[ExI] How new AI economics might change our systems

[Ben Zaiboc]

On Wednesday, 23 September 2026 at 14:16, spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Ben
> Zaiboc via extropy-chat
> Subject: Re: [ExI] How new AI economics might change our systems
> 
> On Wednesday, 23 September 2026 at 00:30, spike at rainier66.com
> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> >>... I never would have predicted that China would suddenly stop
> > overgrowing its limits.  It's as if reproduction suddenly and
> > inexplicably went out of style.  It is happening here too.  We just don't
> recognize it yet.
> 
> 
> >...Murmurations of starlings are things I've been witnessing since I was a
> hatchling (until recently. Are they going extinct or something?), but I
> don't get your analogy. If humans were anywhere near as well-co-ordinated,
> half our problems wouldn't even exist.
> 
> ---
> Ben
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 
> 
> Starlings aren't coordinated in the way we think of the word.


Sure they are.
We know how it works, too. Look it up, it's interesting.


> They don't
> have a leader or anyone deciding what to do, but they all seem to
> simultaneously decide to do the same thing.


No, they each react to their neigbours. It's not exactly simultaneous, but it is very quick. It's an excellent example of emergent behaviour, where the actions and reactions of each single bird produce a completely different large-scale effect.


> We tend to view the flock as
> one huge entity or object which should have momentum, but it can wheel and
> turn as a single bird.


Not quite. If you look carefully, you can see that the flock keeps changing shape, so it doesn't behave like a single large bird. There's probably some mathematics or some computer model that describes it pretty well.


> Some species of fish do that too, a clear example of
> parallel evolution of a survival technique.


> To your point, I agree.  Half our problems might go away with advanced AI.
> Or AI might cause new problems, along with offering acceptable solutions to
> the new problems.


I doubt that it will be 'or'. 'And' is much more likely.


> Sure it is the optimistic view, but optimistic bets win
> sometimes as well.


If I wasn't optimistic, I wouldn't be hoping and planning to last as long as I can, in the hope of seeing a positive singularity. I'd be doing completely different things, prioritising short-term gratification and not considering how long I'll live.

So I suppose in those terms, I'm making an optimistic bet.

---
Ben