AI Will Change Social Class: How To Position Yourself

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm dive into the dynamic shifts in social class due to artificial intelligence. They explore historical social disruptions, from the plague to the industrial revolution, and the internet age, to predict how AI will transform social hierarchy. The conversation covers key areas such as technological advancements, new economic opportunities, education, and the importance of elite and entrepreneurial networks. They examine potential winners and losers in this revolution, providing insights and strategies for those aiming to position themselves favorably in the rapidly evolving social landscape. Join us to understand how to navigate and thrive in the era of AI-driven social class changes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anyway I will let you start. Today's episode is Simone. I'm very excited.

Okay. Okay. Okay, Simone, don't screw this up. Don't, don't screw this up. Okay. Got

this. I'm gonna include all of that, by the way.

Shut. Ah,

Simone Collins: God. Okay. I, how am I? You get to take your pauses and your breaths and you get to cough and drink something.

And I don't get to do anything. I just have to your

Malcolm Collins: cute

hand sign

again.

No, I'm not gonna, no, you don't get anything. You don't get anything. Okay. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go. Okay. 3, 2,

Simone Collins: 1. Hello, Malcolm. I'm so excited to be speaking with you today because today we are talking about social class changes in how social class works and how obviously as parents who want to engineer the next ruling class of humans, who of course work in concert with AI, can make sure that our kids in the next period of social class disruption.

End up at the top. This is also for our Patreon supporters. They requested this, so also we're gonna get them to the top. Okay. They deserve to be among the ruling class. But I, it, we need to be aware of the fact that throughout history periods of disruption have enabled clever people to climb social class ranks.

And I mean, consider the plague like from the one from 1347 to or 1352, which killed half of Europeans in, in existence. But that also caused a severe labor shortage and that produced higher wages and better working conditions. So like the right clever kind of person who used to be under the foot of the elites in that society suddenly had this upward mobility they never had before.

They, they could move to different estates, they could demand higher wages. And then I think the last two global events where social class really was disrupted were the industrial revolution and then the internet. And AI is the next big global event to do this.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I think there's been others. I think the rise of TV and radio disrupted social class pretty significantly, where you had this new class of movie stars slash radio stars Yeah.

Which held a position in society. That's interesting. Is that it's sort of degraded into nothing. I mean, we're seeing it rot, we're seeing this yeah. Class that so many people fought to be a part of. So extremely hard. Their entire, you know, lives were fought fighting to become the television star. And now they are finding, or the, the, the news anchor that, you know, they get fewer views than like random internet people and stuff like that.

Yeah. Well that's

Simone Collins: why I see it more of a short-lived thing. It didn't really create, it didn't create, for example Rockefellers. It didn't create you know, the same kinds of. F like the internet, I would say is a bigger one. 'cause that created just huge amounts of wealth creating. Well, I disagree.

Malcolm Collins: I think if you're looking for Rockefellers and people like the, the moguls of that period.

Mm-hmm. The rotter barons. Yeah. I would see that as less of a class mix up than something like the TV star. And what I mean by this is when you're talking about like the history of the robber barons and the ways that they would, for example, have parties where children would dig in like sandboxes for party treats.

And the party treats would be diamonds that were hidden in the sandbox. And so you'd go and you'd look in the sandbox and, oh, look at my, my, my kids would love this. They love little shiny fake diamonds. Yeah, we should, yeah. Give on that. They'd be, they'd find it so, oh, look at the shiny little diamond that I got from my sandbox.

But the, the point here being is these communities were never that large.

Simone Collins: You had

Malcolm Collins: maybe Oh, so you're more

Simone Collins: interested in, in where Huge, like thousands of people? No. Yeah. I mean you had

Malcolm Collins: maybe like 25 families that were like involved in like these entire cultural networks. Maybe, maybe like a hundred folks.

Right? But

Simone Collins: that we're talking about the 0.001%. Who were affected in this way, there were still huge other right? But the thing thing about the

Malcolm Collins: Robber Baron social mix up is that it applied to so few, so few were risen in the ranks by this. If you look at the age of the movie star it applied both to a fairly large community, but also a community that the rest of society observed and understood as a new social elite.

Oh, people

Simone Collins: absolutely in the guild age understood who these. Nova Rich and also old. Re like rich.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I guess, I guess, but I'd say that it's equal. Okay. And so now we're in this age where I, I think one of the things we can look at is how's things changed in the, in the internet boom. Because one of the things that happens when you have social disruption is there is a denial by the old social classes that new social classes exist or that disruption is happening.

You know, there's also a

Simone Collins: denial about the proper way to do these things. So we really should talk about how social class worked pre-internet and then post-internet. Well, but the change that's important

Malcolm Collins: to note is because sometimes your average idiot who is still admiring the people who they were told they should admire when they were a child.

Yeah. They listen to those people without understanding. When those people say, oh, these tech nerds are really just like nerdy tech a bros. They're not real upper class. They don't really have influence. Mm-hmm. They're not, they, they don't understand the ways of the blue bloods and stuff like that. Yeah.

They, they say this out of fear. They create these distinctions so that they will say, oh, well, you know, Novo ish, and this has always been the case where the old college would say Novo re have no understanding of, of, of style to try to point out like, well, when the Novo Reese are instantly, well, it's in an attempt to

Simone Collins: continue to grasp at their status, which is beginning to erode.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, yes. What you're really seeing is somebody grasping to eroding status. You are not seeing a and and any, if you believe them, you will make terrible mistakes and you will lead your children to make terrible mistakes in terms of their career, their education, their decisions, and in terms of decisions you make with your career.

Yeah. So go, go further, Simone.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No. So that's, that's what we need to kind of break down so people understand how things have been, how they have changed in the past, and how they're gonna change. So we're gonna recap the post-industrial revolution norm. Sinc