Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Crypto (Web3) — What has more impact on the happiness of humanity?
Reading the capitalist manifesto written by Johan Norberg sparked a question for me about the most significant tech trends at the moment. What has more impact on the happiness of humanity? AI or Crypto? What has the most effect on liberty and individual freedom? In this post, I try to build upon some argumentation from Norberg and combine it with my current understanding of AI and Web3.
What contributes to happiness for humanity?
The very generalistic answer is increased freedom as the below chart shows. The more freedom people perceive, the more they report satisfaction. To be clear, reporting happiness and satisfaction is difficult and there are unhappy people in free countries. But generalistic speaking there is a linear correlation.
There is another strong correlation between self-reported satisfaction and happiness. Wealth. Below you can see a positive trend the bigger the GDP per Capita is.
The very generic conclusion is that rich and free countries have on average happier people. So technology increasing wealth and freedom should have a positive impact on self-reported happiness.
The case for AI and happiness
AI helps with efficiency and productivity. It can even ignite creativity with its generative capabilities.
Does it increase wealth? I would argue it makes humans more productive, as they can outsource mundane tasks, or even play with it. Hence they can achieve more with less. So AI can increase wealth.
Does it increase freedom? AI in itself can not increase human freedom. Access is very centralized and only helps with efficiency. Maybe humans have more free time when leveraging AI but free time does not always lead to more freedom.
How much is AI expected to contribute to GDP? As tools using advances in natural language processing work their way into businesses and society, they could drive a 7% (or almost $7 trillion) increase in global GDP and lift productivity growth by 1.5 percentage points over a 10-year period. Source
The case for Crypto and happiness
Crypto is based on the premise of not having intermediaries and centralized parties having control over assets.
Does it increase wealth? Crypto can drive efficiencies in payments, trade, and keeping track of material moving across the supply chain. So also here it can boost productivity, GDP, and wealth if implemented right.
Does it increase freedom? Crypto is decentral — in most cases. This leaves room for a lot of experimentation as an indicator of freedom. In addition, it is tearing down artificial barriers of intermediaries e.g. banks, trade barriers, etc.
How much is Crypto expected to contribute to GDP? Blockchain technologies could boost the global economy US$1.76 trillion by 2030 through raising levels of tracking, tracing and trust. Source
How much would be freed up if no trade barriers to GDP? While estimates of the cost of fragmentation vary, greater international trade restrictions could reduce global economic output by as much as 7 percent over the long term, or about $7.4 trillion in today’s dollars. Source
Personal opinion
Given the approximate same contribution of both technologies to GDP, I’d still bet on Crypto to make people and humanity happier in the long term. Under the premise that wealth and freedom have a positive contribution. For two reasons:
- Only Crypto can remove trade barriers and increase the freedom of humans. It’s the first time we don’t need an authority with its own bureaucratic rules to trade, pay, and identify ourselves. What a liberation if done right!
- Crypto is decentral by nature. Leaving more freedom to experiment, to be free, to be an own individual. AI is very centralized. Only the biggest data sets and data centers win. Individuals become averages and statistical exceptions. Not everybody has access to powerful AI development tools. While Crypto has literally no entry barrier, despite learning it and a computer with internet.
We have a life to win.
