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The dead economy theory

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Re: The dead economy theory

#651

Post by jpttsn »

mrdependable wrote: post #122
spongebobstoes wrote: post #15

this whole blog post is basically "people need jobs to be happy, so we should design our society such that they need jobs" not only is the premise wrong, but forcing people to work is not a good or ethical way to address this problem most people like the social aspect of work, but not being beholden to their boss we can give people meaning, community, culture, growth, without relying on employment and money we can do…

You are ignoring the part where human labor is the leverage required for democracy to work.

This same point was also made clumsily in the OP; I’m very unconvinced.

The obvious question marks in that theory:

Lots of human labor happens in nondemocratic polities; slave-owning/repressive societies create lots of labor.

Democracy historically doesn’t advance in lockstep with labor; it’s arisen with many contingencies. The model (English Parliament) seems founded on concerns with right of some wealthy barons v. Kings.

Traditional common sense alternative is that military victory goes to people with largest army, so voting saves time. That’s been debatably less relevant with deadlier weapons, so democracy could be cooked.

Re: The dead economy theory

#652

Post by SecretDreams »

bvcp wrote: post #642
SecretDreams wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, lower prices don't solve your problems if you're unemployed. Demand, indeed, drops if many people are unemployed, which pushes prices further down, but this time in a way that can lead to a recession. This is the major risk right now. I think we'll need to strongly look at UBI and a star trek esque future or, barring that, something more like a star wars esque future..

doesnt this entire premise rely on an even shock to all parts of the labour economy

It will be more like a tsunami. Comes in waves, knocks down one economic later at a time.

Re: The dead economy theory

#653

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

Alternative theory: "AI" is Silicon Valley searching for a new "business model"

Because it knows the current business model is not likely going to stand the test of time. Reality has returned. While it was suspended, Silicon Valley went on an incredible run and was able to stockpile absurd amounts of cash

As so-called "tech" companies now shrink in face of reality, Silicon Valley wants people to believe this is because of "AI", not because of the unsustainability of their data collection, surveillance and ad services "business model", and that the same fate awaits non-"tech" businesses and professionals

Perhaps SillyCon Valley can keep reality away for a while with supersized spending and borrowing and 24/7 marketing. People will certainly go along for the ride. Bankers and lawyers are making a fortune, for example

But eventually reality will return

Will Silicon Valley have found a new business model. Time will tell

Meantime, the so-called "tech" industry is being downsized

Re: The dead economy theory

#654

Post by pyuser583 »

m463 wrote: post #510
Animats wrote: post #248

India has the problem with farming that the US is starting to have with AI. Farming in India is still far too labor intensive by world standards. 43% of workers still work in agriculture. [1] For the US, that number is under 2%. China is at 22% as of 2023, and dropping steadily. This inefficient agricultural system is not by accident. It is supported by heavy subsidies. Attempts to cut the subsidies resulted in riots…

I liked reading "The Box" about the transition to container shipping. It was interesting to see this totally-unrelated-to-our-times process from the outside. From our place in time, container shipping is obvious. At the time, to people who wanted to ship something, it was ridiculously hard and expensive and risky. If you were shipping something from cleveland to paris, you might just give up. Say you were shipping al…

In all fairness, this is exactly why insurance was invented: unreliable shipping. You just took out a policy, and the shipment didn’t make it you took the payout.

It creates a system that diminishes risk, but simultaneously diminishes incentives for improvement.

Re: The dead economy theory

#655

Post by [deleted] »

fsckboy wrote: post #347
graemep wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industrial revolution was enabled by more efficient agriculture feeing labour to do other work.

> The industrial revolution was enabled by more efficient agriculture feeing labour to do other work you're not wrong, but that's not exactly what happened. Agriculture itself was mechanized by the industrial revolution, affordable tractors (tillers, farrowers, etc.) and harvesters. mechanized railroads put more perishable agricultural goods "closer" to urban areas, etc. if you look at the growth industry before that…

[deleted]

Re: The dead economy theory

#656

Post by thenthenthen »

BeetleB wrote: post #246
Zigurd wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> later this year One can hope that reality intrudes before the bubble gets even more dangerously inflated, but how many years has Tesla had a ridiculous P/E ratio. Even after growth stagnated and market leadership was lost in Asia and Europe. Number still goes up.

