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Machine tools replaced blacksmiths
CNC machines replaced manual machines.
Robots replaced CNC machine tenders
CAD replaced draftsman (and also pushed that job onto engineers (grr))
P&P robots replaced human production lines.
The steam train replaced the horse and cart
This is a tale as old as time itself
Also note that there are inventions that may “replace” some part of a process, but actually induce a greater demand for labor in that process. Take the cotton gin, for example, which exploded the number of slaves required to pick cotton.
Tools are not replacements for people! Tools are enhancements.
AI is an attempt to replace people with something unhuman.
But for now it's strictly hypothetical. Nothing I'm doing with AI matters enough to really make any statements about a broader scale in my field, let alone in entire economies.
The more I think about it though, I'm not sure feudalism is the right analogy. Serfs had a purpose and were depended upon. In a society where AGI is in the hands of a few, it seems reasonable to believe that there wouldn't be a need for serfs at all. Labour would become utterly irrelevant. You'd have no lord to be bound to. You'd be unnecessary.
I imagine the transition there would be some brutal form of capitalism, but the destination would not be fuedalism. I don't think we have a historical analog for that hypoethical destination.
However it has been over 500 years since feudalism. People today are still very much living with the consequences of colonialism, some people are in fact still living under colonial rule (notably in Western Sahara and Palestine). The consequences of feudalism have long passed. I think it is fine actually to conflate the horrors of capitalism with the horrors of feudalism. 500 years ought to be long enough.
We were supposed to put "breaks" in place, like anti-monopoly laws, but they've never been effective, because capitalists quickly found "that one loophole": bribing politicians
Through that analysis, one can also explain why the managerial caste is so obsessed with it - it is nothing less than an ideological device. One can also see this in the actual deification happening in some VC cycles and their belief in AGI as some sort of capitalist savior figure.
I see the point and don't disagree with it, but I find that framing is not the most compelling to the audience here...
At the firm level, automating away labor costs is obviously rational. But capital in aggregate can't actually rid itself of labor, since labor is where surplus value comes from. A fully automated economy would be insanely productive and generate basically no profit. So the capitalist class pursuing this logic collectively is, without knowing it, pursuing the dissolution of the system that makes them the capitalist class.
You don't have to buy any of that to notice the more immediate mechanism though: AI doesn't need to actually replace workers to discipline them. The credible threat of replacement is enough to suppress wages, justify restructuring, and extract more from whoever's left. That's already happening and requires no AGI.
You just have to look at 99% of what AI is used for today: disinformation, and creating fake porn videos
Ten years ago, what would it have cost you to build a Jira clone / competitor? Today one person can do it in a week, at least for the core tech.
In a year, only the very largest companies will pay for that kind of infrastructure tooling.
We’ve just started seeing the democratization of software and the capitalists are terrified.
People pay for things in all economic models. It’s bizarre to think that means everything is capitalism.