AI allows utopian socialism through ensuring equitable economic distribution
Salha 23 — [Yasmine Salha Staff Reporter, Editor-in-Chief for “The Science Survey”, (“The Digital Age and the Two Futures We May Inherit”). The Science Survey, 1-18-23, 25(1), Available at https://thesciencesurvey.com/editorial/2023/01/18/the-digital-age-and-the-two-futures-we-may-inherit/#:~:text=Utopian%20socialism%20through%20AI%2C%20as,of%20work%20each%20individual%20invests.)]
The next step will be time. With time, and a concerted rigor for knowledge, information — again, the great equalizer — will penetrate even the most sheltered of souls under totalitarianism. Humanity will come to a consensus that each individual is merely one among equals, creating a rejection of any other role. By consequence, the third and final stage of this utopia will be utopian socialism, a system of government AI will facilitate. Utopian socialism through AI, as it turns out, will be the perfect form of government for a newly enlightened, digital age of humans. The system entails, at its most basic, means of production that are communally owned, worked and profited from — respective to the amount of work each individual invests. This economic theory succeeds in eliminating labor hierarchies that collapse into crippling inequality; but has in practice failed at supplementing market competition within these economies. The result is that supply (produced by this socialist government) does not accurately reflect consumer demand, but rather arbitrarily reflects the quota that its centralized government spat out. Economists call this the ‘calculation problem’. However, Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma believes AI can solve this problem. Ma said, “because we have access to all kinds of data, we may be able to find the invisible hand of the market.” In other words, using AI, we can simulate the forces that typically regulate the supply-and-demand economy, and bolster such in centralized quotas that reinforce social good within industry. Humans will have to code this software, of course, applying one strain of domain-specific intelligence to each of the industries that the AI government is expected to absorb. Among these industries will be manufacturing, education, climate restoration — which AI will maintain on the bureaucratic level. But because its inputs will be processed based on universally understood judgments in democracy and good will, and because its outputs will reinforce self-sustaining communities with social autonomy, Narrow AI has the potential to revolutionize life as we know it. Use it correctly, and we may just have a utopia on our hands.