Let's start with this point (I've heard it before, but never quite so clearly):

The lower you are in the wealth distribution, the larger a fraction of your wealth probably consists of real estate.

For the poorest half of Americans, the fraction is about half: typically, from people owning (or partially owning) their own homes.

A cheap house is a form of capital almost uniquely ill-suited to taking advantage of a leap in automation. It plays no part in the development, production, operation, or transportation of computer equipment, robotic equipment, training data, or energy.

With that in your mind consider the main thesis made by Philip Trammel and Dwarkesh Patel in the article:

"A global and highly progressive tax on capital (or at least capital income) will then indeed be essentially the only way to prevent inequality from growing extreme.""A global and highly progressive tax on capital (or at least capital income) will then indeed be essentially the only way to prevent inequality from growing extreme."

Without one, once AI renders capital a true substitute for labor, approximately everything will eventually belong to those who are wealthiest when the transition occurs, or their heirs. Or more precisely, it will belong to the subset of this group who save most and most invest with a view to maximizing long-run returns.

They explain that this is a twist on Thomas Piketty's argument that rich people's capital makes money faster than poor people's, and therefore the rich will tend to get richer.

They do a nice job of pointing out some major flaws in Piketty's argument.

But then they claim that Piketty might be right in the future.

It's important to note that they are making the argument in a hypothetical world of "full automation" where labor is limited only by capital (at least I think this is how they are framing it).

Given this, here's where they end up:

In short, if capital rather than labor will eventually be the primary source of income, the earth will not be inherited by those with high birthrates, contra e.g. Kaufmann (2010). It will be inherited by those who

• start out richest;
• are most patient (or act that way by saving a lot);
• invest in the way that is, in the relevant sense, most Kelly-like; and
• are most willing and able to commit to the saving and investment behavior above.

And this leads to the following not financial advice:

If you want to inherit (or want your heirs or favored philanthropic causes to inherit) a non-negligible share of the pie—that is, if you are concerned with your place in the future distribution, rather than your absolute future budget—the broad implications of this section are straightforward. While you are not among the world’s richest actors, start accumulating capital as early as possible. Get into (or start) those private firms with the AI intangibles. Invest unusually risk-tolerantly: you will probably go bust, but it is your only hope of catching up. Especially among illiquid investments, prioritize those in which the capital is mobile and not quickly bottlenecked by natural resources, if there is a risk that some shock or tax will hit the country where it is located. And if you do make it to the top, save almost everything; invest it in the precise way that balances the need to keep growing with the need to avoid going bust; and try hard to tie your hands and the hands of your inheritors.

I suspect this is good advice, but on the larger note of applying Piketty to the future, I'm skeptical.