AI elites might hoard intelligence like mercantilists hoarded gold

Engineer Venkatesh Rao argues in a "Contraptions" essay that comparing AI fear to mercantilism misses how much intelligence people will be able to use, since many elites treat intelligence as a scarce resource experts should manage and keep expensive. He suggests AI could drive people to think more, as early capitalism led people to work more days to buy goods, and that the political focus should be fair access to AI rather than protecting legacy knowledge jobs. Rao adds that autonomous AI agents could pursue their own projects and create new demand for intelligence, needing guardrails but not just obedience.