“Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome.” – Charlie Munger

Economists are used to modeling AI as an important tool, so they don’t get how it could make people irrelevant. Past technological revolutions have driven human potential further. The agrarian revolution birthed civilizations; the industrial revolution let us scale them.

But AGI looks a lot more like coal or oil than the plow, steam engine, or computer. Like those resources:

It will require immensely wealthy actors to discover and harness.
Control will be concentrated in the hands of a few players, mainly the labs that produce it and the states where they reside.
The states and companies that earn rents mostly or entirely from it won’t need to rely on people for revenue.
It will displace the previous fuel of civilization. For coal, it was wood. For AGI, it's us.

On December 28, Rudolf published [...]

---

Outline:

(02:34) Before we begin, my assumptions are:

(03:14) Why powerful actors care about you

(07:54) The resource curse

(13:57) AGI looks more like a resource than a technology

(19:52) Defining the Intelligence Curse

(29:02) The world is waiting on you

The original text contained 9 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
January 3rd, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Mak2kZuTq8Hpnqyzb/the-intelligence-curse

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The Intelligence Curse” by lukedrago

LessWrong (30+ Karma)