Section 3. Post-Contact Economy

With the contact scenario and its premises outlined, I will examine the transformation of the economy as one of the largest challenges.

Human nature inertia

Very importantly, human nature will not change. The bodies, the upbringing, and the instincts will remain the same. Although some of the culture will change, there is much inertia in people - there will still be selfishness, territoriality, division into groups, preferential treatment, inequality, prejudice, and competitiveness. Many people are fighters by nature, and they will continue to fight. The cause of inertia lies not only in bodies and culture, but also in souls. Many people carry generational trauma and karma from past incarnations on Earth.

Competition as human nature

As I mentioned, currently, progress happens despite extensive competition. Competition is a big part of human nature. Countries compete, negating each other's efforts; parties compete inside countries, in corporations, workers fight against owners and each other, trade unions compete against management, population is fighting with its own government; humans fight against nature, family members fight for love, control, and resources, even inside the womb, fetuses compete for resources. Competition is also visible in nature, as is well depicted by the Discovery Channel. As I mentioned, competition is natural for humans and has a positive side too.

Positive side of competition

It slows down human expansion, preserves nature, and allows for flexibility - the systems with internal conflict are less rigid and more mobile. Competitiveness even among themselves made humans evolve faster and outcompete Neanderthals and other hominids. Also, competitiveness makes human groups more manageable; Machiavellian "divide and rule" gives stability to global politics and prevents totalitarian dictatorship. Even with internal competition, countries and corporations progress: the fighting parties don't completely negate each other's efforts and still allow for some forward movement. With open contact, global peace and transparency, competition will remain.

Violence after contact

While large conflicts and crimes will be repressed by the Global Coalition, local violence and crime will remain due to human nature and the fast pace of social and economic changes. There will remain much work for police, courts, and fence builders. I believe that with transparency, the message of aliens and telepaths about ecological issues will be understood by the mainstream, and institutional promotion of violence will be stopped. Violence in movies, games, sports, and education will be reduced, leading to a milder culture. With that understanding of violent and competitive inertia in human nature, let's now reexamine in more detail the economic transformation.

Difficulty of economic transformation

Due to the competitive and selfish nature of humans, economic transformation will be difficult. Even if AI + transparency removes corruption and conspiracies, human nature will persist, and even if economic equality is established at a given time, humans will continue to fight, and soon will reinstitute economic inequality as self-damaging tendencies that will naturally emerge from human selfishness. Therefore, measures and plans are needed that will be efficient in spite of human short-sightedness and selfishness. The good news is that it is not necessary to make the economy highly efficient. It only needs to sustain stability during the transition period.

How AI can help us cooperate

Essentially, we don't need to remove the competition; we need to reform the system so that it is sufficiently productive even in the presence of competition and transparency. Since current politics and economy are built on deception and corruption, transparency will certainly shake their foundations. By giving advice to every interested human, AI will be able to coordinate the actions of humans and shift the self-competition balance towards improvement in higher productivity. Currently, only a small percentage of humans actually use AI for daily decisions, and this percentage will grow slowly. This growth will be slow, but even if only part of the population is coordinated, it would lead to progress.

AI alignment and alien help

Again, this is based on the assumption that negative manipulation is stopped by transparency, and aliens help with keeping AI aligned with humanity's interests. Due to aligned AI and transparency, the old dichotomy of raising vs lowering social services will be substantially transformed.

Socialism vs capitalism dichotomy

Currently, increasing social services requires raising taxes, and this slows economic productivity. Decreasing social services increases productivity but also increases inequality, which becomes counterproductive and creates a perpetual festering economic crisis. High social services lead to a reduction of entrepreneurial activity and a stagnant, highly regulated economy. Low social services lead to high inequality and stagnation due to counterproductive influences of the capital. This dichotomy is usually referred to as socialism vs capitalism. Currently, there is no optimal middle because at all ratios individuals fail to cooperate: there is too much self-serving, greed, and competition, and too little coordination.

Why current coordination fails

Even with electronic means of communication, the information flows are distorted, truth is suppressed, individuals at all levels fail to obtain true facts and to understand them, and to make smart decisions. For example, governments repress critical feedback, employees fail to learn the true state of affairs, and fail to make decisions leading to the common good. Lobbying is a particularly irrational government expression of corruption. Similarly, corporations decay and become corrupt.

