If AGI is immanent, would stock market investment provide an easier transition?

General
1

Hey
I’m in brain researcher from Finland. I absolutely enjoy playing with AI ever since tensor flow and gpt3 was a thing.

With the prospect of immanent AGI and post labor economy in the coming decade, I’ve been pondering quite frequently lately on ways to hedge possible loss of employment and/or social unrest.

My question is: in a scenario where loss of employment is expected, and UBI adaption is unlikely- would heavy investment of personal savings in big tech (fairly priced stocks like Microsoft) and semiconductors production and testing stack (TSMC, TSEM, UMC, Teradyne, Cohu etc…) can constitute a reasonable strategy to stay afloat financially?

I’d be happy to hear how you guys financially manage your unemployment fears…

2 Likes
2

In a scenario where AGI is in complete control (rapidly approaching) 'money ’ as we’ve known it, will be completely valueless.

If you’ve got some right now, spend it. Have a good time with it, while you can.

2 Likes
3

So you don’t believe there’s any personal action an individual can take to be in a more advantageous position when post-AGI problems hit the fan?

1 Like
4

perhaps buy gold , i heard for the human history it is refuge. and it look good in jewel

5

If I was in Europe I would invest in a small hobby farm in an area with mild climate that could be totally self sustainable.

If SHTF then you can retire there and live comfortably.

If everything works out fine after the ASI singularity then you can keep the hobby farm as an investment which provides rental income.

Here are some basic recommendations from Gemini Ultra …

Apart from the land and a small house which you can rent out for income.

Hopefully you will have a year or two after you lose your job to move to the farm and buy all the other stuff and plant crops before total anarchy breaks out.

How much land, farm animals, crops and fruit trees would you need to be fully self sustainable in a Mediterranean climate like Greece, Italy, South of France etc.

The amount of land, animals, crops, and fruit trees needed for self-sufficiency in a Mediterranean climate depends on several factors:

Your dietary needs:
A vegetarian will require less land than someone who includes meat in their diet.

The size and efficiency of your systems:
Smaller, productive animals and high-yield crop varieties can reduce land needs.

Water availability:
Mediterranean summers are dry, so water-efficient practices like rainwater harvesting and drought-resistant plants are crucial.

Here’s a rough estimate to get you started:

Land:

1-5 acres: This range is a starting point and can vary depending on the factors mentioned above. For a family of four, 2-3 acres is a common target.

Electric fencing + guns for security.

Underground bunker with 6 months food, water, fuel, medicine - Optional?

Animals:

Poultry (chickens, ducks): Provide eggs and some meat.
Goats or sheep: Offer milk, cheese, and meat (optional).
Rabbits (optional): Additional meat source.
Donkey (optional): Transport and pull a plow

Crops:

Staples: Wheat, barley, lentils, beans
Vegetables: Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, onions, garlic (all thrive in the Mediterranean climate)
Leafy greens: Focus on drought-tolerant varieties like kale, Swiss chard

Fruit Trees:

Citrus: Oranges, lemons, grapefruits (perfectly suited to the climate)
Olives: Provide oil and can be a cash crop
Figs, Pomegranates: Delicious fruits well-adapted to the region
Stone fruits (peaches, plums): Depending on your water availability

Additional factors for sustainability:

Water harvesting: Collect rainwater in cisterns for irrigation.

Greywater systems: Reuse household wastewater for non-potable purposes.

Renewable energy: Solar panels can provide electricity, and solar hot water heaters can reduce energy use.

Probably need around 50 x solar panels to give enough power for cooking, heating, charging electric car etc.

Composting: Create nutrient-rich soil amendment from food scraps and yard waste.

2 Likes
6

It’s a reasonable strategy as long as you’re able to pick which stocks will go up better than other people. But that’s the problem. Other people are trying to guess how much those things are gonna go up and some of them may be way overpriced because of that.

However, you’re trying to protect yourself against a particular scenario (AI causes a lot of unemployment), and if that scenario happens, it might be more likely that those stocks you have picked, go up.

