What will our economic future look like? • Hacker News Board

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#31

Post by slfnflctd » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

JacobiX wrote: post #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 "grea…

Our culture and the socioeconomic structures it reinforces will not change easily.

More than ever, I feel we need both grassroots activism and key players at the top of the hierarchy. Otherwise, it is all too obvious where most of the rewards from increased productivity will go. The wealth hoarding has got to be curtailed.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#32

Post by Waterluvian » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

Those with the money and influence have always been in conflict with the masses that actually make the economy run. They would love nothing more than to do away with that problem. It allows them to control the terms of the economy.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#33

Post by 28304283409234 » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

> Think of a day in the life of a nurse You can think of any job as a bundle of tasks that someone does. She does rounds to check on a sick patient. She draws blood.

Why is the nurse a she?

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#34

Post by anthonyrstevens » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #30

I just wonder when we will see 8ft tall humanoid robots walking through the streets.

I'm going to say 2050 in the United States; 2040 in some conflict zone.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#35

Post by skinfaxi » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

KoolKat23 wrote: post #23

Definitely a bit of positive framing. My big take aways, either stagnant wages or significant paycuts for knowledge workers and overall decreases in employment rates on all scenarios. Worst of all... That's only forecasting out to 2030.

In the US at least deaths will outpace births by 2030 so maybe a declining employment rate isn't as bad as it might seem in the long-term.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#36

Post by alphawhisky » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

JacobiX wrote: post #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 "grea…

Call me crazy, but maybe our healthcare shouldn't be a "cost driven system". Maybe that was the issue before AI. But hell, what do I know?

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#37

Post by ang_cire » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

> The result: the nurse’s job changes

> 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.

Except what actually happens is that the patient contact time stays the same, but then the added productivity is used to justify fewer on-staff nurses.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#38

Post by keybored » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #15

dgellow wrote: 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…

Yet another IT that will help the average person/democratize something, like the Internet and so on.

Over three thousand comment boxes agree that the cat is out of the bag. No moats.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#39

Post by josefritzishere » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

So far LLMs seem to be a dead end technology. The work product is so poor that it can't effectively replace workers as advertised. If it was priced to margin it'd be more expensive than humans as well. It's objectively a failure.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#40

Post by sscaryterry » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

ang_cire wrote: post #37

> The result: the nurse’s job changes > 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. Except what actually happens is that the patient contact time stays the same, but then the added productivity is used to justify fewer on-staff nurses.

There we go. Except, all business owners, private or public, will tell you that this isn't the case. :)