Capitalism is the Bootloader for the AI Economy
Look at our human history and future as an engineering problem.
To get from hunter-gatherers to Artificial General Intelligence, we needed a system that ruthlessly prioritized one thing: Efficiency.
Capitalism was (and still is) the necessary engine to get us there. It is now the thing that is carrying us to what comes next.
1. The Optimization Algorithm
Capitalism is, at its core, a search function for the most efficient way to produce value. Survival mode has no R&D budget. To build silicon chips and train Large Language Models, you need massive accumulated resources and a system that rewards doing more with less.
2. Automating Intelligence
The market forces companies to automate or die.
- First, we automated muscle (Industrial Revolution).
- Then, we automated logic (Computing).
- Now, we are automating cognition (AI).
This wasn't an accident. It was the inevitable result of a system demanding lower costs and higher output. AI is the ultimate efficiency hack - intelligence at near-zero marginal cost.
3. The Transformation
We are still operating within capitalism today, but the ground is shifting.
Currently we are in the final burn (5-25 years). Capitalism is generating the escape velocity needed to break the gravitational pull of resource constraints, but this creates a transitional paradox.
The profit motive is driving the race for AI, yet the ultimate result is the destruction of margins. By pushing the cost of intelligence to zero, the market is inadvertently solving the very scarcity it relies on to function. We are moving from an economy of allocation to an economy of abundance.
Capitalism isn't just building the engine of the new economy, it is actively engineering its own obsolescence. It was the launchpad.
Capitalism was never meant to be the destination.