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AI Won't Cause Unemployment

pmarca.substack.com

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Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#301

Post by neilwilson »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #160
neilwilson wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 intere…

"costless to produce" No, making coins or dollars, particularly the type which is resistant to counter-fitting, takes an awful lot of money to produce. Hell, pennies are worth significantly more than their face value, hence why we have people calling to ban the penny all the time!

Money is recorded electronically and is near costless to produce.

Metalism lost the argument centuries ago.

Money is a promise, not a thing.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#302

Post by paulryanrogers »

slibhb wrote: post #295
ChicagoDave wrote: post #212

This article is pure conservative BS. The stagnation of certain industries is because of tax policy and the insane greed injected into our healthcare systems when the HMO laws passed in the 1980's. I'm not even sure what pmarca is talking about here. It's like he's waving his arms, "look over here at my BS and don't look over there where AI is about to slam information workers." AI will absolutely change the way soft…

> AI will absolutely change the way software engineering is accomplished. We already use things like Cloud Formation templates to auto-build and scale cloud-based architectures. We have code generators to build microservices. We even have modeling techniques to simplify complex systems. > All of those "things" will be plugged into an AI and one senior technologist will be able to write a detailed functional descripti…

Was it compilers alone? Or a complex mix of factors as software has eaten the world?

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#303

Post by harvey9 »

EFreethought wrote: post #66
James_Henry wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because he stopped drinking recently. https://pmarca.substack.com/p/on-pausing-alcohol (In all seriousness, I'm very happy it's becoming more fashionable to not drink)

It is not fashionable to not drink. What is fashionable: to drink a lot for many years, then stop drinking and blather on about how much better life is.

I'm bored by the blatherers too, but there is survey data to indicate younger people drinking less than earlier generations.

Might just be drink being less affordable, or other drugs being more affordable rather than a fashion decision

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#304

Post by CuriouslyC »

ookdatnog wrote: post #254
ChicagoDave wrote: post #212

This article is pure conservative BS. The stagnation of certain industries is because of tax policy and the insane greed injected into our healthcare systems when the HMO laws passed in the 1980's. I'm not even sure what pmarca is talking about here. It's like he's waving his arms, "look over here at my BS and don't look over there where AI is about to slam information workers." AI will absolutely change the way soft…

I'm also tired of how market fundamentalists always keep comparing their opponents to the Luddites, as if the Luddites were irrational fools with eternal egg on their face for their inability to see the blessings that technological advancement would bestow upon society. No, the Luddites actually lost their livelihoods in the early Industrial Revolution, and they would reap none of the eventual benefits of technologic…

The luddites were fundamentally selfish. Imagine if workers in a business burned down a competing business so they didn't get laid off during a downturn - zero sympathy right?

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#305

Post by theGnuMe »

LeonB wrote: post #152
pythonaut_16 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the proliferation of screens capable of displaying information and graphics has been an absolute boon to education.

I’m not denying it, but the cost of educating 1 child - has that fallen or risen?

Well the thing with education is that there is always more to learn since knowledge keeps increasing. So arguably what you want to measure is productivity. Has television, say PBS increased educational productivity. I would say yes. I remember watching Nova shows in science class and so forth. So yes TV has reduced costs.

Books also increased productivity in the same way.

Would remote learning reduce costs? Yes.

Will AI systems reduce cost, yes.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#307

Post by idopmstuff »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #179
idopmstuff wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is very far from the main point: accuracy of the claim that AI will wipe out (in this case health-related) jobs (and/or make health-related services cheaper). "involved" here is so vague as to be meaningless. Let me rephrase: AI is better at human beings at the sort of pattern-matching work that radiology entails, so the majority of radiologists will be unemployed (I'll say in 20 years, if you want to check ba…

The statement that "AI is better than human beings at the pattern-matching work of radiology, so the majority of radiologists will be unemployed" oversimplifies the role of radiologists. While AI can assist with pattern matching and improve scan quality, radiologists are doctors who diagnose pathologies based on multiple factors, not just scans. They also interact with patients, make important judgments, and determin…

I am 90% sure this is written by an LLM. The last sentence, particular the fact that it starts with "Therefore" really seals it for me.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#308

Post by theGnuMe »

kragen wrote: post #100
unmole wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't help but think Andreesen's gone off the deep end a bit The first time I heard of him was in 2016: https://www.fastcompany.com/3056581/marc-andreessen-riles-up... As far as I'm concerned, he's always been kooky.

he led the mosaic project at ncsa, creating the first web browser most people today would recognize as a browser, with things like images mixed in with text then he went off and founded netscape, creating the dot-com boom since then he's mostly been running a successful vc firm so yeah he's always been 'kooky'

The history of Mosaic is interesting!

https://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/research/project-highlights/nc...

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#309

Post by llamaimperative »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #304
ookdatnog wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also tired of how market fundamentalists always keep comparing their opponents to the Luddites, as if the Luddites were irrational fools with eternal egg on their face for their inability to see the blessings that technological advancement would bestow upon society. No, the Luddites actually lost their livelihoods in the early Industrial Revolution, and they would reap none of the eventual benefits of technologic…

The luddites were fundamentally selfish. Imagine if workers in a business burned down a competing business so they didn't get laid off during a downturn - zero sympathy right?

Ah yes here selfishness is wrong. Everywhere else in capitalism it’s a sacred virtue.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#310

Post by jhbadger »

ookdatnog wrote: post #254
ChicagoDave wrote: post #212

This article is pure conservative BS. The stagnation of certain industries is because of tax policy and the insane greed injected into our healthcare systems when the HMO laws passed in the 1980's. I'm not even sure what pmarca is talking about here. It's like he's waving his arms, "look over here at my BS and don't look over there where AI is about to slam information workers." AI will absolutely change the way soft…

I'm also tired of how market fundamentalists always keep comparing their opponents to the Luddites, as if the Luddites were irrational fools with eternal egg on their face for their inability to see the blessings that technological advancement would bestow upon society. No, the Luddites actually lost their livelihoods in the early Industrial Revolution, and they would reap none of the eventual benefits of technologic…

If I really believed that my suffering would lead to a post-scarcity paradise, yes, I would (but I don't believe it). And this rhetoric isn't just from free-marketeers. On the left, that's also what motivated people to endure the insanity of Stalin's and Mao's regimes -- that all the suffering they endured was temporary and was for a higher purpose -- to achieve a utopia that always seemed just out of reach.
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