The Future of Money: Why Compute and Data Replace Labor

Guest post from Jolly Dinger.
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One of the very first things I remember learning in basic Economics 101 (out of a total of like 2 things I remember, because let’s face it, that class was a waste) is the “factors of production”.  First written about by economist Adam Smith in 1776, but later expanded upon by all the greatest minds of boomer finance, this theory has been the bedrock of post-industrial society since its inception.

Long story short, humans have 4 ways of producing, or making money: land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship.

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This system worked fantastic for our ancestors up until about 50 years ago when it started to fall apart (more on the first domino that fell here- https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/), and the deterioration of our financial system has hit hyper-drive with the onslaught of AI advancements.

It won’t take much to explain what’s happening, because you already know- you can feel it!

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Labor

Perhaps the easiest, most obvious way to make money- work for someone and they’ll pay you for it.

Have you noticed how you might be getting a raise at work every few weeks or so, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference?  You aren’t going crazy- since 1979 (as far back as the fred data goes), real earnings (“real” means it is adjusted for annual inflation) have only gone up +12%.

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That is absolute PEANUTS considering how much humanity has accomplished since 1979.  Since 1979 the internet, computers, and digital technology has exploded. We've made astounding advancements in medicine and mapped the human genome, put probes throughout our entire solar system and landed a rover on mars…

And the average Joe has only gotten a measly +0.26% annual raise to show for it. 

Where are all of the benefits of societal advancement (and RAMPANT inflation) all going?

(TOTALLY UNRELATED graph below)

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Land

Land and homes are another way you can make money- if you own a land or home, you can rent it out to someone who will pay you monthly to use it.  Also, owning your own home or land means you don’t have to pay someone else rent, and not losing money is pretty much the same as making money.

But land ownership is much easier said than done.  If your boomer grandparents go on and on about how easy it should be for you to save up and buy a house, it’s because they lived during different times- housing prices have skyrocketed over the last 50 years, even after accounting for inflation.

Remember- REAL wages (wages accounting for inflation) have only grown +12% since 1979.  However, the real housing price index (which IS adjusted for inflation) has grown by over +100% since 1987 (inflation has gone roughly +360% while home prices have gone roughly +760%).

This means that you have to work TWICE as hard as gramps and granny to afford a home.

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Capital

You make money with capital by investing it or lending it out to others.  Whether that’s the stock market, government bonds, or anything else- the saying rings true that “you gotta have money to make money”.

But as you can imagine, feeling the crunch in wages plus the rising cost of housing leads to less capital on hand to invest.

The average American household has over $10,000 in credit card debt- instead of earning interest, most are paying interest (Source)

And almost 60% of people are living paycheck to paycheck (Source). As you can guess, the younger generations bear the brunt of all this.

How can you save money and accumulate capital when you are on the cliff’s edge?

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Entrepreneurship

With entrepreneurship, you can make money by creating a business or generating innovative ideas.

I’m not going to spend too much time here (as this is the last and least important of the OG factors) except to say that I’m convinced entrepreneurship will become all but obsolete in the face of AI advancement.  If you don’t believe me, indulge me in this thought experiment:

Write down 3 creative startup ideas that integrate ai development for your local region and write them down (don’t take longer than a minute or two).  Next, I want you to go to Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, or whatever your favourite LLM is and input this prompt-

“You are the world's most innovative entrepreneur, who thrives at building startups in short time-periods that grow into sustainable businesses.  Do a deep analysis of [INSERT YOUR LOCATION HERE], including any demographic shifts, economic patterns, publicly available supply chain information, and any other relevant analyses.  Considering the information you found, what would be 3 possible business startups that would thrive in [INSERT YOUR LOCATION HERE] that are AI tangential or include AI in some way (considering forecasted explosion in growth of AI tangential businesses pre-AGI)?”

When considering the capital/land crunch combined with a now infinite amount of business “ideas”, we can logically conclude that the margins for making money through entrepreneurship will continually shrink, especially once AGI is reached (AGI means “artificial general intelligence”, or an AI system that is independent and fully agentic- look for a future blogpost where we delve more into what this does and doesn’t mean- for now, if you want to read more go check this out- https://ai-2027.com/).  

Which leads me to the ONE thing I want to get across, even though I’ve gone about it in a verbose way…

‍The entire financial system has been working against you since before you were born… you are unequivocally fucked… IF you don’t find a new system that actually values who you are and what you have to contribute.

Here’s the good news- because of the breakneck speed of AI advancement and the proliferation of AI systems, most of the sharpest minds in the world are convinced that AGI is inevitable and it is imminent.  And once AGI is achieved, it is going to change EVERYTHING.  

Those 4 factors of production/ways of making money we just talked about? Caput. Useless.  The entire world is going to change in a blink of an eye (not in an actual blink, the transition is already underway, but in the annals of history this time-period of drastic change, in retrospect, will be seen as short and extreme).