Why corporations fail to listen

For example, customers of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and AT&T consistently report critical bugs in software and services, as is seen at official and unofficial forums, but the average time of fixing obvious bugs is around 15 years. That properly illustrates the inability of humans to cooperate, and to collect, analyse, and act upon received information.

Positive AI combined with transparency

The emergence of positive AI combined with transparency will shift the balance and gradually solve unresolvable economic problems.

Why AI advisers, not AI government

Specifically, transparency will gradually reduce institutional corruption, and AI will improve coordination between individuals. I repeat that direct government by AI is dangerous. Instead, we will have a variety of AI advisers that will advise a certain fraction of the population, and thus will increase coordination. Currently, individual AI accounts are independent, but once they are permitted to coordinate with each other, this would become a powerful tool for coordination between individuals.

Matching people and opportunities

Take, for example, matchmaking. Matchmaking is super important not only in matrimonial relationships but also in hiring, business partnerships, finding friends, and matching a manufacturer/provider with the consumer. AI with the ability to process large amounts of information will be able to do much better matchmaking than humans. Currently, advertising is very nonspecific, deceptive, and very nonspecific. In a few years, advertising to people will be gradually replaced by advertising to AI.

The end of deceptive advertising

Instead of annoying large numbers of consumers with unwanted and irrelevant information, manufacturers and service providers will give truthful information to AI, and AI will recommend that to consumers when asked for advice. (That is, assuming positive AI and transparency.) Similarly, positive AI and transparency will gradually shift the economy towards better cooperation. The economic changes will be accompanied by political changes.

Political systems

By now, I am pretty sure that all political systems have been tried, and there are no obvious reforms that would magically fix existing political systems. Due to deception, self-serving, and shortsightedness, all variations of political systems naturally produce dysfunctional states. Even if corruption and conspiracies are removed, the inability of humans to act in concert will again produce dysfunctional governments. The advice from positive coordination-enabled AI systems will improve coordination in governments.

Direct referendums

Positive AI and transparency will allow direct referendums. Once there is more intelligence in the governments, they will be able to make more intelligent choices regarding referendums. Currently, choices that make it to a referendum are typically deceptive and counterproductive. It will take intelligence and development of a referendum culture to bring rational and important questions to a referendum.

Voter education

Another big problem is that voters are also irrational and make shortsighted, uneducated choices. With the help of positive AI, voters will be educated on the meaning and consequences of referendum decisions, and thus, a direct democracy requires the development of a direct democratic culture to be effective. That will diminish the role of governments and elections. People will be making decisions directly.

Shift of power

The next reason for the diminishing role of country governments is global peace. The power will shift to local city and county governments and to the global alliance. Additionally, more power will shift to global and local corporations and associations. As I mentioned, the freelance economy (like Uber) will expand. These associations will work across borders and will provide work and resources to individuals.

Beyond selfishness

It is a mistake to think that selfishness and competition are the only motivators of humans. The main argument against strong social programs is that individuals have social programs reduce motivation and slow down the economy. It is true in the current world, plagued by deception and corruption. Yet in the presence of positive AI and transparency, people will have more opportunities for self-expression. Humans are motivated by material gain, status, and altruism.

From consumerism to service

As culture will become more altruistic, people will gradually reorient from selfishness to altruism. Consumerism will be gradually replaced by selfless service. Currently, there are many barriers to creative self-expression. Much of the land on the planet is neither cultivated nor wild. It is undeveloped private property. People will start planting forests. Government policies will incentivise property owners to sell it for public reforestation projects.

Market entry barriers

Those who start new businesses usually fail because entrance to the markets is heavily guarded by those dominating the market. Typically, over 50% of the business expenses go on marketing, which is ridiculous and arises from very inefficient manufacturer-customer matchmaking. AI will solve this.

Medical monopoly

The medical industry heavily protects its monopoly. Medicine is a money-making business and is very dysfunctional. It is hard to become a medical professional, and it is even harder to heal people while working a medical job. AI has already removed much of the mystery from medical slang. Now, AI educates patients more than medicine did. With positive AI and transparency, the medical monopoly will be dissolved, and all society will be more fully engaged in health services.

Conclusion

In conclusion of this chapter, I should emphasize that the futuristic projections outlined here are only valid for a given set of assumptions: 1) that GF will openly contact the global coalition, 2) that peace will be enforced, 3) that telepathic individuals from Earth and beyond will unite and enforce transparency, and 4) that the aliens will help with AI alignment. If any of these conditions fail, the predictions would radically change.