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America is now one big bet on AI

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Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#91

Post by maxweylandt »

Oras wrote: post #9

> No nation has seen an immigration boom-bust cycle near the scale of the one roiling America. Net immigration nearly quadrupled after 2020 to peak at well over 3mn in 2023, but the backlash led by President Donald Trump sent that figure into freefall. This year only around 400,000 net new arrivals are expected, and that could be the trend in the coming years. If true, that's <1% of the population?

I also suspect using 2020 as a baseline will inflate how large the increases appear. Cursory google, but this dataset suggests pretty steady number apart from the covid downturn and now the recent crackdown:

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#92

Post by lm28469 »

noosphr wrote: post #74

I read these articles about how much of a suckers bet AI is and start feeling existential dread about the coming market crash. Then I remember I just did a weeks worth of work in a few hours and feel a lot better about my prospects at least. AI won't replace people, but it will make people who know how to use it vastly more efficient. In the same way that a tractor made a farmer more efficient.

The fact that LLMs are somewhat useful isn't really the subject here. The problem is that to be worth what they're evaluated at they'd need to be thousands of times more useful than they are. They can be useful, and extremely overvaluated at the same time, which still ends up in a crash. All the actors are bleeding money right now, would you spend $500 a month on an llm ? $1000 ? how many people would ?

You also don't account for the infinite flow of slop being generated 100x faster than any productive work: "Deloitte to pay money back to Albanese government after using AI in $440,000 report", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45500485

How much money, resource and time is spent on generating/hosting/discussing/cleaning up this slop ? How much of social distrust is created by LLM generated sociopolitcal discussions online ? &c.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#93

Post by simonsarris »

If we build out a bunch of data center infrastructure or (better yet) energy/power plant related infrastructure, and AI doesn't pan out, is it really so bad?

I think its a bit like trains in the 1800s. Plenty of overspending, plenty of speculation that went bust, but in a lot of ways the country was better for all the madness.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#94

Post by righthand »

anal_reactor wrote: post #79
righthand wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I don’t get. The general cost of living is sky rocketing, largely due to this push and some of the population thinks there is prosperity for all on the otherside of the meat processing machine we’re pushing everyone toward. Groceries are going to get more expensive. Every dollar we spend on over building AI infrastructure is a dollar we never get back. We could use this money for other things such a…

The collective west enjoyed a period of prosperity because it had massive technological advantage. The Spanish had guns, native Americans had sticks. The British had steam engines, the Indians had cows. The Americans had computers, the soviets had abascus. Now the Chinese have AI, we have if statements. Losing the AI race is an existential threat to our civilization.

Yet no one can detail how it’s an existential threat. No real usecases for larger society from AI models but we must make everyone’s life worse so we don’t lose the race to nowhere.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#95

Post by lumost »

tomrod wrote: post #64
bad_haircut72 wrote: post #11

Its not a bubble because the economy isnt actually about trade any more, its about power. The people in power now know that control over technology is the name of the game. It doesnt have to have a return on investment, it has to enable control of public opinion and eventually, robots.

Then it isn't the economy, since the economy is how people allocate scarce resources -- that is and always will be normalizable by the time a person has in a day. Abstract AI utilization of data centers don't impact my garden directly, so at least in partial equilibria I can ignore what David Brin in Existence calls the Message Flood, or otherwise known as the Fermi-Paradox Arms Race. In Existence , Brin explores a s…

At the time of Adam Smith’s wealth of nations, there was a schism between eastern and Western Europe on the role of politics in the economy. Eastern Europe was influenced by much stronger aristocracies that exercised stronger control of the populace and thus lacked the small business competition that inspired smith.

While many “small” businesses offering similar products compete on a marketplace subject to the law of supply and demand, large centralized monopolies compete for money producing “slots” often allocated through a political process. The political figures in control of these systems are often free from material needs and thus less motivated by profit.

At the extreme of political economy, money ceases to matter in the internal sense. A state can simply order workers to work without pay or be punished, burn debt that they don’t want to pay, or lock traders into a room with orders to buy. There is still an economy, but it becomes one of political favor which is earned through multiple mechanisms.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#96

Post by zzzeek »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #77

We're in this weird situation where: 1) the average American is heavily dependent on equities in their 401k for retirement, 2) so the stock market has to go up, 3) but the stock market is already at record valuations and it's difficult to see how forecasted growth levels justify the current valuation let alone an increased valuation, 4) without revenue growth, the only way for companies to sustain EPS growth is massi…

> That leaves us with only 2 possibilities - AI either replaces a significant part of the workforce or it does not. If it does not, the bubble bursts and the economy crashes. If it does, the economy still crashes because consumer spending is 70% of GDP and if the majority of the population becomes unemployed

close, but you see, part of the plan is also that immigration is basically shut off. so the majority of the population laid off from their office jobs will have plenty of work to do in the fields and food processing plants if they want to eat.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#97

Post by righthand »

Nasrudith wrote: post #87
jebarker wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The general cost of living is sky rocketing, largely due to this push How are cost of living increases tied to AI investment?

There are only two ways it could: either power cost increases which only make up a small portion of cost of living or somehow believing it responsible for inflation. But the latter doesn't make any sense, especially as they believe the money spent to be 'lost'.

How does that not make sense? Inflation is lost money from a consumer viewpoint.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#98

Post by lm28469 »

tombert wrote: post #90

It is a little frustrating how we as a society have just decided that corporations don’t need to make money, and indeed can just ponzi their way indefinitely as long as they use some vague “tech” branding. I think this “rapid growth at all costs” is going to bite us, and I think it is possible that it’s going to bite us even more than the .Com bubble or the 2008 crash. I really hope I am wrong, but I don’t see we can…

> It is a little frustrating how we as a society have just decided that corporations don’t need to make money

Making money was already a problem, what we should strive for is creating value. You can make big bucks selling cigarettes, leaded gas or PFAS riddled products... the money is made but you're still a net negative for society

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#99

Post by rkomorn »

lm28469 wrote: post #98
tombert wrote: post #90

It is a little frustrating how we as a society have just decided that corporations don’t need to make money, and indeed can just ponzi their way indefinitely as long as they use some vague “tech” branding. I think this “rapid growth at all costs” is going to bite us, and I think it is possible that it’s going to bite us even more than the .Com bubble or the 2008 crash. I really hope I am wrong, but I don’t see we can…

> It is a little frustrating how we as a society have just decided that corporations don’t need to make money Making money was already a problem, what we should strive for is creating value. You can make big bucks selling cigarettes, leaded gas or PFAS riddled products... the money is made but you're still a net negative for society

It's too bad we also can't really agree on what value is.

A decade or two ago, I'd have told you the companies that are building new technologies (smartphones, streaming services, etc) were creating value.

I don't think that at all anymore, even retroactively.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#100

Post by ses1984 »

noosphr wrote: post #74

I read these articles about how much of a suckers bet AI is and start feeling existential dread about the coming market crash. Then I remember I just did a weeks worth of work in a few hours and feel a lot better about my prospects at least. AI won't replace people, but it will make people who know how to use it vastly more efficient. In the same way that a tractor made a farmer more efficient.

Did you pay for that AI to work for you? How much would you be willing to pay for it?

Tractors undoubtedly increase farmer efficiency, the evidence is clear to see, even when accounting for all costs necessary to design and produce tractors. There’s even room for farmers and tractor manufacturers to generate economic profit.

That remains to be seen of AI.

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