Investing.com -- Artificial intelligence could upend global labor markets and shift economic power toward owners of land and commodities, according to experts exploring long-range scenarios tied to rapid progress in automation.
Analysts say if machines become more capable than humans at most task, wages could fall below the cost of operating robots, forcing workers into lower-paid or niche roles.
At the same time, falling prices driven by AI could raise real incomes, though the extent of that benefit remains unclear.
In a world flooded with cheap AI labor, the most valuable assets may be those that remain scarce, such as land and raw materials.
That could mean commodity producers and real estate owners see outsized gains.
“In an era of AI abundance, so-called “fixed factors of production” will see the highest returns,” analysts at BCA research said.
BCA research analysts also raises concerns about the long-term safety of advanced AI systems, including scenarios where human control over increasingly powerful machines breaks down.
It assigns a high probability to extreme outcomes but offers little in the way of specific timelines or triggers.
While such projections are highly speculative, BCA likens the potential economic transformation to previous industrial revolutions.
It argues that the scale of change could be historic, but cautions that the benefits and risks will likely be unevenly distributed.