I hate Musk, and I'm not going to justify Tesla's crazy stock valuation, but consider the following: Outside of China, Tesla's probably the only company that can compete on battery prices. I don't know how accurate it was, but a news report was comparing the cost the manufacturer's pay to build the battery. Chinese companies were around $6000. Tesla was at $7000. Everyone else was around $12-15K. This is why a number…

Its interesting, practically all car makers seem to have factories in China, why cant they compete?

Re: The dead economy theory

#657

Post by [deleted] »

orthoxerox wrote: post #521
kipchak wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already to some extent a solved problem. The top 10% of households in the US for example are 50% of spending, the "horses" to a large extent already don't matter to the economy. This is similar to the relationship between US consumers and workers in undeveloped nations during globalization. Historically this tends to be resolved when it creates an unsustainable level of political instability, but there are ma…

How many of these top 10% of households will have their breadwinners be replaced with AI? The LLM boom is aimed at them, professionals, knowledge workers, not at landscapers and plumbers.

[deleted]

Re: The dead economy theory

#658

Post by thinkthatover »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #433
wcfrobert wrote: post #299

> Turn three: the company that fired its workers to save money discovers that its customers were, in aggregate, other companies’ workers. Revenue growth stalls. The AI subscription that was supposed to be an investment in efficiency turns out to be a contribution to the destruction of its own market. If we take it to the extreme, the final solution to this problem is secessionism: a fully non-human AI economy where t…

>It's all so obscene. Instead, why don't we try to protect human dignity and move towards a more humane future? I think the Darwinian logic of reality might make this hard. If society A and society B are both developing AI and one of them stops in order to protect humans, society B may continue to develop AI and then it might either outcompete society A economically to the point of reducing it to poverty (it is theor…

this is Amodei's position in a nutshell for AI development. We have to go as fast as possible because China. It's not the only frame though. If AI models and warfare (cyber, biological) becomes easily accessible and dangerous enough, there is a strong incentive for the world's leaders to cooperate towards something akin to nuclear non-proliferation.

In fact, there's strong incentives now to slow down AI progress for multiple reasons: de-escalate tension over Taiwan and lessen China's desire to build their own advanced fabs, protect peoples livelihoods by smoothing the AI transition. Except the incentives to bring AI companies public (and maintain some twisted shred of American Hegemony) are greater.

Re: The dead economy theory

#659

Post by AngryData »

thelastgallon wrote: post #649
walrus01 wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Farming in India is still far too labor intensive by world standards. 43% of workers still work in agriculture. [1] For the US, that number is under 2%. China is at 22% as of 2023, and dropping steadily. Question about farming in India. How much of the process of mechanizing and scaling up agriculture in India is predicated on something like the more widespread use of diesel or other oil/fossil-fuel powered tractor…

Most land holdings are very very small. 1 acre to 5 acres maybe the vast majority. These are all odd sized and shaped and most likely doing different crops based on water availability. To leverage the benefits of mechanization, we need larger land holdings. The farmers have no other ability or income sources, so they hang on it it. Electricity is free. There is no income tax on farming. Govts provide many incentives…

There are mechanization instruments suitable for 5 acre plots, but manufacturers are limited and the potential gains are smaller. Its the same problem as small cheap consumer cars, big investors and capitalists don't want to put money into high volume low margin business with limited market cap. And without mass production costs are significantly higher. Thats why people still maintain 70 year old farmalls and planters and shit spreaders and plows, modern replacements are either crap to be cheap or expensive from low volume.

Re: The dead economy theory

#660

Post by hattimaTim »

RC_ITR wrote: post #5

>There is only one market that large: the global labor market. This isn't even close to true and it's kind of the central thesis of this article. Saudi Aramco has consistently been a $2tn company in the oil market. Walmart is a $1tn-ish company focusing on a fraction of US retail. It also ignores the idea that the economy is not zero sum and companies create their own market/economic value all the time.

What does aramco, Walmart valuation has to do with global labor market? That is much bigger than these companies. Also, companies create their own market but that does not mean average people will be benefited from that. AI companies can just bypass the labor market once its done and can have contract with the extremely rich companies or governments around the world.
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