Abstract

It is often suggested that the advent of powerful AI will create abundance and that it can thereby contribute to securing social harmony. This paper draws on Hirsch’s study of different kinds of limits to growth to show that this is false, just like all other visions of abundance have been. This matters because the persistence of conflicts of interest in societies with powerful AI implies the persistence of incentives to misuse this powerful technology. The narrative about AI, abundance and social harmony functions as ideology to the extent that it obscures the real risks of AI misuse while inflating the apparent benefits of AI.