ai's promise to investors is to replace most if not all of the workers in all of the industries and take all their salaries. I don't think it's going to happen, not because it's not possible, but because given open source will make state of the art ai free, eventually all intellectual labor will be free. I'm not sure how this works out in the end, given many companies essentially provide services to other companies, but ai makes all companies and even individuals self-sufficient so companies will no longer need other companies and individuals won't need companies or tradesmen.
I can foresee hardware companies having an edge, as people are likely to buy ai hardware and robots to engage in labor. But this is only a temporary edge, as once Agi is reached it is likely advanced manufacturing might become zero cost too, allowing anyone to manufacture whatever they want including the ai hardware or robots. But such a development might take years or a few decades to be reached.
How can advanced manufacturing reach zero cost? Through the use of molecular machines, that can operate at atomic scale and use cheap ubiquitous materials found in soil and the environment to produce advanced competitive products through the manipulation of the nanoscale structure of simple common elements. Since the labor is zero as it is automated machinery of the type known as molecular machines, which can self-replicate from cheap ubiquitous materials, and since the intellectual labor is zero, and since the materials can be found in the backyard of anyone or even a landfill, the cost is essentially zero.
But as always unless intellectual property laws change, it is likely people will still try and give whatever they earn to certain companies or individuals based on popularity or trends, allowing wealth to concentrate, despite most individuals and companies becoming self-sufficient which destroys much of the need for trading or buying services or resources. For example, just because one can have unlimited songs or movies identical in quality and in private even using any intellectual property desired, doesn't mean that actors, sports athletes, and singers won't draw crowds and fill theaters and stadiums. Certain brands might also attract popularity.
But as I've always said copyright reform is needed, anyone should be able to make derivative works, and the copyright owner should only get a reasonable share of royalties, not be able to stop the creation of new art or scientific innovation.
In the midterm, it is indeed interesting what will happen as more and more companies and individuals become self-sufficient and no longer need to buy most others' services or products. This is particularly worrisome for those without assets. Because with assets you can see an individual acquire robots, robocars, ais, etc. to be able to participate in the economy and acquire sufficient investments to live off of dividends or low interest loans against their investments. But without assets, as more and more companies no longer need workers, not only are they likely to lose their jobs, but there will be less and less jobs overtime leaving more and more permanently unemployed and without any resources to fend for themselves.
At the same time the welfare state is in jeopardy due to the growing debt and interest on the debt, the welfare that might help individuals who're made permanently unemployed might be put in jeopardy. This could result in mass starvation and death if things turned out for the worse.
But at the end of the road, an age of untold abundance seems likely to come out, still unknown how exactly it'll evolve when basically any company and individual is entirely self-sufficient able to themselves produce all products of all companies of the economy.
