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Moore's Law for Everything

moores.samaltman.com

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Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#331

Post by neilparikh »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #224

This essay doesn't address any of the key problems often raised when talking about AI and UBI. Here is Australia we are already seeing one the effects of very cheap stuff. Skilled labor is significantly more expensive than buying things, so anything that has to have an Australian involved is ridiculously expensive. Calling the Plumber to fix a drain? That's a week of groceries or perhaps a new TV. At some point soon…

> Taxing land sounds fair enough, but I was under the impression we are already subsidizing a lot of farming anyhow

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Taxing land doesn't really have much connection to farming specifically. In fact, most high value land is urban areas and cities (NYC, SF, Silicon Valley, etc.), so farm land is mostly irrelevant when talking about a land value tax.

> Any aren't we supposed to be reclaiming land to turn back into national parks, planting trees, and capturing carbon.

To do so, we need to use more land more efficiently: less sprawl, and more building up/dense. And a land value tax incentivizes precisely that, since in high value areas, the tax would be high enough that it dense buildings would be the only real financially viable option. This increase in density in the core means we don't need to develop other land (and even reclaim some of it to parks as you suggest).

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#332

Post by vkou »

mrkramer wrote: post #283
koboll wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>horses don't create demand, but neither do unemployed humans. What Sam is proposing is massive wealth redistribution by taxing land and capital. Seen any memes referencing $1400 lately? Unemployed humans who are given cash absolutely create demand.

>Unemployed humans who are given cash absolutely create demand. That's artificial demand which creates inflation.

Only if the money comes from the printing press, as opposed to from taxing the rich.

Also, without the fed printing money, we'd be feeling deflationary pressures, because we are in, you know, a recession. Some printing doesn't actually cause abnormal inflation in that situation.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#333

Post by hntrader »

sudosysgen wrote: post #227
erikstarck wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“...it's centred around capital” Well, actually around value - which is different from capital. It just so happens that we use capital to trade a lot (but not all) of what we consider to be valuable. Even in a world of abundance there would be things that are scarce but we still consider valuable. Social status for example.

Certainly, our economy is not centred around abstract value. Value for who? What kind of value? Does value rule the life of the average man, or does trading his labour for access to capital and a share of it's proceeds describe the relation one has to the economy more accurately? Trade is not what I'm discussing as an abstract concept, but instead how we structure our relationship to sustenance and work. That is cent…

The economy is centered around factors of production, which include labor and capital, both of which are value inputs towards meeting some need in the marketplace, and both of whose market price follows supply and demand. The more valuable the input (i.e. scarce+necessary), the higher the market price.

Capital is valuable (high price) when it's needed and scarce, e.g in the junk bond market. Labor is valuable (high price) when it's needed and scarce, e.g productive software engineers.

There's no sense in conceptually elevating capital above labor, or vice versa, insofar as we're attempting to understand economic systems, as they're both just factors of production.

Now, that's not disagreement with Sam's point. Labor will decline in value as an input since AI will provide zero marginal cost competition to labor (effectively it'll be a massive increase in the supply of labor). More supply = less unique value = wages crater. Capital may slightly decline in value too, but at a slower rate than labor.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#334

Post by yifanl »

mdorazio wrote: post #170
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…

If your property value doubles and you lose your job, why wouldn't you sell your property for a massive gain, take that money and buy a new house somewhere cheaper, thereby avoiding the tax issue entirely? Seems like a situation where you want to have your cake and eat it, too.

A property's value doubling isn't a one-off event, it'd be widespread and continuous. That cheaper place's value will rise proportionally, and now they've the same problem, except with an overall lower quality of life now that they're living in a worse property.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#335

Post by mikewarot »

mdorazio wrote: post #170
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…

If your property value doubles and you lose your job, why wouldn't you sell your property for a massive gain, take that money and buy a new house somewhere cheaper, thereby avoiding the tax issue entirely? Seems like a situation where you want to have your cake and eat it, too.

My property has doubled due to an incoming commuter rail line... which means my taxes will go up. I used to have the cheapest house in town, which means if I have to move, I have to find a smaller house in a less desirable neighborhood, or end up renting, then homeless as the rents rise.

The rich will get richer, and the rest of us will get poorer.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#336

Post by sudosysgen »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #329
sudosysgen wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain."

We’ve shifted the goalposts from “providing every human the dignity of a home” to “providing every human a home that doesn’t look too shabby when compared to the highest bar in society”

Certainly, the first is enough, I'm just trying to answer why it is that people increase their consumption without end while it doesn't really make them happy.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#337

Post by scythe »

randyrand wrote: post #82
ksdale wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GDP per capita of the world is only about $12,000. That's technically "what we need," food, clothes, and shelter for a family of 4, but on a per person basis, it's below the federal poverty line in the US. I don't think it's correct to say that we had enough wealth a long time ago. There are a lot of places in the world that are still desperately poor by any measure, not just by the standards of the wealthy. And…

I’ve been watching videos about tribes in Papa New Guniea and it makes you realize you don’t need very much for clothes or shelter. Food is all you really need. For luxury: food, sex, and purpose. The tribes have all 3.

It doesn't snow in Papua New Guinea.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#338

Post by scythe »

legulere wrote: post #85
ksdale wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GDP per capita of the world is only about $12,000. That's technically "what we need," food, clothes, and shelter for a family of 4, but on a per person basis, it's below the federal poverty line in the US. I don't think it's correct to say that we had enough wealth a long time ago. There are a lot of places in the world that are still desperately poor by any measure, not just by the standards of the wealthy. And…

GDP per capita also counts children. $48,000 for a family of four sounds perfectly fine to me.

This isn't a realistic way to project consumption, though. A single adult living alone has more expenses per person than a family of four under one roof. An elderly couple will not get by on $24k. (And half of people are not under 18, 21, or 25 as you may prefer to define childhood.)

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#339

Post by buildstatements »

soperj wrote: post #259
colinmhayes wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-covid, Global wages and employment levels have never been higher. Global poverty levels have never been lower. Either way, I don't disagree that AI will replace some jobs, I'm just not sold on the horse story.

and? We still have people dying of starvation world wide. We have scads of homeless in the richest country on earth. Why do you think anyone will care at all?

You have to be willfully ignorant to believe a proposition that no one cares, and willfully naive to believe everyone will.

Look at https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth and take 5 minutes to look at the data on the rest of the site and you will understand how much life has improved not just in raw numbers (there are more people living above the poverty line than existed 100 years ago), but more importantly in percentage terms - a far smaller fraction of people live in poverty today than in 1880.

In fact, the number last time I ran it was that less people live in abject poverty in 2019 than did so in 1880 - despite a 7-8 fold increase in population.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#340

Post by scythe »

ravi-delia wrote: post #9
ralph84 wrote: post #7

> This revolution will generate enough wealth for everyone to have what they need We had enough wealth for everyone to have what we need a long time ago. No matter how much we have humans always want more. AI won't change that.

I've spent what is likely way too much mental energy wondering about this, and I'm no closer to an answer. Is there any limit to lifestyle inflation? Is it possible to have growth that simply outpaces what a human could possibly consume? Intuitively it seems obvious that there should be something like that, but in the 1800s our growth today would seem like it should be enough.

>Is there any limit to lifestyle inflation?

There ought to be a point at which continuing increases in income fail to generate increases in either life expectancy or the proportion of adults who are able to work (not necessarily working). It would be necessary to distinguish this from the effects of anti-aging technology, but it should be possible in principle; improving diet/sleep/exercise and reducing pollution exposure isn't "anti-aging technology", nor are childcare/education.

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