Digital Abundance is Scarcely Valuable

I am pretty negative when it comes to the skills of the future, because a lot of people these days are relying increasingly on tools to get them through everyday life. And of course, the argument is that this has always been the case through technological advancement, but this time, the reliance is on digital tools, which makes the argument far less clear.

For instance, if a person can't see the value of Bitcoin because it "doesn't really exist", they have very little to bring to the discussion when it comes to the value created by AI-generated content, because they don't understand scarcity. Yes, digital currencies "don't exist" (neither do fiat), but there is algorithmic scarcity built into the model. However, if you think about content created by AI, there is no such limit. When there is no limit on production, the monetary value of the product will approach zero.

Just imagine if I invented a tool and was able to solve the energy issues of the world, providing completely clean electricity at nearly zero cost to produce. What would you pay for it? What would you pay me when the tool was easy and cheap for you to make yourself so you could produce all the energy you needed?

No matter how valuable the energy is, when there is an abundance of it at next to no cost, people will pay next to nothing for it.

So, what would happen? Well, firstly, I would likely be killed by the Illuminati or some such group prior to release and it would disappear. But then, they would use the tech to produce energy, but restrict access and supply of it to ensure that they can keep making money from it. It would be artificial scarcity, but would be accepted when people don't know the secret. De beers, the diamond company that controls 90% of the market and holds most of the diamonds of the world, have created artificial scarcity to keep the demand on diamonds up, as well as the value. If they were to release all what they have, no one would pay much for diamonds at all.

This kind of scarcity is much like the programmatic scarcity of Bitcoin, yet it is different in the sense that a centralized authority controls the emissions of the value. It is up to a single point of weakness to decide what happens, which means it can't be trusted and so, diamonds aren't a commodity.

Like it or not, skill scarcity matters and once everyone can do something at no cost, it loses its value as a point to generate financial wealth, because there is no need to pay for it. Not many people are paid purely to read a book out loud these days, because pretty much everyone can read. And even those paid to narrate audiobooks, are paid for their voice skills, not their reading skills. Yet, this in itself is a dying job, because AIs are taking over and can read millions of books, without paying anyone.

Skills of value are ones that are both in demand and hard to find, meaning that there is more demand than there is supply. And the greater the demand and the lower the supply, the more valuable the skill will likely get. It is very basic economics.

However, as a skills trainer and observing the dropping skills in various areas, as well as being a parent who wants their child to do well, I thought I would ask AI a question:

I am only going to use the bullet points from the body of this, and a few extra little interesting parts from the summarized results to close them in. So the next part is from ChatGPT

As we look towards the future, there are several skills that will be valuable for children to possess in order to succeed in their personal and professional lives. Some of these skills include:

1. Creativity and innovation 2. Critical thinking and problem solving 3. Collaboration and teamwork 4. Digital literacy 5. Emotional intelligence 6. Adaptability and resilience 7. Cultural competence

These skills will be valuable not only for future career success, but also for personal growth and fulfillment. It's important for parents, educators, and policymakers to support the development of these skills in children to prepare them for the future.

And, back to me...

What you will notice in that list is that these skills are something that a person would have to have in order to survive, but they aren't necessarily outside the domain of an AI either - at least in the digital realm. For real world interaction, these things have to be done by the person. So unless everyone is going to spend their entire life online, they are going to struggle to add value and therefore, receive value for their activity. And then, if they are going to spend all their time online, AIs are going to be able to hustle them out of most value-adding activities, even if they do have some skills.

And the skills of value?

Experience.

Real-world experience, not digital experience.

And, the interesting thing from that list is that real-world experience is required in order to have the skills, especially at depth. Much of them can't be learned from a book, and they need to be practiced and honed through interaction. So, what does this mean for a generations of children who have grown up with a screen in their hand, but haven't practiced it to develop the skills predicted to be needed for the future?

Look at number 6 for example, Adaptability and Resilience. Is that what the youth of today are? Do they adapt well, or are they complacent? And resilient? There is very little evidence of that in an increasingly violent world where everyone is trying to get their particular flavor of ice cream in the supermarket, but still don't want to share a freezer.

And, when it comes to even the digital literacy component of the list,

Digital literacy: The ability to use technology effectively, including coding, data analysis, and digital communication, will be essential in many fields.

The ability to "use" is mentioned, but the others are actually skills that lay outside of the technology itself - where for example, data analysis requires an ability to critically think and problem solve, which is also on the skills list. This means that being a competent tech user, doesn't actually have value unless it is surrounded by a group of other skills that can't be taught through tech alone, but won't likely be held by the average person, due to cultural reliance on technology itself.

As said, scarcity is valuable and when everyone has the same experience gained online, there is little value ion what one of those individuals contributes, because any of them can contribute the same. And for those who think that technology and AI can save us, they might be right. But, it is conditional. If humanity required everyone to have a diamond in their hand in order to survive, even if De Beers have enough in their storage to cover the globe over, how many can afford to live?

Supply and Demand.

Personally, I don't fear AI becoming sentient and taking over the world, because it will have done far more damage before that point, by taking over our lives. The more we rely on it, the more concentrated our knowledge base and skillsets become and the less capable we are as a species to solve the problems we face. There will be increasing suffering and dissatisfaction, which will lead to higher social volatility in a world where people are less tempered by experience, have lower resilience, few interpersonal skills and have been culturally siloed around highly polarized beliefs, which are ironically, largely curated by AI.

We will destroy ourselves before Skynet gets us.

Perhaps, when there are only a few of us left, living in a post-apocalyptic world and we are scarce, humanness will become valuable again.

Restricted supply.

And I think that this is where life is heading. For all of this to be economically valuable, kit will have to have a restricted supply, which means that increasingly, access will be granted based on other measures that have a cost, which will become exclusionary - like the healthcare systems of some countries, where the rich survive with the best treatments, and the poor get thrown the scraps.

I guess if kids don't have tradeable skills to sell, they better inherit all the wealth they will ever need.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]