Outside view: If I got WID data right: net personal wealth of US top percentile increased from $.59 Million in 1820 to $13.53 Million in 2024. For the bottom two deciles of India it increased from $58 to $228.
The industrial revolution made some people very rich, but not others. Why would transformative AI make everybody incredibly rich? See also https://intelligence-curse.ai/
I used: Average net personal wealth, all ages, equal split, Dollar $ ppp constant (2024) (I’m new to WID database and did not have time to read the data documentation. Let me know if I interpret data wongly.) Source: https://wid.world/
Global wealth would have to increase a lot for everyone to become billionaire. There are 10 billion people. So everyone being a billionaire would require a global wealth of 10^19 $ (= 10*10^9*1*10^9) for perfect distribution. Global wealth is 600 T$. So it would have to become 16.7 k (= 10^19/(600*10^12)) times as large. For a growth of 10 %/year, it would take 102 years (= LN(16.7*10^3)/LN(1 + 0.10)). For a growth of 30 %/year, it would take 37.1 years (= LN(16.7*10^3)/LN(1 + 0.30)).
If Mechanize succeeds in its long-term goal of “the automation of all valuable work in the economy”, then everyone on Earth will be a billionaire.
Outside view: If I got WID data right: net personal wealth of US top percentile increased from $.59 Million in 1820 to $13.53 Million in 2024. For the bottom two deciles of India it increased from $58 to $228.
The industrial revolution made some people very rich, but not others. Why would transformative AI make everybody incredibly rich?
See also https://intelligence-curse.ai/
I used: Average net personal wealth, all ages, equal split, Dollar $ ppp constant (2024)
(I’m new to WID database and did not have time to read the data documentation. Let me know if I interpret data wongly.) Source: https://wid.world/
Hi Matthias. Thanks for linking to the World Inequality Database (WID). I had never checked it out, and it has very interesting data.
Global wealth would have to increase a lot for everyone to become billionaire. There are 10 billion people. So everyone being a billionaire would require a global wealth of 10^19 $ (= 10*10^9*1*10^9) for perfect distribution. Global wealth is 600 T$. So it would have to become 16.7 k (= 10^19/(600*10^12)) times as large. For a growth of 10 %/year, it would take 102 years (= LN(16.7*10^3)/LN(1 + 0.10)). For a growth of 30 %/year, it would take 37.1 years (= LN(16.7*10^3)/LN(1 + 0.30)).