The entire world is going to change, and the economy along with it, and the same forces that led to the drastic inequality we’ve experienced since 1971 are going to do their damndest to make sure they still end up on top when it’s all said and done.  But right now, where we are at in the chaos and messiness of change, we truly do have a chance to seek out and participate in new systems that tip the scale back toward the average Joe and at least give us a fighting chance to make money and survive all the craziness (and maybe thrive?).

I anticipate a 4-pronged shift in the factors of production to a new system: compute, data, LLM ownership, and mental clarity/personhood stickiness (I came up with this last concept- will do a post on it later).  For now, I’m going to explain the first 3 within the context of w.ai, which truly embodies bringing power back to the people.

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Compute

Labor as a factor of production is going to be fully replaced by compute (computers/graphics cards running AI models)- we are pretty much at the point now where anything you can do on a computer can be done (better) by an ai system, and once robotics catch up (likely post-AGI), then labor becomes fully irrelevant. Anyone who says otherwise is just coping- here’s some research showing AI is already better at sequential diagnosing than leading physicians with 85.5% diagnostic accuracy compared to 20% diagnostic accuracy (Source), AI outperforms human lawyers on almost all benchmarks (Source), and AI outperforms therapists based on client ratings (Source).

Thus, in the future economy, compute will be able to make you money in the same way that labor was.  Only this time, instead of you accomplishing physical things with your body/mind, it’s the AI system running on a computer accomplishing things and then whoever owns the super-computer or datacenter (the “compute”) gets paid.

As you can guess, the powers that be are going to do everything they can in their power to make sure you don’t have access to compute so that you are hamstringed financially during this financial transition (have you noticed how expensive new graphics cards are lately?).  If I told you- “Go make money with your compute!”, you’d probably look at me like I was crazy, right?

The good news is that w.ai has a program that takes 3 clicks to install, and you can immediately begin contributing the compute off of the computer you are reading this on and get PAID to do so.  Mac, PC, new or old, it doesn’t matter- almost every single computer will be able to run w.ai and contribute their compute and get paid.  This is called “decentralized compute”, and it’s the way that we are going to fight back against the system and stake out a piece of the pie for ourselves during the craziest transition humanity has ever seen.

Think of w.ai like a network of little guys who, when joining forces, become an absolute powerhouse that can actually compete with the big guys and get things done.  If enough of us join our machines together, we have a powerful enough framework to run the most advanced AI systems out there within our network, which means we will be able to use our compute to complete the most profitable activities that would otherwise be unachievable individually (and then we get to split the rewards).

I have a computer that’s 5 years old (you’d assume that would be too old to earn anything, right?), but sure enough w.ai worked just fine.  Only took a couple minutes to download and I was immediately up and running and earning.  It’s super easy to keep running in the background and keep whatever I need to be doing throughout the day.

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Data

In the new world, data is going to be the new “digital oil” as it will be the only way to train agentic AI systems on accomplishing tasks that earn money.  Think of data like the gas that goes into the brand new Ferrari.  Without data, these new systems can’t continue to learn and grow.

As always, you are currently getting screwed here by the powers that be- we all have clicked through those “I accept the terms and conditions” without actually knowing what they say.  We all have had our phones recommend something to us in an ad that we were talking with our friends about the day before.  And you better bet that the frontrunners of the new system aren’t keeping your data private (https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1948282239453729213).  

What w.ai does now is reward you for your unique network. There is currently a referral system in place that will reward you for each and every person that joins the decentralized compute hive-mind through your link. No scraping of your data without you being rewarded for your unique social footprint. When you share with your friends, you get rewarded.

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Ownership

Whoever owns the AGI system of the future will have their own personal money printer.  The compute runs the system, the data powers it, but whoever OWNS the system owns the future.

Unfathomable wealth and control.  

This presents the biggest existential risk humanity has faced yet because, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the current “elite” are a group of narcissistic rich fucks who do not care one bit what happens to someone like you or me after AGI arrives.

If enough of us band together within a decentralized system like w.ai, we can build a decentralized superintelligence system that no one entity controls, but one we all own a tiny piece in.

The team can’t officially say anything yet, but I’m not on the team so I can be a bit more forthright- when you download w.ai and contribute compute and referrals, you are rewarded with w.ai points (you’ll see them accrue in the top-right hand side of your w.ai launcher).

Eventually, these points will be converted into something else (HINT HINT, check the token graphic on the main website) and that token will represent co-ownership in the AGI system that we are all building together with w.ai.  You see, our compute and data will get sold to buyers (which is partly how we are going to be rewarded), but a large part of it is going to go toward the training of our very own decentralized AGI model that we all co-own together.  

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If we can pull it off (and the w.ai founders have told me that this is very very doable, the amount of machines we need in our network to accomplish this is a drop in the ocean of the machines that are out there now), then it is going to be really really hard to put a price tag on the usefulness/value that comes from being a part-owner of an AGI system.  It will be like owning stock in one the most powerful companies of the world, except instead of a company it’s an AI system that can accomplish whatever we collectively put our heads together and guide it toward.

The future is bleak if we let history repeat itself…

But it can be bright if we choose to make it so.

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        BIG WIN TOGETHER 🏆

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