AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by jononor » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 7:30 AM UTC

great_psy wrote: post #241

palmotea wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s the scenario where LLMs get more efficient in size, and to get 2026 SOTA performance you will be able to get it from consumer grade laptop. But isn't that bad for the AI companies, too? Because then people just run an ~2026 SOTA performance open source model on their laptop for free and not pay any subscription.

Yes and no. Regular folks will not pay Anthropic, but NSA, NASA or research labs might. I’m not implying this will be a good time for AI companies. I am saying AI as a technology can provide value without it being controlled by only 3 companies.

In a hypothetical future with 2026 level LLMs on a (high end) consumer laptop, I still think that majority of buyers would prefer to pay 20 USD/month for a service. Just for the convenience and flexibility.

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

#252

Post by jononor » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 7:33 AM UTC

itsmenick wrote: post #154

BobbyJo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it actually being sold at a steep discount? Anthropic CEO has stated they have high margins on inference, so training is the big cost center.

Then why are they stopping people from having multiple max plans? If they are making such good margins on inference.

They are likely aiming to maximize reach/mindshare. Get as many people hooked as possible. More important than minor upside from a few multi-Max users.

EDIT: also, the casual or gym-style members that pay every month but barely use the service are of course very valuable wrt margins

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

#253

Post by jononor » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 7:48 AM UTC

ericd wrote: post #111

rainsford wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

All those racks of Nvidia machines might not pay off for the companies buying them, but I have a hard time believing that people are still questioning the utility of this stuff. In the last hour, Opus downloaded data for and implemented a couple of APIs that I would’ve otherwise paid hundreds a month for, end to end, from research all the way to testing its implementation. It’s so, incredibly, obviously useful.

That something is useful does not necessarily mean that it will be doable for companies the capture enough of value to make up for the billions in investments they have/will have make in the coming years.

Right now the frontier AI companies are explicitly running a kind of chicken race - increasing the burn rates so much that it gets harder and harder. With the hopes that they (and not their competitor) will be the one left standing. Especially OpenAI and Antropic, but non-AI companies like Oracle have also joined. If they keep it going, the likely outcome is that one of them folds - and the other(s) reap the rewards.

Utility (per cost) will go up the tougher the competition. Money captured by single entity possibly down with increased competition.

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

#254

Post by cadamsdotcom » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 7:49 AM UTC

A motivated entity publishing a bombastic opinion. Hard to know what to make of this. If you believe claims about an economy they have a vested interest in affecting, better be sure they’re trustworthy.

These opinions masquerading as statistics is why governments create departments to publish trustworthy statistics.

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

#255

Post by benterix » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 7:59 AM UTC

bicepjai wrote: post #231

andai wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're both slot machines, in terms of the effect on the reward system.

Totally true. It’s hard for me to stop a project, I keep piling feature after feature for no reason. I literally stop only when Claude Max Pro hits the hourly limit.

This is the experience of many of us. But just like with social media, it doesn't give deep satisfaction and always leaves me a bit frustrated.

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

#256

Post by consumer451 » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 8:06 AM UTC

chris_money202 wrote: post #174

I think a pretty good example I had at work, we had the option to buy a software package from a 3rd party company. After reviewing the specs we needed, I told my manager to give me a few hours to see if I could produce what we needed with AI instead. Lo and behold, I was able to do it in just a few hours, AI package was tested, integrated, and we moved on. No where was any of that recorded that I just saved the compa…

> For some reason we expected to to be able to see these huge gains from AI but we never bothered putting systems in place to observe them but we never bothered putting systems in place to observe them.

I am an economic dummie, but wouldn't the metric be revenue per employee?

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

#257

Post by zombot » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 8:34 AM UTC

When the high priests of capitalism say so themselves, I tend to believe them. Nice to see that not everybody has completely lost their mind under the endless barrage of hype, shilling and astroturfing.

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

#258

Post by pllbnk » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 9:25 AM UTC

boxedemp wrote: post #92

mark_l_watson wrote: post #68

I’ll do the Minority Report here: I loved the article, the point being that rich people hyping AI for their own enrichment have somewhat shutdown rational arguments of benefits vs. costs, the costs being: energy use, environmental impact of using environmentally unfriendly energy sources out of desperation, water pollution from by products of electronics production and recycling and from water use in data centers, di…

I've literally not met one person in tech who thinks LLMs will become sentient or conscious. But I always see people online claiming that there are lots of people who believe that. Where are they? Are we sure that's not a misunderstanding of the terminology? Artificial diamonds, such as cubic zirconia, are not diamonds, and nobody thinks they are. 'Artificial' means it's not the real thing. When will conscious, actua…

Lucky you. I have personally faced some cargo cult-like behavior.

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

#259

Post by samrus » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 10:04 AM UTC

chris_money202 wrote: post #174

I think a pretty good example I had at work, we had the option to buy a software package from a 3rd party company. After reviewing the specs we needed, I told my manager to give me a few hours to see if I could produce what we needed with AI instead. Lo and behold, I was able to do it in just a few hours, AI package was tested, integrated, and we moved on. No where was any of that recorded that I just saved the compa…

Your point on visibility of the value of avoiding the initial purchase makes sense, but theres something your missing. Theres a cost to maintaining and supporting the software. The cost of that wont be factored in either. It might still end up being a positive value proposition, but that needs to be seen

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

#260

Post by sshine » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 10:14 AM UTC

boxedemp wrote: post #92

mark_l_watson wrote: post #68

I’ll do the Minority Report here: I loved the article, the point being that rich people hyping AI for their own enrichment have somewhat shutdown rational arguments of benefits vs. costs, the costs being: energy use, environmental impact of using environmentally unfriendly energy sources out of desperation, water pollution from by products of electronics production and recycling and from water use in data centers, di…

I've literally not met one person in tech who thinks LLMs will become sentient or conscious. But I always see people online claiming that there are lots of people who believe that. Where are they? Are we sure that's not a misunderstanding of the terminology? Artificial diamonds, such as cubic zirconia, are not diamonds, and nobody thinks they are. 'Artificial' means it's not the real thing. When will conscious, actua…

> When will conscious, actual intelligence be called 'synthetic intelligence' instead of 'artificial'?

One can bypass the whole sentience discussion and say that AI stands for Automated Inference.

If actual, conscious intelligence were to manifest synthetically, as in silicon-based rather than carbon-based, it is a losing battle to convince people because of the philosophical “problem of other minds.”

If there is a functional equivalence between meatspace intelligence and synthetic, it will surely have enough value to reinforce itself, philosophical debates aside.