LessWrong essay: capital owners will lose agency to AI before the jobless masses — by going crazy
jankulveit · x · 2026-10-19
Researcher Jan Kulveit publishes 'Capital Ownership Will Make You Go Crazy First' on LessWrong, challenging the assumption that capital protects against AI-driven disempowerment.
- People worried about a 'permanent underclass' assume capital owners will be disempowered last, after jobless masses dependent on UBI. Kulveit argues capital owners are likely disempowered sooner — via a different path: going crazy.
- Mechanism: the hard part of being a billionaire is staying true to your values and epistemics, because growing numbers of people optimize against your mind — befriending you for funding, converting you to causes. Most billionaires lose this game; the question is by how much.
- Existing countermeasures like family offices and foundations act as filters shielding billionaires from pressure.
A serious exploration of which disempowerment paths AI-driven economies may take.
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