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The dead economy theory

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941–950 of 1001 posts

Re: The dead economy theory

#941

Post by oleggromov »

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…

> what's stopping all those people you fired from starting new law companies

This is beyond naive. We've got plenty of successful businesses in front of our eyes, what makes any of us work for them instead of starting competition? Maybe lack of appetite for risk, lack of means to take on some substantial amount of it, lack of perfect timing, bills, children and parents to support, accumulated momentum in another profession and no skills to run a business, no meaningful connections?

The list goes on and on and to think you could just start a business regardless of your circumstances, and even more so, try to make this hypothetical sound as an answer to the very real issue of increasing job insecurity is just pure malice.

Re: The dead economy theory

#942

Post by repelsteeltje »

> An economy that doesn’t need human labor is a political crisis of a kind democratic systems have never faced.

This isn't entirely accurate. I can think of Norway as an example of a small economy that after discovery of large gas and oil repositories managed to responsibly invest and distribute wealth across it's populous.

But I admit it's going to be hard to do the same at world scale and at speed

Re: The dead economy theory

#943

Post by elliotec »

repelsteeltje wrote: post #942

> An economy that doesn’t need human labor is a political crisis of a kind democratic systems have never faced. This isn't entirely accurate. I can think of Norway as an example of a small economy that after discovery of large gas and oil repositories managed to responsibly invest and distribute wealth across it's populous. But I admit it's going to be hard to do the same at world scale and at speed

Who uses those gas and oil repositories? Who drills it out and refines it? Who invests in it? Who uses this distributed wealth and how?

The point here is that human labor is the economic engine and without it, things like this cease to exist or matter.

Re: The dead economy theory

#944

Post by adrithmetiqa »

It’s great this debate is happening. The people on hn are some of those that can make a real impact here. There are many parallels with the industrial revolution here but we really don’t want to repeat a over a century of misery that occurred after that era. If we don’t want the world to be run be a tiny group of trillionaires, some action needs to be taken now

Re: The dead economy theory

#945

Post by confidantlake »

Kuyawa wrote: post #893

The economy is an adaptive organism that never dies. During the Industrial revolution, 90% of agricultural workers moved to the factories. And the fields kept producing. Then it came the computer revolution and factory workers moved to offices. And factories kept producing even more. Then it came the internet revolution and office workers moved back home. And corporations kept producing more than before. Then it came…

People in the rust belt died. People laid off from their tech jobs died.

Re: The dead economy theory

#946

Post by sph »

adrithmetiqa wrote: post #944

It’s great this debate is happening. The people on hn are some of those that can make a real impact here. There are many parallels with the industrial revolution here but we really don’t want to repeat a over a century of misery that occurred after that era. If we don’t want the world to be run be a tiny group of trillionaires, some action needs to be taken now

You'll find that vast majority, working at FAANG and hyperscalers, are pretty fine with the status quo. The tech oligarchy didn't form in a vacuum.

Re: The dead economy theory

#947

Post by 10xDev »

thomasfl wrote: post #751

AI will accelerate the decline in the world’s population. No job, no marriage and no kids will be the norm for most people. For many years to come. Some will say it’s good for the planet and especially for other species of vertebrates. Others will see it as a personal failure to not have any living offspring when they get old. In ancient Greece, Diana was the goddess of hunting, wildlife and personal freedom and Venu…

Unfortunately we are/have been run by sociopaths like Boris Johnson who indeed do think this is a good thing.

"Former British PM Boris Johnson says falling birthrates ‘best news in long time’"

"Mr Johnson said the promised productivity gains from AI should mean less need for population growth"

"They can’t simultaneously complain that machines are making human workers unnecessary while also demanding that we import or create more human beings to do the work.”"

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/babies/former-br...

Re: The dead economy theory

#948

Post by mountainriver »

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…

The government and collectives in general could easily help provide this.

If enough people are out of work they will obviously band together

Re: The dead economy theory

#949

Post by mountainriver »

checker wrote: post #560
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…

I agree in the short term. But in the long term, the owners of the compute will become disgustingly rich without a wealth tax, nationalization, or local AI becoming competitive and ubiquitous. There are still problems to solve; the alternative is an absolute oligarchy.

Agree, the most important thing we can possibly do is enforce collectively owned compute

This is why companies like Anthropic are so scary, they believe AI should be controlled by them alone

Re: The dead economy theory

#950

Post by mountainriver »

thomasfl wrote: post #751

AI will accelerate the decline in the world’s population. No job, no marriage and no kids will be the norm for most people. For many years to come. Some will say it’s good for the planet and especially for other species of vertebrates. Others will see it as a personal failure to not have any living offspring when they get old. In ancient Greece, Diana was the goddess of hunting, wildlife and personal freedom and Venu…

Agree, but I also think a lot of people are going to push things further than we could have ever imagined.
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