Hi Alan.

I too would not be comfortable with machines making decisions for society — wait, actually I might, when I think about those who make decisions for us today! :-( and those who have made decisions for us in the past! (Hitler, Genghis Khan, …)

Regarding where the rich would get their money from, they would create the money, and they would use it among themselves. They would not need the masses to buy things — the rich will just make what they need. Their power would derive from their ownership of natural resources, and their ability to maintain that ownership (private armies?)

I know it sounds awful — but that is truly where I think we are headed. Our legal and political system now moves too slowly to deal with the challenges that technology throws at it. Today it is technology that empowers those who rise to the top — through surveillance, information, intellectual property, and control of the media. The Google founders have enormous power. Jeff Bezos has as much power as any politician — perhaps more. Now imagine a time when someone like him controls the robots.

Aggregated power is always the main societal threat, and technology is what gives small groups the ability to aggregate and maintain power. It started with the invention of the spear, and then the bow and arrow, and then gun powder, and so it goes. The problem is that today things change so quickly, that societal wisdom cannot evolve and keep up with the day’s threats. People just don’t see the threats that are on the horizon — the ownership consolidation threats and the technology threats. They cannot look ahead.

Artificial intelligence, is a far, far bigger threat than climate change, but people are clueless about AI’s threat. It is true that today’s AI systems are really just pattern matchers and pattern generators, but that will change as we learn to interconnect neural networks of different kinds, to create more complex systems. Intelligence will emerge from those interconnected networks, once we learn what the right architecture is. It will not take as long as people think.