Thulean Economics II

See Thulean Economics.

In Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years, unless I have misunderstood it:

conscious artificial intelligences control nanotechnological production of goods, services and art works;

the "ruling intellects" are human, electronic or linked, not just electronic, and even the entirely electronic intellects are conscious - like the equivalent AIs in Anderson's Harvest Of Stars and Genesis.

If there is any reason to suspect that I have misunderstood Boat and that its electronic intellects are in fact unconscious, then I will have to reread the text very carefully.

If, by "AIs," we mean artificial intelligent and conscious entities, then the human-AI interaction is between two kinds of consciousness. Further, self-reproducing, post-organic consciousnesses might indeed be a post-human stage of evolution.

However, Harari tells us that unconscious AIs now compose music and write haikus that are appreciated by human beings. Needless to say, only conscious beings can appreciate works of art. Harari also suggests two future scenarios:

unprecedented wealth and power for the tiny human elite owning algorithms, consequent poverty and powerlessness for everyone else;

the algorithms themselves becoming legal persons, like gods, nations and corporations before them, and owning the planet, in one speculation even eliminating humanity.

Something has gone wrong with these scenarios! In the first example, the global population would have to dispossess that tiny elite and appropriate its wealth. In the second example, how could conscious human beings possibly allow unconscious algorithms to own everything on Earth? AIs might exterminate us out of fear that we might turn against them? (p. 381) Unconscious entities cannot experience fear.