Hacker News Reader

> Could AI usher in a new era of wealth where nobody has to work? Sure, if you ignore the fact that the most likely scenario is that the value is captured by the current owning class, which is already well underway.

What "fact"? The average working hours per worker have been declining (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-working-hours-per-...). I assume you have compelling evidence that this trend will reverse?

View on HN

The fact is that worker productivity has tremendously increased, but worker income/wealth is stagnant. Only the owning class is reaping the benefits of increasing worker productivity.

Working hours will continue to fall as you say, but inequality will only get worse. Working 30 hours instead of 40 hours won’t change how poor everyone is.

Fortunately, the new wave of unionization and pro-labor sentiment is likely to start changing that. The young people growing up today have seen firsthand the devastation 40+ years of increasing concentration of wealth have wrought, and they are much less willing to accept it than the intervening generations have been.

In particular, I found one of Cory Doctorow's recent pieces[0] both informative and very hopeful.

[0] https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norm...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com