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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?

#421

Post by goodpoint »

bmitc wrote: post #378
nostrademons wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nurses do actually end up spending more time with patients, it's just that they spend more time with rich patients. The actual, tangible form this is taking right now is concierge medicine, home health aids, private practice, etc. My wife's (very good) ob-gyn had enough of working in institutionalized medicine where she's paid about what a L4 FANG engineer makes and pretty much has to follow the script that the healt…

This has a surprisingly easy solution: get rid of the rich. It's never, in the history of the world, been in anyone's favor, except the oligarchy, to privatize everything.

It happens in cycles throughout history: inequality increases until it reaches a breaking point.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#422

Post by delegate »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #43
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Which is only Stage 1. Stage 2 is where you have a Cambrian explosion of models all competing for compute, and not long after that for robotic extension into Real World. Stage 3 gets hard to imagine from here. Maybe there will be permanent hyperevolution. Maybe One Model to Rule Them All will appear. Either way, I don't see how Economics as We Know It can continue to exist. That includes all of capitalism and almost…

This. The world has no political and economic frameworks to face AGI and robotics.

What democracy when the AGI is smarter and more aware of the big picture then all the 'demos' (people) combined ?

It would only make sense to hand over the rule to the AGI, which we are already hard at work doing btw.

The techno utopia - AGI + robots can lead to a form of communism.. with human life having very little value.

Or it could lead to the other extreme.. whatever that is, again human life having little practical value.

We need a new type of political and economic thinking, radically different from the left/right/socialist/capitalist ideologies..

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#423

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

bloppe wrote: post #400
bmitc wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has a surprisingly easy solution: get rid of the rich. It's never, in the history of the world, been in anyone's favor, except the oligarchy, to privatize everything.

How about just abolish poverty, so everyone is rich

Potato, potato, wealth is relative.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#424

Post by bdangubic »

ryandrake wrote: post #374
krapp wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you envision a future where there will be say a hospital, ran by anthropic which is AI powered fully, no company behind it, just plain Claude running everything from the moment you walk in till you walk out Everything as much as possible, yes, and the company behind it will be an AI driven autonomous corporation as well. Although I suspect that by then there will be some industry specific AI model being used by hos…

You can bet that every major company CEO on the planet is creaming his jeans at the thought of AI doing every task (except their own) that they currently pay humans to do. Their ideal end state is that the company is themself, thousands of AIs and thousands of robots, zero payroll. Every one of them is dreaming of this.

Hard agree. But even in this case though, the company behind assumes liability for "its actions", no?

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#425

Post by tancop »

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…

- Attention spans are overrated. I know that because I have a pretty short one to the point it's annoying for others. It measures how much you're willing to focus on something you don't want more than the ability to focus on something you do want, like writing this reply. Losing that is a sign that people are tired of boring jobs and badly designed school work and old forms of entertainment that are only alive because of nostalgia or elitism.

- Asking an LLM is objectively a better learning method than reading books if the LLM is giving correct information (and I know that's a pretty big if). Cheating on homework is a workaround that only exists because graded homework is still a thing. If tests are hard enough and have unlimited retakes, kids will learn that practice is worth it and do it with way more focus than if it was forced.

- Inequality has been increasing for decades. It's an inevitable part of capitalism, when the rate of wealth increase is higher for the rich and well connected (like access to private funding rounds or portfolio managers) you get unlimited concentration. Even without that, when you have money left after basic expenses you can invest more of it than someone living paycheck to paycheck.

- Class wars are great. Hopefully we can avoid physical violence but if we can't then tough luck. Should have paid your taxes.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#426

Post by webern777 »

woah wrote: post #261
ryandrake wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that humans are at least supposed to be accountable for those 250,000 errors. Those humans can naturally care about doing a good job, or they can be motivated to care. They can fear consequences and take pride in avoiding mistakes. AI can do none of this, and cannot be held accountable for mistakes. I would take a human with a 10% mistake rate but who can be held accountable, over an AI with a 0.1%…

Human doctors and nurses are not accountable for outcomes, and they can not be accountable or our medical system (and any other medical system) would cease to function.

A nurse and doctor have personal liability in the US.

Imagine having to do paperwork as a nurse after working a 12 hour physical job, overnight, 8pm to 8am.

The idea mistakes happen because the nurse doesn't "care" is utter bullshit.

I think of how if I am really tired I just don't do anything that risky at my job until the next day. A nurse doesn't really have that option and it is all the highest risk there is. Every day, all day. All with a chronic, massive work shortage for dogshit pay.

The most brutal thing I have read about nursing are nurses saying the lucky people are the ones who failed out of nursing school.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#427

Post by nixon_why69 »

WalterBright wrote: post #404
nixon_why69 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defending standard oil is an all-timer hot take. They only had 90% market share? In a commodity? SpaceX isn't a monopoly because they have domestic and international competition. Before they showed up, ULA was a deliberately constructed monopoly because Boeing and Lockheed didn't want to compete.

SpaceX has a 90% market share.

Numbers aside, SpaceX has a technological lead. They're not strangling competitors in a commodity business with monopoly practices. I wouldn't call ASMR or TSMC monopolies either, anyone can compete with them in theory. Standard oil, by contrast, would cut their competitors off from rail transit and selectively dump to drive them out of business.

The other reason they're not a monopoly is that they may do 90% of total launches, but most are for themselves to support starlink (another "nonopoly" with no competitors). They have 60% of the US government launch contracts, a small percentage of ESA when Ariane is flaky, amd of course 0% of China and Russia.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#428

Post by bdangubic »

krapp wrote: post #360
bdangubic wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how will this manifest itself!? like you envision a future where there will be say a hospital, ran by anthropic which is AI powered fully, no company behind it, just plain Claude running everything from the moment you walk in till you walk out? I am having a hard time imagining a future where “AI” isn’t just a tool that a given establishment decided to use much like anything else they use

> you envision a future where there will be say a hospital, ran by anthropic which is AI powered fully, no company behind it, just plain Claude running everything from the moment you walk in till you walk out Everything as much as possible, yes, and the company behind it will be an AI driven autonomous corporation as well. Although I suspect that by then there will be some industry specific AI model being used by hos…

I do not disagree but I also do not see how, without liability for its action, would a business have customers. Surely there are idiots but if someone put up a sign in front of the hospital like "we are not liable for anything that happens inside these walls" I will venture a guess that business will suffer. This will also open up business opportunities for other businesses to jump in with "we stand by what we do, you'd be crazy to go to _____ for services we are offering."

I might be naive to the core but I think, in the long run, I am not very Doom&Gloom about AI like you are sounding, people have a way of (eventually) making their own decisions and won't put up with this world you are pitching (I hope lol)

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#429

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

slfnflctd wrote: post #31
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.

What changes fast thou, is economic structures and societal structures will follow. This is classic marx (basesuperstructure) or the power aspect of economics. One true dystopia i see possible, is mecha hitler slowly displacing and controlling (white collar) city dwellers to the point of silent obedience. This Anthropic article is imo propganda to buy time for shareholders and to delay potential stroms. Claiming AI as actors in a capitlistic system will fix systemic issues, is like claiming super sonic planes will fix world hunger.

Re: What will our economic future look like?

#430

Post by jiggawatts »

jryan49 wrote: post #368
jiggawatts wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI just solved a Millennium Prize Problem in a week . The AIs are already beyond human capability in some areas, and will be beyond human in all areas within single-digit years.

It's probably a good idea to note that it cost them 10-15 million dollars in tokens to do so.

Sure, but the cost-per-token is falling very rapidly. That cost will be mere thousands of dollars for a "million dollar problem" soon.
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