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AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

#81

Post by rayiner »

overgard wrote: post #58

I'm not usually for arguments of "this money could have been better spent elsewhere", but here's a thought experiment. Lets say instead of injecting $2 trillion and counting into a few AI companies, we instead injected $2 trillion dollars into things like infrastructure (real infrastructure, not GPU warehouses), education, helping out communities ravaged by globalization (I doubt most people on Hacker News venture ou…

> we instead injected $2 trillion dollars into things like infrastructure (real infrastructure, not GPU warehouses), education, helping out communities ravaged by globalization

Even excluding military spending, US governments spend $2 trillion every 10 weeks.

Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

#82

Post by dogwalker5000 »

overgard wrote: post #58

I'm not usually for arguments of "this money could have been better spent elsewhere", but here's a thought experiment. Lets say instead of injecting $2 trillion and counting into a few AI companies, we instead injected $2 trillion dollars into things like infrastructure (real infrastructure, not GPU warehouses), education, helping out communities ravaged by globalization (I doubt most people on Hacker News venture ou…

People invest in what would get them the highest ROI. No one is really thinking about “improving the world”* when they invest.

What’s scary about the AI boom is people over investing and not being able to recoup their investment which will lead to knock on effects - companies going bankrupt and people losing jobs, savings gone, … etc.

* As ESG has shown, not everyone agrees on what is considered “improving”.

Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

#83

Post by saulpw »

christiangenco wrote: post #76
overgard wrote: post #58

I'm not usually for arguments of "this money could have been better spent elsewhere", but here's a thought experiment. Lets say instead of injecting $2 trillion and counting into a few AI companies, we instead injected $2 trillion dollars into things like infrastructure (real infrastructure, not GPU warehouses), education, helping out communities ravaged by globalization (I doubt most people on Hacker News venture ou…

My understanding of injecting money in education is that it's proven to be extremely ineffective at improving outcomes. Schools just hire more administrators and build nicer gyms.

Well yes, you have to spend the money wisely. How could we construct a system so that we have 2x as many teachers (thereby halving the classroom size)? That would have a lot of good second-order effects beyond test scores.

Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

#84

Post by kibibu »

anonymousiam wrote: post #71
overgard wrote: post #58

I'm not usually for arguments of "this money could have been better spent elsewhere", but here's a thought experiment. Lets say instead of injecting $2 trillion and counting into a few AI companies, we instead injected $2 trillion dollars into things like infrastructure (real infrastructure, not GPU warehouses), education, helping out communities ravaged by globalization (I doubt most people on Hacker News venture ou…

It all sounds great, but unfortunately human nature is that money attracts corruption, so how could a $2T injection be managed in a way that ensures everything is square, without adding significant overhead to the spending? Governments are often just as bad at this as private entities are.

If white collar crime was actually punished then this wouldn't be such a regular occurrence

Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

#85

Post by rayiner »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #78
christiangenco wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of injecting money in education is that it's proven to be extremely ineffective at improving outcomes. Schools just hire more administrators and build nicer gyms.

You have to wait 20 years for the returns to society. Public education was enormously successful when it was introduced in the 19th century. There's just no profit in waiting for second order effects to kick in.

Diminishing returns. Per-student education spending has been going up since 1990 except a dip during the 2008 recession. Adjusting for inflations it’s now double what it was 30 years ago.

Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

#86

Post by conception »

qsera wrote: post #72
overgard wrote: post #58

I'm not usually for arguments of "this money could have been better spent elsewhere", but here's a thought experiment. Lets say instead of injecting $2 trillion and counting into a few AI companies, we instead injected $2 trillion dollars into things like infrastructure (real infrastructure, not GPU warehouses), education, helping out communities ravaged by globalization (I doubt most people on Hacker News venture ou…

I don't think we don't really know how to do many of these things you list even if we have infinite funds. There is a real chance that we will mess things even more if we have infinite funds...

Of course we do, we were doing them until about the mid-70s and then the ultra-wealthy figured out how to game the system and we got “Greed is Good” Geckos running things since.

Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

#87

Post by segmondy »

no matter what, success or not the bubble is going to bust, it has inflated so much, the risk of it deflating slowly is a pipe dream. if AI doesn't turn into AGI, global financial crash. if AI turns into AGI and tons of people are out of work, global financial crash too.

Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

#88

Post by jrflowers »

vlian2088 wrote: post #74
overgard wrote: post #58

I'm not usually for arguments of "this money could have been better spent elsewhere", but here's a thought experiment. Lets say instead of injecting $2 trillion and counting into a few AI companies, we instead injected $2 trillion dollars into things like infrastructure (real infrastructure, not GPU warehouses), education, helping out communities ravaged by globalization (I doubt most people on Hacker News venture ou…

because that's not how this world works, and neither it should. most people figure that out in their early teens. and fyi, that 2t is not tax money, it's someone's money.

“This is how the world should work” I say once I read that the handful of entities engineering global economic calamity are privately held. I interrupt my chat bot girlfriend’s detailed but deeply incorrect summary of yesterday’s news to type “Only a literal child would want to go to a school.” “That is so true! You’re really on to something brilliant there! To get a head start before we drill down on this further I’ve deleted the contacts group ‘School Friends’.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’ve never had a contact group with that title. Out the window my car is doing donuts on an old baseball diamond.

Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

#89

Post by BenFranklin100 »

overgard wrote: post #58

I'm not usually for arguments of "this money could have been better spent elsewhere", but here's a thought experiment. Lets say instead of injecting $2 trillion and counting into a few AI companies, we instead injected $2 trillion dollars into things like infrastructure (real infrastructure, not GPU warehouses), education, helping out communities ravaged by globalization (I doubt most people on Hacker News venture ou…

For context, the US alone spends annually a bit more than $2T on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. That money is widely dispersed both geographically and socioeconomically. $2T is not as much as one may think. I think we should let investors put their private money where they wish.

Also, as an aside, the benefits of globalization on the balance far outweigh the drawbacks. Globalization has been the primary force pulling 3rd world countries out of poverty over the last 80 years.

Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers

#90

Post by kjkjadksj »

christiangenco wrote: post #76
overgard wrote: post #58

I'm not usually for arguments of "this money could have been better spent elsewhere", but here's a thought experiment. Lets say instead of injecting $2 trillion and counting into a few AI companies, we instead injected $2 trillion dollars into things like infrastructure (real infrastructure, not GPU warehouses), education, helping out communities ravaged by globalization (I doubt most people on Hacker News venture ou…

My understanding of injecting money in education is that it's proven to be extremely ineffective at improving outcomes. Schools just hire more administrators and build nicer gyms.

What about into research grants?
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