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Moore's Law for Everything

moores.samaltman.com

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Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#71

Post by adambaybutt »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #4
adambaybutt wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Altman isn't arguing that Moore's Law DOES apply to everything but rather than we should work toward such a world. It is good for society if the costs of goods and services decrease over time to allow a given income/wealth level to live a better life over time.

I'm all for driving down the costs of things low on Maslow's hierarchy, but it's arguably more reasonable in the short term to put effective public policy in place than hope the singularity gets here (an exaggeration, but not exceptionally so, considering "Moore's Law for Everything"). Tech people keep trying to fix people problems with tech. ~47k people die each year in the US from a lack of healthcare. Other countr…

Technology has reduced costs of goods and services by orders of magnitude more than any public policy.

But yes I do agree iterating to improve public policy is important too.

Hence the organization of Sam's essay to reflect this.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#72

Post by aksss »

bpodgursky wrote: post #61
lucasmullens wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're improving rapidly, but I think we need to set our expectations higher. According to givewell.org, it only costs between $3000 and $5000 to save a life. There's a lot of people who could give that amount and don't, so there's a lot of lives that could be saved that aren't. And that's a pretty miserable failure to me.

Well, a few decades ago, it took maybe $200 to save a life. We're certainly trending right.

That's fascinating.. so human lives are worth more, or there's more friction to intervention these days? Hoping it's the former. But curious what you think the explanation is for this. Just a reflection in standard of living, and so the cost to save has a higher standard?

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#73

Post by tvanantwerp »

xrd wrote: post #59

There are some really smart ideas in here, and some really smart assessments of existing policies. The thing I was most taken aback by was Sam's suggestion to tax privately held land, and capital (as opposed to labor tax). I would love to have Sam and PG go toe to toe and discuss how Sam's proposal is different from the wealth tax post PG made. I don't immediately see how Sam's idea avoids the "wealth tax compounds"…

As far as I can tell, it's not different. Unless you could consistently generate the 2.5% property value to pay the tax each year (in a world where AI has sent incomes to zero!), then you'll eventually lose your property.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#74

Post by adambaybutt »

ctoth wrote: post #12
toomuchtodo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for driving down the costs of things low on Maslow's hierarchy, but it's arguably more reasonable in the short term to put effective public policy in place than hope the singularity gets here (an exaggeration, but not exceptionally so, considering "Moore's Law for Everything"). Tech people keep trying to fix people problems with tech. ~47k people die each year in the US from a lack of healthcare. Other countr…

Could it be that tech people try to fix problems with tech because tech people are familiar with tech? Said another way, where are the non-tech public policy people solving these problems? If they don't step up, maybe it's time the tech people do?

Exactly. Sam isn't a politician or policymaker. He is trying to contribute ideas for others to improve and implement.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#75

Post by [deleted] »

adambaybutt wrote: post #71
toomuchtodo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for driving down the costs of things low on Maslow's hierarchy, but it's arguably more reasonable in the short term to put effective public policy in place than hope the singularity gets here (an exaggeration, but not exceptionally so, considering "Moore's Law for Everything"). Tech people keep trying to fix people problems with tech. ~47k people die each year in the US from a lack of healthcare. Other countr…

Technology has reduced costs of goods and services by orders of magnitude more than any public policy. But yes I do agree iterating to improve public policy is important too. Hence the organization of Sam's essay to reflect this.

[deleted]

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#76

Post by tvanantwerp »

zz865 wrote: post #45
tvanantwerp wrote: post #26

Imagine: 1) I'm the owner of a single family home 2) My income drops to roughly zero because of AI 3) My property values go through the roof 4) I now owe 2.5% of these sky-rocketing property values every year, to be paid from my non-existent income Doesn't this scenario lead to me either selling my "gifted" shares to pay property taxes, or ending up a renter at best and homeless at worst? I can imagine this proposal…

I think if most people are in 2) then 3) isn't going to happen.

I include 3 because Altman assumes it. Even if property values stay the same—or even drop—I think it would not be a fun situation for home owners.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#77

Post by larsiusprime »

xrd wrote: post #59

There are some really smart ideas in here, and some really smart assessments of existing policies. The thing I was most taken aback by was Sam's suggestion to tax privately held land, and capital (as opposed to labor tax). I would love to have Sam and PG go toe to toe and discuss how Sam's proposal is different from the wealth tax post PG made. I don't immediately see how Sam's idea avoids the "wealth tax compounds"…

Land Value tax has a long history in economics; it acts very differently from capital and wealth taxes because Land really behaves differently from those two classes of things. I highly recommend reading Henry George on the subject, who originally popularized the idea.

Note "Land Tax" != "Property Tax." Land tax taxes only the value of the underlying "ground rent", NOT the value of the improvements (stuff you build on land). Property Tax taxes both.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#78

Post by joe_the_user »

In the next five years, computer programs that can think will read legal documents and give medical advice.

Aside from the other points, taking "AI" as it exists in it's present form (deep neural networks and related) as specifically the bringer of unlimited wealth certainly puffs up the various "AI companies" notably OpenAI (It should be noted that OpenAI's most famous product, GPT-3, can generate strings that sound a lot like legal or medical advice but it so far "demonstrates non-understanding on a regular basis". Don't follow it's advice to kill yourself, for example).

It really should be said that deep learning, in particular, is still just one technology that's very good at some things, kind of impressive but not functional at other things, and just unable to do other things (actual understanding of biology, for example, seems well beyond them). I don't think this situation has changed since deep learning began it's hype cycle (which isn't to say it's "nothing", it just doesn't seem like to bring us "everything", a scenario the article literally sketches).

Automation has proceeded apace, automation in general has brought us enough resources right now to give minimal comfort to most people in the planet (as people have noted).

But automation has generally succeeded in situations where everything is controlled - ie, factories. Self-driving cars are forever five years away given the 5% or 1% or whatever level of unpredictable variable involved. Progress on robots that can interact well with either humans or "the messy real world" even in very limited terms has been painfully slow and I expect this to continue.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#79

Post by toomuchtodo »

adambaybutt wrote: post #74
ctoth wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that tech people try to fix problems with tech because tech people are familiar with tech? Said another way, where are the non-tech public policy people solving these problems? If they don't step up, maybe it's time the tech people do?

Exactly. Sam isn't a politician or policymaker. He is trying to contribute ideas for others to improve and implement.

I would encourage him at trying his hand at being one. It's not a long journey from the ideas in his post to legislation.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#80

Post by bpodgursky »

aksss wrote: post #72
bpodgursky wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, a few decades ago, it took maybe $200 to save a life. We're certainly trending right.

That's fascinating.. so human lives are worth more, or there's more friction to intervention these days? Hoping it's the former. But curious what you think the explanation is for this. Just a reflection in standard of living, and so the cost to save has a higher standard?

A few decades ago, mass famine was still a thing, and all it took to keep people alive was food aid. Ex, the famine in Ethiopia which killed a million+: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983%E2%80%931985_famine_in_Et...

Food insecurity is still a thing, but the only mass starvation is driven by conflict in hard-to-reach places like Yemen, where you can't just easily ship food and save a million lives.

Now, the most effective aid interventions are campaigns like de-worming and Malaria; but those are more of a QALY calculation, where you de-worm 100 kids to prevent serious disease in some subset of them. Which overall drives the cost up, but is actually a good trend.

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