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The dead economy theory

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Re: The dead economy theory

#741

Post by unusualmonkey »

palmotea wrote: post #737
iliaxj wrote: post #457

The article doesn't seem to take his train of thought quite far enough. If AI suddenly makes it possible for a law firm to be run with a skeleton crew, then what's stopping all those people you fired from starting new law companies, where AI also does most of the work, and competing with you for the same market? And ultimately, if AI gets to be so good that it can competently do a lawyer's job, what reason do big law…

> If AI suddenly makes it possible for a law firm to be run with a skeleton crew, then what's stopping all those people you fired from starting new law companies, where AI also does most of the work, and competing with you for the same market? Money. They won't have the money to pay for the tokens, or the best models, because they'll be unemployed. They also won't have the connections to get the clients. When you're…

Sorry that's no realistic. People start businesses, including law firms, all the time with little to no capital.

Assuming token costs will be prohibitive assumes:

A) tokens will be really expensive and B) you need to fund tokens before you have revenue.

Your asserting AI makes the economy more capital intensive, when I think you'll see in practice it's the opposite.

Re: The dead economy theory

#742

Post by joegibbs »

"When Block’s Jack Dorsey laid off nearly half his workforce in March, citing AI coding agents, investors responded with a twenty-five percent stock price surge in after-hours trading. The market rewarded the elimination of human labor with an immediate, massive transfer of value to shareholders."

This is very common and has been since before AI, the market can see that the company has overhired and there are a bunch of people doing useless work - so when the company does some firings it's a good sign because they're turning the ship around.

Re: The dead economy theory

#743

Post by weakened_malloc »

andsoitis wrote: post #716
throwaway27448 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics of a service economy really just don't make sense. We pay way too much for software (which should trend towards zero-cost to distribute), we pay too much for ads. The value of it is inherently downstream of the real economy, which is about making and distributing goods and stuff people actually need to live. Especially a company like facebook only provides a glorified forum, which should be free or coll…

> The economics of a service economy really just don't make sense. > …real economy, which is about making and distributing goods and stuff people actually need to live I don’t know about you, but I depend on services every day in order to live.

I think they're more referring to the scalable service economy. Haircuts, which are a service, don't scale (unless we're talking about robotics or something).

Re: The dead economy theory

#744

Post by balamatom »

siriusastrebe wrote: post #145
some_random wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Trek isn't real life, when human labor stops being valuable the humans who's labor was previously vital will be at best left to rot in squalor.

A generation of people left behind. The birthrates will continue falling.

The bitrates, on the other hand...

Re: The dead economy theory

#745

Post by palmotea »

unusualmonkey wrote: post #741
palmotea wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If AI suddenly makes it possible for a law firm to be run with a skeleton crew, then what's stopping all those people you fired from starting new law companies, where AI also does most of the work, and competing with you for the same market? Money. They won't have the money to pay for the tokens, or the best models, because they'll be unemployed. They also won't have the connections to get the clients. When you're…

Sorry that's no realistic. People start businesses, including law firms, all the time with little to no capital. Assuming token costs will be prohibitive assumes: A) tokens will be really expensive and B) you need to fund tokens before you have revenue. Your asserting AI makes the economy more capital intensive, when I think you'll see in practice it's the opposite.

> Sorry that's no realistic. People start businesses, including law firms, all the time with little to no capital.

You're clinging past: what you is true when human capital counts for something, but what happens when it doesn't? Where the party who can spend the most tokens on the case wins (or has a much greater chance of success)?

Law might not be the best example of that, but (under current trends) a lot of areas will be.

> Your asserting AI makes the economy more capital intensive, when I think you'll see in practice it's the opposite.

You're claiming AI will make the economy more labor intensive? Huh?

Re: The dead economy theory

#746

Post by nearbuy »

movpasd wrote: post #502

This article puts into words a lot of things that had been on my mind as missing in AI discourse. Most significantly, actually considering the _systemic consequences_ of the promised AI future, how it interacts with political economy, an actual critical look (instead of accepting the "Western meta-narrative of modernity" at face value). And maybe more importantly, it articulates really clearly how damaging the restru…

I'm not sure why we have had such different experiences, but I feel like people have been saying those things repeatedly.

