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What will our economic future look like?

anthropic.com

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Re: What will our economic future look like?

#411

Post by [deleted] »

pvab3 wrote: post #243
Toutouxc wrote: post #28

I like how the least optimistic scenario is simply LLMs not making a difference, instead of the very real possibility of them damaging education, destroying people’s attention spans and their ability to learn, eroding trust within societies, increasing the wealth inequality and leading to class wars. I believe the net effect of LLMs is, at this point, firmly negative, and it’s going to take years until they start mak…

I can't imagine trying to be a teacher in 2026. I would have never written a single paper or problem set myself in HS and college.

[deleted]

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#412

Post by nickpp »

alphawhisky wrote: post #36
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?

What exactly do you think should be the motivator for people working in healthcare then? For companies creating healthcare products and services? For investors pouring money into health care research? The goodness of their hearts?

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#413

Post by [deleted] »

barbazoo wrote: post #98
Dlemlo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Whatever an LLM can do today, will not come back as is tomorrow. The biggest issue the LLM today: It kills all the small and niche things. The things were we fit all the other people is getting destroyed. You know the guy who makes websites, the fiverr blender person provoding some basic modelling tasks. You will just ask AI or AI will use your tool or AI will just produce it for you.

I think the root cause is people not having enough human connection. If we had families, friends, neighborhoods, communities where people know each other and care about each other it wouldn't make a difference what new tool someone brings to group. It's just a tool.

[deleted]

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#414

Post by engeljohnb »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #376
daveguy wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they meant the nurse would be responsible. The LLC would and should be fucked in that case.

Whether the company employs a human nurse or an AI, the company and not a human is indeed considered the responsible party. The LLC might be fucked but it is not a flesh-and-blood person. There is no person responsible. Just a legal entity. So nothing is changed. I think we're in agreement?

Do you think there's no difference in material outcomes when a company faces consequences of a specific human nurse being negligent vs an AI hallucinating?

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#415

Post by nickpp »

Toutouxc wrote: post #28

I like how the least optimistic scenario is simply LLMs not making a difference, instead of the very real possibility of them damaging education, destroying people’s attention spans and their ability to learn, eroding trust within societies, increasing the wealth inequality and leading to class wars. I believe the net effect of LLMs is, at this point, firmly negative, and it’s going to take years until they start mak…

You can say all that about pretty much any technological advancement, like the computer itself. Heck, people said it about the invention of writing or the printing press!

However, looking back, each single invention was a net positive for us as a species.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#416

Post by asdff »

bpodgursky wrote: post #49
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.

> but then the added productivity is used to justify fewer on-staff nurses Lower staffing levels per unit of care performed makes medical care cheaper for patients. If the goal of a healthcare system is to make healthcare more accessible (rather than be a jobs program), that's a success.

Everything is theoretically cheaper for the patients/customer/stakeholders if you just didn't employ anyone at all to do whatever it is you are doing.

The thing is, your customers are paying customers because, drum roll, some one pays them to do something.

And of course the only argument against this is "uhh maybe ubi" and that's rich that we will just come up with a nice tidy sum for everyone that will cover all their food, healthcare, housing, wants and needs, while we can't create programs to cover any one of those things today. Can't wait to see the GOP proposal.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#417

Post by asdff »

simianwords wrote: post #265
ang_cire wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think handcrafted furniture is more readily accessible to the average person now than say 30 years ago? When people are struggling to buy gas, nevermind homes? And I asked Claude (Fable 5), and they said you're wrong. I'd paste it here, but it literally dumped a 10 paragraph rant about "Baumol's Cost Disease".

What did you ask it? It’s pretty clear that share of disposable income is more or less flat for handcrafted furniture which is cherry picked.

You are probably getting caught up in the idea of an inflation adjusted price of a new hand crafted dresser now and in some point of the past. It probably is pretty similar.

But, that is just a piece of the puzzle here. In the past, every single home in the damn country rich and poor that had a dresser, had a hand crafted dresser. The rich people bought nice new ones. The middle class people bought modest new ones. The poor people bought used ones or found them on the side of the road.

Fast forward to today, and every single home in the damn country rich and poor still has a dresser, only most of those are made of dust and glue. The entire new to used to side of the road pipeline is polluted with an inferior product compared to years past. Side of the road furniture is worthless now. One drizzle on the sidewalk that melamine board is swelling up and falling apart. Old furniture you could sand any damage and restain for probably 200 years. And people try and tell me the glue and dust stuff is "more sustainable" forgetting that its going to last maybe 2 moves if you are lucky, not 200 years, 200 weeks if you are lucky.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#419

Post by pllbnk »

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 think the main limit of their model is that it was prompted and with LLMs you get what you prompt for. It's as truthful as any complex models. Could be good, could be bad, could be meh.
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