that seems like a risky assumption, for almost everyone except Altman and his fellow techno-oligarchs. Even if AI generates enormous economic prosperity, its distribution will remain a political challenge. This juncture calls for a serious, open debate about how the fruits of this prosperity will be apportioned among humanity."

"Addressing the question has two parts. The first is about how to design a technically efficacious system to redistribute the fruits of the economy as machines take over and labor's share of income drops eventually near zero. The more important question, though, is about how this economic reorganization will restructure power. Who will decide what to tax once AI destroys labor income, which provides the main source of government revenue in most advanced countries?"

AI-driven automation could drastically reduce labor's share of income, raising urgent questions about food security and how people will be fed. AI can generate enormous prosperity, but political mechanisms for distributing that wealth are lacking. Redistribution requires technically effective systems and decisions about taxation in a world where labor income vanishes. Concentration of economic power among techno-billionaires risks centralizing allocation choices for money, energy, and minerals, potentially sidelining public priorities like healthcare, agriculture, and education. Safeguards are needed to preserve human agency, oversight, and accountability in decisions about resource allocation and the future organization of society.

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