The Great Technology Divide: Which Side Will You Be On?

Editor’s Note: Today, we bring you a special Sunday edition of the Diary written by Bill’s eldest son Will.

There’s a major shift coming in the distribution of wealth in the United States.

It’s going to cause extreme wealth inequality, far beyond what we’re seeing today.

World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking wrote about it recently on the social news website Reddit. In response to a question about the threat of artificial intelligence and robotics in the future, he said:

If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed — everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution.

So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

In other words, Hawking believes that one of humanity’s biggest challenges in the future is how we’re going to squeeze the wealth generated by technology out of the owners of the technology…

There’s little doubt that exponential technology will produce vast amounts of wealth for its owners over the next 20-plus years.

After all, big improvements to quality of life quickly become necessities, making every person on the planet a potential customer.

Aside from that, the EZ credit world we live in practically ensures that any promising technology venture gets all the funding it could possibly need.

At ultra-low or negative interest rates money is penalized for sitting still. It must be deployed to chase returns. The financial industry is flooded with cash seeking an opportunity.

Natural flows of investment into technology are elevated by the “unconventional monetary policy” of central bankers.

But technology breakthroughs are not a positive for the economy as a whole.