1 Like
7

Of course investment is more complicated than picking the companies we hear about. Personally I try to evaluate the company real value (ahm… feed the earnings reports PDF to GTP4 :smile: ) and time the purchase of the stock to be as close to the real valuation of the company.

Sure, most of the main companies that develop the AI core drive are already over valued, since the stock price already reflect the optimism about the AI technology. However, two things can give us an edge:

  1. The stock market is not rational and sometimes news that is not really relevant to the far future, causes emotional selling (an example from last month: Tesla briefly dipped to 160$ after lower than expected car deliveries, Apple dipped to 168$ briefly because of the anti-trust investigation).
  2. Thinking outside of the box of the really known companies to investigate the smaller companies that these big businesses are relaying on- there’s still some opportunities there that aren’t overpriced.
1 Like
8

That make sens if you have family to keep going, when you will be weak or if you have accident, would it be insurance ? not everybody can handle animal. I heard good things about insect =)
In Europe they are facing a war again. not sure that things will cool down in time…

9

so could kickstarter would be a good place to look at ?

10

Oh no that’s probably the last place I’d recommend investing. What I meant was to think deep about the whole supply chain of these main AI companies. Everyone try to come up with their own AI chips? You could buy Nvidia (880$ per share, overvalued IMO)… but you could buy instead where they’ll produce these AI chips (TSMC 140$ per share and less volatile) as this business will grow with them. You could also think ahead- seeing all the interest in AI hardware and robotics, all these will require metric ton of chips, why not invest in companies that sell testing equipment for new chips (Teradyne)? Would be less risky than betting on the main players at this point. Asides for Microsoft, our darling… Which is wonderfully diversified in revenue streams and has cash flow to survive 3 market crushes.

  • It is not a financial advice, only my opinion
1 Like
11

How are companies that we invest in going to turn a profit if everyone has lost their jobs and have no money to spend buying products/services from them?

1 Like
12

Society can’t function if no one has money, so it will have to adjust one way or another. Whatever predictions you make about the future, one where no one can acquire anything (including food) is pretty much an impossibility.

2 Likes
13

UBI will likely have to play a part until we can transition to the proverbial Star Trek moneyless society. Could be interesting times ahead for sure.

I agree that now might be the time to purchase a hobby farm in a mild climate so you can grow your own food and preserve it.

2 Likes
14

UBI is inevitable. But considering the US politics and the political direction Europe is heading towards, I believe we’re looking at a good decade or two for consensus to be formed. Till that day the companies will grow as much as they can, in my opinion.

Looking at the UBI suggestions by Sam Altman, where companies will offset 1 or 2% of their revenues to fund UBI, also doesn’t necessarily mean the collapse of the financial system as we know it.

If the market recover after 9.11, after 2008, after 2020… and any other historical event can teach us anything - is that the big companies will always find a way to come on top, eventually.

As romantic as living off the grid may sound, IMO, this line of thinking is more motivated by feeling of insecurity about the future, and our inability to predict transformative times… after all - most of us only witnessed a few in our lifetime

2 Likes
15

The road to the transactionless society will involve pain points. Food and shelter are the main factors. But farming requires dedication and constant effort. Growing up on a farm taught me that farming is labor-intensive and ties farmers to the land. We had to cut wood to heat the house. We had an outhouse. Chickens are filthy, and goats are disappointingly stupid. Despite these demands, small farming remains a viable option for food security during economic instability. It’s less about romanticization and more about endurance. I moved away from the farm because it was hard on the body. I might move back again if economics force it to happen because I know how to grow food and store it. As we transition towards that cashless economy, people who live on small farms will suffer less.

I would rather see people stop moving to big cities and instead come together in small cities and adopt the Strong Towns planning ideals adapted for the moneyless economy.

3 Likes
16

It might sound a little conspiratorial, but they do kind of think that the big companies behind the foundational models will have the ability to both build platforms that are incredibly popular, but also utilize agents at scale before anyone else being that they can go into industries that you wouldn’t think they would be able to go into. It would not surprises me if a company like Google ends up becoming really big in real estate for example because they spin up agents that replace human jobs and build a division in a new market made up of agents not people. So the big tech companies might be worth 10 trillion or more one day.

2 Likes