We're on the brink of the next major economic transformation. But, it's not just about AI. It's about meaning.

LLMs will succeed where an earlier generation of ML-failed. Social media and OS-level recommenders can't really understand what's important and meaningful to us, so their suggestions are always a bit off. They never lead us towards what's really important. They can't be trusted to shape our social relationships. Etc.

But, soon, there will emerge LLMs that understand us deeply: not just how to manipulate us, or how to get us to click. They will understand the conditions under which we flourish.

This will seed an economic transformation. Capitalist markets will start being replaced by a kind of planning mechanism, based around flourishing.

We believe the “meaning economy” will be enormous. Much bigger than the sharing economy. Comparable to the health sector (or, depending on how things go with AGI, possibly much bigger even than health).

What is the Meaning Economy?

Currently, you indicate what you want by paying for it, voting for it, or clicking it. Then, you get it, and it may or may not be what you really wanted. So, our current economy is about getting people what they think they wanted.

In the future, the economy will be about connecting people with what's meaningful to them. The signal will come after the connection, when consumers say whether it was meaningful to them.

Various organizations and AIs will be in the business of anticipating what will be meaningful to someone, betting on it, and make offers. There will be “meaning suppliers” and “meaning entrepreneurs”, who can deliver what's meaningful to people at some scale.

• Work will become mostly about meaning.
• Community will become mostly about meaning.
• Etc.

There will be more community and true sociality, because people find those things meaningful. There will be more exploration, more creativity, more challenge.

Let’s Make It Happen!

There are reasons to make the meaning economy happen sooner, if possible.

• First, the meaning economy is important for AI safety. As LLMs become more powerful and we move towards AGI, if they are tuned towards profit or attention rather than meaning, they’ll accelerate many already destructive dynamics in society — ideological warfare, military warfare, etc. If broader economic incentives are aligned with meaning, this will go better.
• Second, the meaning economy can help overcome problems with underemployment or job displacement due to AI (and relatedly, problems with UBI if it’s rolled out). ideally, we want people in the most meaningful jobs for them, and “meaning suppliers” and “meaning entrepreneurs” can create many new jobs
• Finally, meaning economy tools offer a way for us to measure and shape AI impacts. Imagine surveying AI impacts, such as the impact of ChatGPT and API use, on the end users’ meaning in life. There's reason to believe this is one of the best things to measure, to shape AI impact, and one of the most powerful levers to make sure that the effect of AI is beneficial.

A Research Consortium (and Incubator)

The meaning economy will be big. But also, the meaning economy isn’t really a startup play. At present, it's more of a research project, albeit one with huge commercial potential.