Earlier quoted context omitted.
So why has per-capita student spending doubled since 1990 (adjusted for inflation) without any increase in test scores? Why haven’t we been spending the money wisely? Student to teacher ratios have continuously decreased and are about half of what they were in 1960. Data on the results is mixed: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/class-size-what-research-...
Honestly curious, but don’t tests also adjust for “inflation”? Aren’t tests today be harder than they were in 1990?
AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
161–170 of 228 posts
Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Not to mention that data centres are infrastructure! Other nations are falling behind and will be at a real disadvantage soon.
AI datacenters don't really confer any geographical benefit since their output can be transmitted at extremely low cost. The benefit of local datacenters is purely political and has nothing to do with technological advantage.
Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
#163I'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…
This is 100 manhattan projects. Lots and lots and lots of things that can be done. Reminds me of the quote "water water everywhere not a drop to drink" ==> Money, money everywhere, not a cent goes towards something remotely useful. 1) Could've added nifty features to roads (rf beacons?) and make it super easy to build autonomous vehicles. This would've solved so many problems, but most importantly 45,000 lives every…
It's private money. At least in my country the government isn't giving a single cent to AI outside of fundamental research projects.
If companies want to bet all their money at roulette they are free to do so.
Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
#164Earlier 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.
Investment in education is one of the best ROI a society can have. Quite surprising that in the USA this relationship has been eroded by schools spending in sports and admin, in most other developed countries it's a quite direct relationship between more investments -> better educational outcomes.
Don't forget religion! Some crazy things being taught at American schools that you couldn't get away with in secular nations.
Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
#165Surely this time we'll learn our lesson and disempower the parasites that create these situations, right? Right guys?
>"I have a feeling in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people." -Mark Baum, The Big Short The scapegoats for this plan never change and have never changed in human history.
When the world goes to shit society does two things: search for a strong leader and build temples.
Dying with dignity is never in the cards.
Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
#166[flagged]
Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
But there's 2 problems with that. To save money governments declare that "teaching is a profession". By which they mean: "teaching", not subject matter expertise, matters. Except: 1) the single thing you cannot beat is capable teachers. And NOT capable as in able to teach, subject-matter-experts. And that is what everybody wants to avoid at all costs. Put it like this: an unwashed, abrasive, offensive smelly asshole…
> 2) Money needs to support that. Which means for Math, the money for math teachers needs to be competitive with research departments of banks, and very different for different subjects, which seems offensive to schools and government in general. If teaching positions aren't competing with other professional careers in the subject matter, it will never work. This will, of course, mean that many science teachers make…
Doesn't change the fact that I have 2 daughters that are getting Math education from someone who is easily beat in math teaching quality by Google Gemini (I realize this is a specific strong point of Gemini, but still)
And I do mean easily beat.
Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
#168I'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.
It's quite easy. The money you "inject" needs to have demurrage.
You can then give all of the $2 trillion demurrage dollars directly to the most corrupt individual on the planet and it won't matter.
There are two scenarios:
1. The recipient keeps the money: It will automatically be returned. 2. The recipient spends the money: It has flown from the most corrupt individual on the planet to a less corrupt individual.
If we assume that each transaction allows the next recipient to make a decision on how to best spend the money, it would automatically spread out, since it cannot stagnate and pool up at any given individual.
Short term corruption doesn't pay, because accumulating excess money that you don't need via corruption just means your demurrage fee is higher.
Investing or lending money means giving it to someone that needs it more than you do and since the demurrage defeats the zero lower bound, it is rational to do so even at 0% interest since it allows you to avoid the demurrage.
And here is something that isn't intuitive for people whose mental model assumes permanent capital scarcity. If supply and demand on the money capital markets are balanced out, the expected interest rate is 0%.
Lower capital costs mean that products can be cheaper now. It is also much easier to invest into long term projects, e.g. against climate change, since the investment only needs to break even rather than growing the economy even further.
Oh yeah, also you now get full employment, like classical economic theory predicts. No more automation scare and feeling like the economy is trying to get rid of you or justify removing working class humans or being hostile to them.
The absence of unemployment makes welfare unattractive, which in turn means that governments will simultaneously have more tax payments and less welfare expenses simultaneously. All welfare should be paid out as demurrage currency in all countries. It's completely logical.
Since capital markets are now fair, it is possible to reduce total debt by paying off loans, whereas with permanent money the holder of money can always decide "I'll spend it later" thereby delaying the possibility of paying off a debt using that money, which is implicitly an extension of the duration of the debt. Given an infinite holding duration, the expected duration of the corresponding debt is obviously infinite too (eternal growing debt woooo).
Oh and it could have saved pension systems if it had been adopted ahead of time. Pension systems collapse because shrinking populations yield less output in the future but permanent money tells you that you can build a time machine to take labor from today and just teleport it straight into the future. Who needs young people working for you, if you can let the money work for you instead! Everyone knows the value of a dollar bill is backed by a humanoid robot inside the dollar bill that can perform exactly one dollar of work.
Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
#169How do you prepare for such thing? Do you sell all stocks now? Then what?
I sold in May. I'm in the largest cash position (t-bills) I've ever had. I might be completely wrong. I just looked at the situation with the oil crisis, and without any obvious way to end it, I just figure, if there was every a more obvious "sell in May and go away" year, this is it. Maybe I miss out on some gains and buy back in December or January. Maybe I'll increase my Berkshire position. I don't know. But compa…
If we assume the play is the same as MAGA 1, the economic fallout happens post-2028. They'll keep inflating the bubble until MAGA cedes power. If that occurs.
Re: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Mostly this, everywhere, going back to every time.