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AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says

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Re: AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and the same with the internet. During the 1990s and 2000s, people kept wondering why the internet wasn't showing up in productivity numbers. Many asked if the internet was therefore just a fad or bubble. Same as some now do with AI. It takes time for technology to show measurable impact in enormous economies. No reason why AI will be any different.

Sure, but you have to consider Carl Sagan's point, "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." Some truly useful technologies start out slow and the question is asked if they are fads or bubbles even though they end up having huge im…

Even that you mentioned NFTs in comparison hurts my mind

Re: AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says

#52

Note last year. The vibes coming from the Claude dungeons tell a different story. Just in the last six weeks. We are on the precipice.

I've been using claude code to code my own gpt model from absolute scratch in type script with c code it generates for the gpu. Anytime it wants to use cuda or some lib to do things faster I can keep telling it to write it in typescript or c etc lots of fun and it actually works lol

Re: AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says

#54
post #9

I think it’s still a bit too early to draw the conclusion. We need to get past the hype first and let the cash grabbers crash. After that, with a clear mind we can finally think about engineering this technology in a sane and useful way.

What about social media, did that evolve into something sane and useful or has it remained owned by the cash grabbers? Have we not yet internalized that they've permanently captured control of technological advances?

Re: AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

Jokes are downvoted to push them to the bottom of the conversation where they belong. They're the dessert of a serious conversation; meat and potatoes should come first.

Absolutely[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47131127

Re: AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says

#56

This article seems to have "basically zero" content. Today you have to be blind to not see the change that is coming. World has its own (massive) inertia, burocracy present in businesses accounting for a big part in it. AI itself is moving fast but not at infinite speeds. We start to have good enough tooling but it's not yet available to everyone and it still hangs on too many hacks that will need to crystalize. Peop…

  the change that is coming.
Everything you argue reinforces that net output was still basically zero last year. I don't see them talking about 2026 data..

Re: AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says

#57
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't take mobile apps with the launch of the iPhone 20 years to add to the economy though, did it?

The iPhone was not the first mobile device or even the first smartphone. Not to mention it did not support mobile applications as we know them today.

That seems a tad reductionist. Why not just say the iPhone was completely inconsequential because afterall it's simply another "computer". Why not go even back further and start the timer at the first physical implementation of a Turing machine?

The iPhone killer UX + App store release can be directly traced to the growth in tech in the subsequent years its release.

Re: AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says

#58
post #46
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can replace it with a much lower paid employee though.

You definitely cannot. Code org, architecture, and system design are senior level roles and responsibilities.

AI is already aware of the best practices. It does not just blindly do what you ask of it in the simplest way.

Re: AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says

#59
post #37
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference being that AI's marketing has been significantly more prevalent than any early computing efforts.

Not to mention the investment is on another level. We've got companies with valuations in the hundred-billions talking about raising trillions to buy all of the computers in the world, before establishing whether they can even turn a profit, nevermind upend the economy.

the investments are being made by massively profitable companies (our biggest and brightest ones, the ones that have been carrying the economy for quite some time now, even before "AI"). even just in recent history we have seen companies making large investments and being very unprofitable until they weren't anymore (e.g. Uber). and it is always the same story, everyone is up in arms "this is not sustainable etc..."

whether or not these companies can turn a profit - time will tell. but I am betting that our massively profitable companies (which are biggest spenders of course) perhaps know what they are doing and just maybe they should get the benefit of the doubt until they are proven wrong. but if I had to make a wager and on one side I have google, microsoft, amazon, meta... and on the other side I have bunch of AI bubble people with a bunch of time to predict a "crash" I'd put my money on the former...

Re: AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says

#60
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying this to be sarcastic - the problem is that people from OpenAI/Antrhopic are saying things like superintelligence in 3 years, or boris saying coding is solved and that 100% of his code is written by AI. It's not good enough to just say oreo ceos say we need to more oreos. There's a real grey area where these tools are useful in some capacity, and in that confusion we're spending billions. Too may peopl…

[dead]

What does that mean? By what metric do you measure "AGI", whatever that means? Industry definitions are incredibly vague, perhaps intentionally so, with no benchmarks to define how a model, harness, or other technology might achieve "AGI". They have no intelligence, and can't even reason that you need to take your car to the car wash to have it washed[0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47031580

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