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What will our economic future look like?

anthropic.com

11–20 of 353 posts

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#12
post #10

> Like any economic model, this one has limits. For example, we did not include scenarios where humanity develops hyper-capable robots. I didn’t see the scenario “what if we (Anthropic) are wrong about the value of AI”. Which IMHO is the most important one to consider given it is the blind spot pretty much all the AI labs have. What if the economic impact is negative? I don’t understand how you can study such a topic…

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#15
post #10

> Like any economic model, this one has limits. For example, we did not include scenarios where humanity develops hyper-capable robots. I didn’t see the scenario “what if we (Anthropic) are wrong about the value of AI”. Which IMHO is the most important one to consider given it is the blind spot pretty much all the AI labs have. What if the economic impact is negative? I don’t understand how you can study such a topic…

I have no doubt that AI will massively transform society. That cat is out of the bag. It took decades for electricity, and then computers to change society, but this is the first technology where the average person can simply describe the problem they're trying to solve and it will at least attempt to help them solve it.

I very. much. doubt. that the trillions of dollars spent on AI will have a positive ROI for most companies in the race. It's all well and good to have the latest fable, but if some chinese company is hosting a cheap open weights model that's only 6mo behind at a tiny fraction of the price, you're gonna get your lunch eaten.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#17
post #10

> Like any economic model, this one has limits. For example, we did not include scenarios where humanity develops hyper-capable robots. I didn’t see the scenario “what if we (Anthropic) are wrong about the value of AI”. Which IMHO is the most important one to consider given it is the blind spot pretty much all the AI labs have. What if the economic impact is negative? I don’t understand how you can study such a topic…

These aren't genuine studies, but are instead marketing materials that resemble studies.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#18
post #10

> Like any economic model, this one has limits. For example, we did not include scenarios where humanity develops hyper-capable robots. I didn’t see the scenario “what if we (Anthropic) are wrong about the value of AI”. Which IMHO is the most important one to consider given it is the blind spot pretty much all the AI labs have. What if the economic impact is negative? I don’t understand how you can study such a topic…

Wrong in the sense that it has less of an impact than they are claiming (e.g. "AI is in an overvalued hype bubble") or less (AI is going to be even more transformative than the hypers say)?

In the former case, isn't it just business as usual? (well, with a huge, nasty recession - but the economy at least continues on in some recognizable form)

It makes sense to me to focus on weird possible futures if we already have the "happy path" somewhat known and barely under control.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#19
Are you guys feeling all high and mighty doing all these predictions? I think the money they are spending on trying to inform policy could be better spent on getting all major labs together with the government, and making sure that

1. At least 10% of your net spend is on safety and harm mitigation before you accelerate yourselves into doing real harm to real people tomorrow.

2. Pause all AI enhancement until a proper mechanistic study can be done by a working group funded by you all to understand how AI model Safety can be enforced by something less lame than a Constitution/Spec.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#20
> As the nurse incorporates AI into her job, the nurse is able to oversee and accomplish more. She can spend more time talking with patients and helping them understand diagnoses. Productivity increases.

This feels economically naïve.. If AI lets one nurse do the work that previously required two, the default pressure in a cost-driven system is not "great, now nurses can spend twice as long with patients" It is "great, now we can run the same operation with fewer nurses"

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