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What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

economist.com

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Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#61

Post by hkt »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #53
sampton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say that until they are asked to pay more and earn less.

Well, I had a high-paying job, six figures. But that six-figures came with less freedom, higher-paced work, life bureacracy, and I wasn't happy. I had no time or mental space to just sit and think. Probably the least happy I was in my entire life. So I quit. Now, I do live a slower-paced life, and earn very little. But I'm the happiest I've ever been. But YMMV I guess.

Out of interest, how much capital did you accrue during that time? Mortgage free and a good pension seems to be the bar for voluntarily adopting a slower pace of life.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#62

Post by senko »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #8

I'd rather just have a world where people move a little slower, care less about efficiency, appreciate the smaller things in life, and stop forcing endless upgrades of every kind on everyone with new phones, new apps, soulless art, and new ways of doing things. But that's just me.

Oh that's easy, just move to any small Mediterranean island.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#63

Post by vouaobrasil »

hkt wrote: post #61
vouaobrasil wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I had a high-paying job, six figures. But that six-figures came with less freedom, higher-paced work, life bureacracy, and I wasn't happy. I had no time or mental space to just sit and think. Probably the least happy I was in my entire life. So I quit. Now, I do live a slower-paced life, and earn very little. But I'm the happiest I've ever been. But YMMV I guess.

Out of interest, how much capital did you accrue during that time? Mortgage free and a good pension seems to be the bar for voluntarily adopting a slower pace of life.

Not a lot, lol. I don't even own property, and my pension will be a very small pittance. The goal is to hopefully make enough through independent projects to make it work. And if North American becomes too expensive, then Plan B is to move to a cheaper part of the world, much cheaper. Less infrastructure there, but what're ya going to do? Can't have everything in life, and you've only got one :)

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#64

Post by poisonborz »

Teever wrote: post #29
vouaobrasil wrote: post #8

I'd rather just have a world where people move a little slower, care less about efficiency, appreciate the smaller things in life, and stop forcing endless upgrades of every kind on everyone with new phones, new apps, soulless art, and new ways of doing things. But that's just me.

Maybe the issue with society is that we don't care about efficiency? We throw away 1/3 of the food that we make. We're overweight and waste energy from carrying that excess weight. We're less physically active as a result so we require motorized transport that is predominantly single passenger cars so we build all our infrastructure around cars which in turn causes us to be even more inactive and unhealthy. This also…

That's not how capitalism measures efficiency. It all comes down to profits. Everything else is bureaucracy and marketing. There just aren't any incentives to drive these macroecononic efficiency goals you mention.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#65

Post by Nevermark »

tangent-man wrote: post #50
Nevermark wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With enough money/capital growing, you can live however reasonably paced you like!

Only if you have found an end to old age, sickness and death. Until this ^ there are no guarantees in life. You cant eat money

Well you can’t drive money, fly money, surgery money, publish money, build a house out of money that doesn’t melt in the rain…

If you want to put it that way.

But given we agree it is absolutely useless, you should probably periodically trade some of it for food. Etc.

That works out really well, since money doesn’t mold as quickly as food, and doesn’t require refrigeration. So accumulate money, let it work for you in the form of productive capital, but skim it for food purchases.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#66

Post by chairmansteve »

solumunus wrote: post #40
Teever wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the issue with society is that we don't care about efficiency? We throw away 1/3 of the food that we make. We're overweight and waste energy from carrying that excess weight. We're less physically active as a result so we require motorized transport that is predominantly single passenger cars so we build all our infrastructure around cars which in turn causes us to be even more inactive and unhealthy. This also…

You think people own cars because they’re unfit? Would it be more efficient for them to ditch their car and cycle 4 hours per day to and from work?

They don't cycle.

In other advanced societies (say New York City), people catch public transport to go to work. Catching public transport usually involves a certain amount on walking, since the bus/metro stop is not usually outside your front door.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#67

Post by hkt »

Here's a thought: what if descendants of today's open models end up refined by proprietary models, resulting in a world in which it is largely impossible to keep AI under private ownership? What if data protection laws give way to data donation laws, permitting people to specifically choose recipient research institutions to train new AI upon? I could easily see a world where OpenAI, Google, Anthropic etc are boycotted in favour of say, a global-membership cooperative. It'd require people to exercise some agency but few predictions about AI seem to imagine people have any. Governments are spoken about as though they're managing people rather than representing them. The likelihood of popular movements or collective endeavours seems to not have been factored in at all.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#68

Post by karim79 »

lossolo wrote: post #51
karim79 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose, if a huge proportion of workers get replaced by AI software, leading to mass unemployment, there will be impetus for governments to step in and force corporations to contribute to some sort of UBI or social wealth fund. If AI grabs everything and few consumers are left then it is zero-sum. I'm looking forward to seeing how this might play out. Pessimistically, it seems very bubblish.

> I suppose, if a huge proportion of workers get replaced by AI software, leading to mass unemployment, there will be impetus for governments to step in and force corporations to contribute to some sort of UBI or social wealth fund. I looked for any comments that expressed this sentiment, and as of writing this, I only found one. It's like people don't know or remember history. I mean, look at the French Revolution—l…

I very much appreciate this reply. You basically perfectly elaborated on what I lazily threw out there.

With that being said, most of my friends are senior software devs and they think the same thing is bound to happen.

We often joke about starting a falafel restaurant or such before it is too late. I think it will take way, way longer for AI to make good falafel than it will take to replace software engineers.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#69

Post by esseph »

bhickey wrote: post #24
mg wrote: post #20

The biggest change I anticipate is larger cities. When I ask people what they would like to change about their life, pretty much everyone mentions that their apartment is too small and too expensive. Because everyone wants to live right in the center of a big city. While at the same time, when I look at Google maps, big cities are tiny. I zoom out a bit and every big city is just a tiny speck in the middle of nowhere…

> pretty much every one mentions that their apartment is too small and too expensive. This is due to under supply of urban housing due to bad zoning law designed to inflate rents. > When construction becomes cheaper, it will be more compelling to build houses outside the city. Suburbs are financially underwater. People don't want to pay high property taxes to live in some Levittown hellscape.

> Suburbs

Still the "American Dream" for a lot of people, and these copy/pasta McMansions are going up all over the place.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#70

Post by energy123 »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #8

I'd rather just have a world where people move a little slower, care less about efficiency, appreciate the smaller things in life, and stop forcing endless upgrades of every kind on everyone with new phones, new apps, soulless art, and new ways of doing things. But that's just me.

I feel like this mixes up good things (efficiency improvements -> more prosperity) with bad things (late-stage capitalism stuff like gamified apps)
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