Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?

mattsclancy.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 98 posts

Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?

#3

Post by ernst_klim »

blfr wrote: post #2

Will we see any growth acceleration? The Internet doesn't seem to have had this effect. AI may turn out to nothing in terms of gdp growth or even be hugely deflationary.

Exactly. I believe that growth caused by the rise of IT, be it Internet or LLM, will be marginal, because the benefits for humanity are very marginal compared to that caused by steam engine, wing, antibiotics or telegraph.

Everything IT does is slightly simplifying things we already could do. We could already telegraph someone across Atlantic, we could extract knowledge in library, we could do accounting. The speedup is small compared to horses vs steam power for transportation for example.

Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?

#5

Post by Ekaros »

ernst_klim wrote: post #3
blfr wrote: post #2

Will we see any growth acceleration? The Internet doesn't seem to have had this effect. AI may turn out to nothing in terms of gdp growth or even be hugely deflationary.

Exactly. I believe that growth caused by the rise of IT, be it Internet or LLM, will be marginal, because the benefits for humanity are very marginal compared to that caused by steam engine, wing, antibiotics or telegraph. Everything IT does is slightly simplifying things we already could do. We could already telegraph someone across Atlantic, we could extract knowledge in library, we could do accounting. The speedup…

I do believe efficiency gains have been significant. Not as big as with industrial revolution but still effective.

Does not mean that some of these gains have not been wasted or there has not been in sense waste introduced to waste excess productivity and efficiency. IT certainly has made this waste lot more easy to do.

Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?

#6

Post by lukan »

ernst_klim wrote: post #3
blfr wrote: post #2

Will we see any growth acceleration? The Internet doesn't seem to have had this effect. AI may turn out to nothing in terms of gdp growth or even be hugely deflationary.

Exactly. I believe that growth caused by the rise of IT, be it Internet or LLM, will be marginal, because the benefits for humanity are very marginal compared to that caused by steam engine, wing, antibiotics or telegraph. Everything IT does is slightly simplifying things we already could do. We could already telegraph someone across Atlantic, we could extract knowledge in library, we could do accounting. The speedup…

Speedup in communication is fast, but the real physical work still needed to be done. Machines were very powerful with this, but not flexible.

AI powered robots will be flexible (once they work reliable) ..

Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?

#7

Post by blfr »

ernst_klim wrote: post #3
blfr wrote: post #2

Will we see any growth acceleration? The Internet doesn't seem to have had this effect. AI may turn out to nothing in terms of gdp growth or even be hugely deflationary.

Exactly. I believe that growth caused by the rise of IT, be it Internet or LLM, will be marginal, because the benefits for humanity are very marginal compared to that caused by steam engine, wing, antibiotics or telegraph. Everything IT does is slightly simplifying things we already could do. We could already telegraph someone across Atlantic, we could extract knowledge in library, we could do accounting. The speedup…

I think the speedups and conveniences of modern IT and the Internet have been massive: I can bank from my pocket, review the best photos out of 100k+ just when riding a tram, get virtually any good produced anywhere delivered to my doorstep in 1-3 business days (and it will be the exact kind and make I chose, not something that happened to be available), read virtually any book ever published while my appointment is delayed.

However, almost all of these are purely private benefits that do not show in any ledger. This is at least in part why the Internet seems to have had such small impact on gdp.

How about AI? So far, even more private benefits than the Internet.

Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?

#8

Post by HPsquared »

blfr wrote: post #2

Will we see any growth acceleration? The Internet doesn't seem to have had this effect. AI may turn out to nothing in terms of gdp growth or even be hugely deflationary.

Falling prices is a good thing for anyone not in debt. That's almost nobody today though, I suppose.

Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?

#9

Post by zapkyeskrill »

blfr wrote: post #7
ernst_klim wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I believe that growth caused by the rise of IT, be it Internet or LLM, will be marginal, because the benefits for humanity are very marginal compared to that caused by steam engine, wing, antibiotics or telegraph. Everything IT does is slightly simplifying things we already could do. We could already telegraph someone across Atlantic, we could extract knowledge in library, we could do accounting. The speedup…

I think the speedups and conveniences of modern IT and the Internet have been massive: I can bank from my pocket, review the best photos out of 100k+ just when riding a tram, get virtually any good produced anywhere delivered to my doorstep in 1-3 business days (and it will be the exact kind and make I chose, not something that happened to be available), read virtually any book ever published while my appointment is…

And most of the time savings gained from all this is blown on grind clicking "social media" so net effect is, yes, close to zero (or in more modern terms, not 100x, not 10x, but 1x at most).
Post reply on HN