This is exactly why Larry Fink makes these statements: to singal the correct virtues and keep himself out of trouble. This is the modus operandi for most people who possess unfairly oversized influence today.
BlackRock helped to play one of the instrument, but there are many instruments in the game of finance.
See it this way:
In the old world, people produces actual product to get rich, the landlord, the factory owners etc. It worked out fine overall so the world accepted this game mode as an option, in addition to the old lord/emperor mode.
Then, some smart gamblers discovered that they can gamble on promises and expectations to get rich too, and it worked out good overall so the world again accepted it as a new game mode as an option too.
The wealth divide always exists, and historically can largely/only be destroyed by time and/or large scale disasters. But in the new gambler game mode, most people ain't in it (as in "It's a big club and you ain't in it" from George Carlin) and don't have the power to play it. It's a system don't reward honor, loyalty or labor. That's why most people are left out while the riches steams far ahead (then jets far ahead, then rockets far ahead, you get the idea).
> Says the man who actually widens the wealth divide.
Which doesn't make him wrong about the AI boom being a huge risk in making the wealth divide (already beyond gilded age levels) much worse.
Of course, because he is who he is the only solution he talks about is getting people to "invest in stocks", which, yeah that makes a ton of sense if you already have wealth since the current ruling class have shown that they will not, under any circumstances, let number go down even if none of the economics make sense (sure, they'll orchestrate a little dip here and there so they can profit massively off the insider information, but hey crime is legal bro).
But it does nothing for the many people who are really going to get squeezed here who are already living paycheck to paycheck and watching the water rise up to about their necks at this point.
Isn't this why this statement should be taken seriously?
But your statement implies the opposite, which is to ignore Larry Fink's warning. That appears irrational.
This is a man who's dedicated his life to enriching passive investors. The people building AI are working hard to push the frontiers of science and technology. They deserve to get rich. Because they're creating new wealth for all of us. Yet for some reason Larry Fink views this as a problem. That tells you all you need to know. His loyalty is to the idle ruling class that's so incompetent they need him to manage their wealth. Blackrock is a business that charges people a fee to take control of their shareholder voting rights basically, which is a power he's abused for years. Financial people don't build anything. Yet somehow the system gives him the authority to dictate decisions for the people who do. That system needs to change.
Until housing is solved the wealth divide will continue to grow whether ai lives up to expectations or not. Higher wealth taxing funding UBI etc. will be largely ineffective without solving housing.
All this new fangled talk about ABUNDANCE yadda yadda I find quite silly. We already live in abundance, most jobs for instance already pay very livable wages for example. It's just not livable because of mainly housing (& more broadly renting & land prices)
This is obvious and not an insight. The question is if people like the executives of Blackrock will agree to be taxed more heavily, to draw regulations to make competition more fair to small business, etc. Right now I don’t see anything useful happening.
Well of course. The whole point of AI is devalue human intelligence (one of the last things someone can use to pull themselves up by their bootstraps) in favor of something a rich guy can buy more than you can imagine with money.
The majority of households in the US have no savings of any kind and rural suicide rates have jumped by nearly 50% in the last 25 years. Y'all have just about backed everyone into a corner already.
If I need money, and you have money, there are only two ways I can get money from you (ignoring charity):
1. By giving you something worth more than money to you.
2. By promising that giving money to me will make you richer, earning you more than you gave me. (A loan, a business investment, etc.)
The richer you are, the fewer things there in category 1 that I could plausibly deliver. I probably can't get away with lying to you in category 2 for long, so going that way may save me today, but it will make you richer.
Without redistribution of some sort, wealth concentrates, and wealth concentration probably even accelerates. No AI needed. That's just the interesting flavor it takes these days.
I mean this is basically the foundation of any cyberpunk novel. You don't need to read that far ... just look at the works of Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Philip K. Dick and Richard Morgan.
From Neuromancer and Snow Crash to Altered Carbon the theme is that technology is not salvation but as another axis of inequality.
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See it this way:
In the old world, people produces actual product to get rich, the landlord, the factory owners etc. It worked out fine overall so the world accepted this game mode as an option, in addition to the old lord/emperor mode.
Then, some smart gamblers discovered that they can gamble on promises and expectations to get rich too, and it worked out good overall so the world again accepted it as a new game mode as an option too.
The wealth divide always exists, and historically can largely/only be destroyed by time and/or large scale disasters. But in the new gambler game mode, most people ain't in it (as in "It's a big club and you ain't in it" from George Carlin) and don't have the power to play it. It's a system don't reward honor, loyalty or labor. That's why most people are left out while the riches steams far ahead (then jets far ahead, then rockets far ahead, you get the idea).
> Says the man who actually widens the wealth divide.
Which doesn't make him wrong about the AI boom being a huge risk in making the wealth divide (already beyond gilded age levels) much worse.
Of course, because he is who he is the only solution he talks about is getting people to "invest in stocks", which, yeah that makes a ton of sense if you already have wealth since the current ruling class have shown that they will not, under any circumstances, let number go down even if none of the economics make sense (sure, they'll orchestrate a little dip here and there so they can profit massively off the insider information, but hey crime is legal bro).
But it does nothing for the many people who are really going to get squeezed here who are already living paycheck to paycheck and watching the water rise up to about their necks at this point.
And if you dont want to read, here is the hourlong audio: https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry...
Those looking for a deep explanation, this isnt as much about AI as it is about societal participation in prosperity.
All this new fangled talk about ABUNDANCE yadda yadda I find quite silly. We already live in abundance, most jobs for instance already pay very livable wages for example. It's just not livable because of mainly housing (& more broadly renting & land prices)
1. By giving you something worth more than money to you.
2. By promising that giving money to me will make you richer, earning you more than you gave me. (A loan, a business investment, etc.)
The richer you are, the fewer things there in category 1 that I could plausibly deliver. I probably can't get away with lying to you in category 2 for long, so going that way may save me today, but it will make you richer.
Without redistribution of some sort, wealth concentrates, and wealth concentration probably even accelerates. No AI needed. That's just the interesting flavor it takes these days.
From Neuromancer and Snow Crash to Altered Carbon the theme is that technology is not salvation but as another axis of inequality.