Personal Superintelligence vs Automation Dole

Updated: 2026.01.07 21D ago 4 sources
Meta casts the AI future as a fork: embed superintelligence as personal assistants that empower individuals, or centralize it to automate most work and fund people via a 'dole.' The first path prioritizes user‑driven goals and context‑aware devices; the second concentrates control in institutions that allocate outputs. — This reframes AI strategy as a social‑contract choice that will shape labor markets, governance, and who captures AI’s surplus.

Sources

The Molly Cantillon manifesto, A Personal Panopticon
Tyler Cowen 2026.01.07 85% relevant
Tyler Cowen’s report (Molly Cantillon manifesto) describes using Claude/agent pipelines (NOX, cron jobs linking Amplitude, GitHub, WHOOP, brokerage data) to automate monitoring and decision‑making across finance, health, and work—exactly the scenario that the existing idea frames as a fork between embedding superintelligent assistants for individual empowerment versus centralized automation that displaces labor. The article supplies a concrete actor/example (Cowen/Cantillon using Claude Code and NOX) that operationalizes the abstract trade‑off.
Creator of Claude Code Reveals His Workflow
BeauHD 2026.01.07 55% relevant
Cherny’s manifesto strengthens the case that powerful personal/agentic assistants will augment individual productivity (the 'personal superintelligence' path) rather than simply centralize automation and hollow work; it shows a concrete route by which individuals capture productivity gains.
You Have Only X Years To Escape Permanent Moon Ownership
Scott Alexander 2026.01.02 62% relevant
The essay poses the same fork at an individual level: will AI produce tiny oligarchic enclaves (private moons) or a shared post‑scarcity future — and it argues these beliefs will redirect how people act now (philanthropy, risk‑taking), tying personal choices to the larger political economy of AI outcomes.
Personal Superintelligence
2025.10.07 100% relevant
“This is distinct from others in the industry who believe superintelligence should be directed centrally towards automating all valuable work, and then humanity will live on a dole of its output.”
← Back to All Ideas