Re: The dead economy theory

#747

Post by josh-sematic »

Anthropic employees: I believe many of you actually do think your work is for the betterment of humanity. That’s great! If you truly do believe that, it’s time to start demanding your leadership lobby for real, structural solutions to unemployment that leave everyday people with a say in how companies like yours operate. “The market will find new jobs” is not as strong of a historical pattern as “the concentration of power harms the people without it.” It’s true that AI might not in fact automate the majority of labor in the near term. But if it does (and working at Anthropic implies you likely think it could), then work towards a version of that future that’s actually palatable. It would be easy to let your comp upside soften your objective evaluations. Don’t. Think you’re working for a better future? Put your money where your mouth is, and ask your leaders to do the same.

Re: The dead economy theory

#748

Post by jameslk »

scared_together wrote: post #591
jameslk wrote: post #555

> OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta AI, Microsoft: the combined investment in large-scale AI infrastructure now runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars, with projections into the trillions over the next decade. These numbers need an addressable market large enough to justify them. There is only one market that large: the global labor market. It's getting tiring hearing this alarmist view unchallenged hon…

> businesses will continue to need humans to differentiate. Honestly, why? If AI actually becomes capable of replacing large sections of the workforce, why wouldn’t a business composed entirely of AI “employees” outcompete their rivals?

Because they would all be using the same AI model (in reality a fixed set of them, but let’s say it’s just one for the sake of argument). That isn’t differentiation [0]

It’s like if every company hired the same guy named Karl. If everyone is relying on Karl, and Karl is making the same stuff for all these businesses, how is one business going to outcompete another?

At that point you need something else to drive differentiation. Branding, strategic partnerships, patents, IP, influencer endorsements, real estate, government licensing, etc. These are either influenced, controlled, or regulated by humans at the end of the day. At the very least you’ll need humans aligning the models for human needs. Humans are the ones being served, they’re the taste makers

0. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insig...

Re: The dead economy theory

#749

Post by Neil44 »

josh-sematic wrote: post #747

Anthropic employees: I believe many of you actually do think your work is for the betterment of humanity. That’s great! If you truly do believe that, it’s time to start demanding your leadership lobby for real, structural solutions to unemployment that leave everyday people with a say in how companies like yours operate. “The market will find new jobs” is not as strong of a historical pattern as “the concentration of…

I don't think it's productive to single out a specific company that's in this area. If they closed someone else would do it. If they don't execute well someone else will. It's the same mentality as people who smashed up looms to keep people employed at spinning wheels.

Re: The dead economy theory

#750

Post by well_ackshually »

unusualmonkey wrote: post #741
palmotea wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If AI suddenly makes it possible for a law firm to be run with a skeleton crew, then what's stopping all those people you fired from starting new law companies, where AI also does most of the work, and competing with you for the same market? Money. They won't have the money to pay for the tokens, or the best models, because they'll be unemployed. They also won't have the connections to get the clients. When you're…

Sorry that's no realistic. People start businesses, including law firms, all the time with little to no capital. Assuming token costs will be prohibitive assumes: A) tokens will be really expensive and B) you need to fund tokens before you have revenue. Your asserting AI makes the economy more capital intensive, when I think you'll see in practice it's the opposite.

In the same way that you cannot compete against Ford at making cars without capital because Ford used their capital to automate manual labor at prices and speeds you'll never be able to reach.

"Intellectual" jobs, that require thought were yet spared, as the only way to use capital for that was just to pay for more meat: see Accenture, CapGemini, IBM, etc. You could carve yourself a spot for some people because it was hard for this capital to reach them. Now that AI, a literal machine that automates thought, is here, the costs for reaching bumfuck nowhere to take the clients away from you has dropped drastically for them, but not for you. They get economies of scale, already established patterns, tools, internal databases. You're starting with hopes, dreams and a $20 Claude sub that runs out at 10AM.

There is not infinite need for lawyers, there being more lawyers does not create more legal opportunities and cases past a certain point, and you're then dependent on other things like there being enough judges.

Robots transformed capital into manual actions and killed most manufacturing jobs save for precious few experts or things that are too expensive to automate still. AI will transform that capital into intellectual labor and crush you, take all opportunities away from you.

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