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The dead economy theory

owenmcgrann.com

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Re: The dead economy theory

#401

Post by forgetfreeman »

FloorEgg wrote: post #387
TimByte wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One difference though is that the agriculture transitions had somewhere for labor to go: factories, construction, urban services, export manufacturing, etc

This transition does too. It's just not clear to most where yet.

It doesn't. If it did there'd be massive unmet demand for labor in $sector. There is no value for $sector that is currently reporting being short roughly 100 million headcount. So unless you're counting currently non-existence social safety programs or CCC-style government make-work programs that light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.

Re: The dead economy theory

#402

Post by jvanderbot »

The "TAM as all white collar labor" thing looks good on paper. But AI companies don't need to really capture much labor to be fantastically profitable.

If we all delegate 20% of our work, and 20% of our salary for that 20% (e.g., 4% of our salaries in exchange for 20% of our jobs being automated), we get easier jobs and the AI labs supplant the existing tech moguls for revenue, with 1000x $/employee profits. That's just one scenario.

https://jodavaho.io/posts/ai-jobpocolypse.html

Re: The dead economy theory

#403

Post by koalaman »

FloorEgg wrote: post #387
TimByte wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One difference though is that the agriculture transitions had somewhere for labor to go: factories, construction, urban services, export manufacturing, etc

This transition does too. It's just not clear to most where yet.

Is it a secret you can't share with us?

I see this transition as more like what would happen to livestock if they banned eating meat.

Re: The dead economy theory

#404

Post by SirMaster »

hunterpayne wrote: post #375
Zigurd wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DEC filled The Mill in Maynard and multiple huge office buildings along 495. How many people did it take to write code for the next version of VAX VMS?

An Operating System is far larger and more complex than Messenger.

Somehow I wouldn't be surprised if Messenger had more LOC than an early OS...

Software today has gotten too complex and bloated in a lot of cases.

Re: The dead economy theory

#405

Post by mr-wendel »

rootusrootus wrote: post #226

I know this isn't exactly related, so maybe a low value comment, but it itches in my mind. Years ago I talked with a recruiter at Facebook and they bragged about how many floors of developers they had working on Messenger in just one location (Seattle). What on earth do you do with that many devs on a project like Messenger? I mean, really? I feel like in a way, AI just adds to that weird situation of overcapacity. M…

Maybe a low value comment in the context of the article, but structurally I think it's a great comment that strikes a nice balance between curiosity, doubt, hope, and concern. I think a huge amount of SWE resources are tied up in the entertainment (broadly speaking) industry that drives an astonishing amount of money but little social utility.

I think it also touches nicely on what appears to be the take away of the article: people feel powerless to stop what may be a massive misallocation of resources that is only barely successful enough to avoid self-imploding.

My bias is heavily pro-AI, but I find articles like this to be much more informative and interesting than anything that aligns with my views. I'm extremely skeptical of voting-in positive change, and while "if you can't beat them, join them" seems practical in theory it also feels extraordinarily narrow in reality. I'm still doing all that I can to be proficient in adopting AI (also driven by self-interest in assistive/accessibility capabilities).

The result? I'm will be unsurprised by (but unsympathetic to) crudely aimed vigilantism (e.g. earth libration front style stuff).

Re: The dead economy theory

#406

Post by [deleted] »

kadhirvelm wrote: post #107

I think we need to look past software and spend more time and energy on the physical world. Let the digital world just be a means to an end, and we spend more time and resources on problems that matter. Reallocate societal attention to the next frontier

[deleted]

Re: The dead economy theory

#407

Post by marshray »

rootusrootus wrote: post #226

I know this isn't exactly related, so maybe a low value comment, but it itches in my mind. Years ago I talked with a recruiter at Facebook and they bragged about how many floors of developers they had working on Messenger in just one location (Seattle). What on earth do you do with that many devs on a project like Messenger? I mean, really? I feel like in a way, AI just adds to that weird situation of overcapacity. M…

> Musk chopped an awful lot of headcount at Twitter, right, and proved it was overkill, has that panned out?

Has X-Twitter released a single new feature since?

Re: The dead economy theory

#408

Post by forgetfreeman »

coffeemug wrote: post #157
ekidd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is this time different? If it was just programming being automated, then whatever. Lots of professions have been automated and society adapts. The underlying worry here is that current AI provides a partial automation of intelligence. The endgame for the investors and the corporations using AI is complete automation of intelligence (and manual labor, too). They want a $25,000 robot that works around the clock,…

The future you're describing doesn't seem likely to me because in this event the public will force redistribution through political action.

Through what mechanism? In an oligarchy the ultra-wealthy control the government and the government has a monopoly on the use of violence.

Re: The dead economy theory

#409

Post by 5701652400 »

kadhirvelm wrote: post #107

I think we need to look past software and spend more time and energy on the physical world. Let the digital world just be a means to an end, and we spend more time and resources on problems that matter. Reallocate societal attention to the next frontier

would be good if that happened. probably it would not though.

Re: The dead economy theory

#410

Post by 1270018080 »

philipkglass wrote: post #140
xg15 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "people need jobs to be happy, so we should design our society such that they need jobs" No, this is not what the article said. It's more "people need jobs to have any kind of leverage in society" which is something different.

I don't think that "people need jobs to have any kind of leverage in society" is actually true, though. Retired people without jobs are (in-)famously known to be politically powerful, both regarding elections and regarding local political questions apart from elections (like city planning commission decisions).

The jobs they worked turned into capital which is where their leverage comes from. So it's still applies.
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