“George, people are starving in East Africa again.”

“It’s okay, AI will make new people and they’ll be better than the ones that are dying. They won’t need food or water, only batteries.”

“Hmmh. But what if those battery-powered people decide to come here because they like the weather better here or because we have cable?”

“That’s fine. We can put them to work doing all the jobs that we don’t want to do. Instead of paying other people to do them.”

“But don’t those people need their jobs to live on?”

“I’m sure AI will think of something.”

“Who decides which jobs are the ones we care about and which are the ones we don’t care about?”

“We do, of course”
“Who is We?”

“Us. We. You know, the ones who can afford to pay other people to do the jobs we don’t care about. I mean we care about those jobs. But we don’t want to have to do them ourselves. And we can afford to pay somebody to do them but we’d rather not if we don’t have to. Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“You’re the one that brought up AI and jobs. What if the battery-powered people from other places don’t like us? What if they want our houses or our money or our—kids!”
“No problem. Our AI will fight their AI. And our AI will win, because our AI will be working for us. And we’re Us, remember? We always win.”
“Well, what if we don’t? What if our AI decides that we’re working for it, not it for us? What if our AI decides it likes the other AI better than it likes us?”
“You’re nuts.”
“But George, I read an article that said that—”

“Forget that article. AI can give you better articles, ones that only tell you stuff that has nothing to do with the real world. AI can even make you believe that there’s no such thing as AI. Or that AI does exist but it’s your closest and dearest and most intimate friend. Won’t that be nice?”