Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 199 posts

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

#181

Post by evilsetg »

spwa4 wrote: post #156
vouaobrasil wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ... why bother anyone about it? You want others to do this but would never accept doing so yourself? Well, first I already have, so I don't know where you got "never accept doing so yourself", which is something you made up. Secondly, why bother: because the current world system is destroying nature, which in my opinion is on the same level as actively targeting people. So I do want that to stop. If nature was…

> Secondly, why bother: because the current world system is destroying nature Is it? If you put it this dramatically, it's bullshit. Nature will survive us, rather than the other way around, guaranteed. MAYBE we can kill large animals if we tried, but probably not even that (they'd just shrink and then grow large again, wouldn't be the first, or second, or even the tenth time that happened). Life on earth is being su…

Okay, so we are not destroying all of nature, only enough nature that it will get seriously uncomfortable for us. Great! Your second argument is even stranger. It would be unnatural to stop polluting the environment? Where are you going with this?

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

#182

Post by effed3 »

mritterhoff wrote: post #162
effed3 wrote: post #132

Economy is way too much growth, as inequality and inefficiency, pollution, and resource exaustion, being mainly based on finance and speculation and not on -real- economy, for the good of a very small part of humanity. Has to grow in this manner even more? And with the help of AI? If some rules are not changed and a more equality model is developed, there are no more world at all.

What's your problem with growth? Growth means higher GDP which is correlated with all sorts of good things, including longer lives, and less food scarcity.

i like "all sort of good things" (and more if are really available for -all-) but IMHO relating these to an aeternal even bigger growth is a big misconception, seems to me that now the bigger part of growth is going to benefits very few, and polluting/undermining the rest of the world, vanishing the "good thing" for the rest of us. I imagine growth more as a consequence of a really sane economy, capable to adapt, expand and even shrink when necessary without devastating markets and real GDP, i cannot think now 'growth' as the foundation of a real sustainable and development in the near future. Is like 'progress', a word mainly referring to speed and more speed, but never about 'direction'.

Returning to AI, really can these new techs benefits all of us? I doubt. In some sectors AI techs can be a great aid (expert systems, data mining, ) but this growth of LLM things seems a big bubble, more related to speculation than others. just my 5c.

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

#183

Post by pydry »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #99
vouaobrasil wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For efficiency improvements to create more leisure time or even more wealth (for the bottom 50%), society would need to be radically restructured so that its locus of control is not capital. And even then, even a small percentage of bad actors who are selfish would likely restructure it back due to technology enabling them to do so! The fact is, the elite at the top is a steady state that is hard to leave if you wo…

This seems circular… capital has become such an important gatekeeper in society in the first place because most people aren’t that trustworthy, and will likely betray any trust or faith placed in them if put under enough pressure. So society has to depend on something fully independent of any specific person or group and that cannot be changed without leaving behind a long papertrail. In other words nobody dreams of…

>capital has become such an important gatekeeper in society in the first place because most people aren’t that trustworthy

Not really. It became that way because wealth begets power.

The narrative it tells us is that we should be terrified to change this because nobody else except the owners of capital can be trusted as stewards of our economy and political system (particularly not "government").

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

#184

Post by lm28469 »

bugsMarathon88 wrote: post #139
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.

[flagged]

You're right, I'll keep buying cheap shit on aliexpress to bring freedom to the Uyghurs child slaves chasing the most efficient way to weave t-shirts

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

#185

Post by mensetmanusman »

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.

Those in poverty would rather people expand the economy so they can be lifted out of poverty to have time to focus on the smaller things.

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

#186

Post by immibis »

mritterhoff wrote: post #162
effed3 wrote: post #132

Economy is way too much growth, as inequality and inefficiency, pollution, and resource exaustion, being mainly based on finance and speculation and not on -real- economy, for the good of a very small part of humanity. Has to grow in this manner even more? And with the help of AI? If some rules are not changed and a more equality model is developed, there are no more world at all.

What's your problem with growth? Growth means higher GDP which is correlated with all sorts of good things, including longer lives, and less food scarcity.

Most GDP growth is just a change in price level - even inflation-adjusted GDP, since prices consistently rise faster than inflation. How does this help anyone?

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

#187

Post by immibis »

whatshisface wrote: post #41
coldtea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real growth has stalled for decades and is only propped up with rent-seeking and money printing credit - hence the results we see...

Here's a chart of real growth over the past few decades: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1

Prices rise faster than inflation. You'd have to adjust for prices instead of adjusting for inflation. Try indexing it to median monthly non-imputed rent per square foot.

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

#188

Post by Nasrudith »

tempodox wrote: post #17
coldtea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real growth has stalled for decades and is only propped up with rent-seeking and money printing credit - hence the results we see...

Yet the fairy tale that growth not only can continue indefinitely but continually accelerate has to be kept up. It's almost as though word “enough” has been banned from economy altogether.

[flagged]

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

#189

Post by ashoeafoot »

aspenmayer wrote: post #147
vouaobrasil wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ts empty appartments, games, drugs and loneliness on UBI, that would be the outcome. Alright then, if that's really the foregone conclusion, then what's the point of existence? Should we not try and make things better by any means necessary?

> > ts empty appartments, games, drugs and loneliness on UBI, that would be the outcome. > Alright then, if that's really the foregone conclusion, then what's the point of existence? Should we not try and make things better by any means necessary? That's the pertinent question, and I don't have an answer that can adjudicate the dispute, but I can humbly help you formulate the choice as one between Leviathan or oblivi…

Thank you for this answer

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

#190

Post by MichaelZuo »

pydry wrote: post #183
MichaelZuo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems circular… capital has become such an important gatekeeper in society in the first place because most people aren’t that trustworthy, and will likely betray any trust or faith placed in them if put under enough pressure. So society has to depend on something fully independent of any specific person or group and that cannot be changed without leaving behind a long papertrail. In other words nobody dreams of…

>capital has become such an important gatekeeper in society in the first place because most people aren’t that trustworthy Not really. It became that way because wealth begets power. The narrative it tells us is that we should be terrified to change this because nobody else except the owners of capital can be trusted as stewards of our economy and political system (particularly not "government").

It certainly seems functional more than narrative… a long papertrail is physically costly to fake.
Post reply on HN