Even though we see a steady increase in jobs and wages, that doesn't mean that there were periods when in certain communities almost everybody lost their job. There are places / cities in many regions that relied mostly on one factory or industry, and as the employers collapsed, so did the communities. Many never recovered, because you can't just tell a 60 year old miner to requalify.
AI Won't Cause Unemployment
121–130 of 362 posts
Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment
#122He's got to be taking the piss.
> The lines in red are the sectors where technological innovation is not permitted to push down prices; in fact, the prices of education, health care, and housing as well as anything provided or controlled by the government are going to the moon, even as those sectors are technologically stagnant.
I don't mean to dunk or anything but surely it's a bit ridiculous to talk about housing here. He's literally the guy opposing it.
Baffling post.
Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment
#123[flagged]
It always amuses me that the 'high prices are a market signal to produce more' belief only seems to apply in areas other than housing and financial risk assets.
Funny that.
Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment
#124I think there is real difference between a) devaluing someone's work, and b) and voiding work of value. What makes AI different from previous technological innovations is that it seems to have the potential to make peoples labor worthless, rather than merely devalued. To give examples, if your writing is worse than ChatGPTs then your writing is worthless. If your art is worse than stable diffusion then your art is wo…
But this is the story of technology for two centuries or more. Somehow we kept income and aggregate growth going even as we needed far fewer farmers, factory foremen, and travel agents.
Except it isn't, and the failure of most people to perceive this nuance could be catastrophic.
We have never created (and we still haven't, but recent advances are starting to become frightening) an artificial replacement for general human cognition. General cognition is the only thing that makes us special and valuable. Replace that, and most of us will be reduced to just another discardable animal.
This could end up great, and could usher in a post-scarcity future. There are also a number of dystopias, and outright near-extinction scenarios that could result if the wrong actors develop AGI first.
Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment
#125I can't help but think Andreesen's gone off the deep end a bit, especially after he started gushing over Adam Neumann's second run at a real estate company (“We think it is natural that for his first venture since WeWork, Adam returns to the theme of connecting people through transforming their physical spaces and building communities where people spend the most time: their homes.”). > AI is simply already illegal ac…
You are not wrong. This is what I would call a severe imagination deficit. Which is of course not a great trait for a venture capitalist. Andreesen is framing things in a very US centric context. Which of course represents the status quo there and the way things are; mostly for historic reasons. That's going to change for two simple reasons. Number 1 would be that it is sub optimal to say the least. It's simply not s…
> a few places that aren't going to be held back by regulation and bureaucracy: China, India, most of Africa
Lack of bureaucracy and government control are not defining features of these places.
Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment
#126[flagged]
That's only possible because the Atherton government listens to him and nothing else stops the local government.
Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment
#127This claim that AI won't cause unemployment baffles me. I understand the argument being made that new types of jobs will be created, but what the people making that argument miss is the massive level of up-skilling/re-skilling that is required of the population whose jobs are replaced. This has not worked out well. Just look at the communities in some poorer parts of the UK, who were relying on coal, mining and steam…
Not up-skilling but down-skilling. AI is going to come for the mathematicians and radiologists first and work its way down to the pizza delivery boys. This is because robotics is a couple of decades behind. Anyone with a desk job as a knowledge worker is most at risk.
Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment
#128This claim that AI won't cause unemployment baffles me. I understand the argument being made that new types of jobs will be created, but what the people making that argument miss is the massive level of up-skilling/re-skilling that is required of the population whose jobs are replaced. This has not worked out well. Just look at the communities in some poorer parts of the UK, who were relying on coal, mining and steam…
The reason technology doesn't net destroy jobs is that things that destroy jobs lower costs, which leaves people with more money in their pockets, which creates jobs.
What net destroys jobs is things that unproductively increase costs. Resources that are wasted can't be used for productive labor that improves quality of life.
Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment
#129> Communist-inspired Universal Basic Income
Which communist country has or had UBI? Because I am not aware of any, nor do I regard it as communist.
So what do I mean by communism? All economies are run by a mixture of markets and commands. Communism is any economy that is largely command-based (all real economies are a mixture of the two, of course). UBI is where someone is given a regular amount of money and can spend it however they like (i.e. market based).
The USSR was not run like this. Instead it was command-based, e.g. Krushchev build millions of Krushchevkas (standardised apartment housing) and people were allocated an apartment.
So when Andreessen says "Communist-inspired Universal Basic Income" what he really means is presumably "I disapprove of UBI so I'm going to smear it by inaccurately associating it with something I presume my readers dislike". IMO this is deeply dishonest.
Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
People overestimate the potency of monetary policy. Japan's central banks had its foot to the pedal for 2 decades and only recently have things gotten better. 0% interest rates is not an elixir for growth. It's not that easy or simple. Same for other countries which had 'easy money' polices but far less success compared to the US, no Facebook or Aamzons coming out of the UK or Germany.
Japan is ahead of us in time. What they are we will be. Zero interest rates can’t fix massive debt, a graying population with low population growth, low immigration, and out of control property prices. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrencelight/2021/02/24/will-t...
It can. Zero interest rates are the natural rate for money - since it is costless to produce.
Therefore that is the optimal rate for the currency issuer. There is no need to pay people not to spend when you can tax them if they do. That's just basic income for rich people.
Banks then discount assets into liquidity at a markup over zero and they can be allowed to compete fully and go bust which controls the net interest margin.
If you optimise the system so it operates on maximum liquidity then you lower the cost of business investment while selecting for productivity by moving the business to where the people are rather than the other way around.
That gets you around the greying population problem without destroying your society - by learning to do more with less.
Japan has gone some way down this road, but not entirely.