Comment by Centigonal

I think "resource curse" countries are a great surrogate for studying possible future AGI-induced economic and political phenomena. A country like the UAE (oil) or Botswana (diamonds) essentially has an economic equivalent to AGI: they control a small, extremely productive utility (an oilfield or a mine instead of a server farm), and the wealth generated by that utility is far in excess of what those countries' leaders need to maintain power. Sure, you hire foreign labor and trade for resources instead of having your AGI supply those things, but the end result is the same.