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A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

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Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#11

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Wildgoose wrote: post #9

"A third of the rise in the S&P 500 stock market index this year is attributable to Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp." And yet don't those companies directly employ only around 150,000 workers in total? Yes, Apple off-shores employment to Foxconn but they are open about their plans to automate their factories and replace all the workers. This isn't a matter of…

that's not the argument the article was making - they note that tech and media (the fastest growing sectors, which not coincidentally employ most intensively IT workers) are just 5% of economy.

the argument is that when the rest of the economy employs IT at the same level of intensity, the remaining 95% will have similar productivity growth and hence see gains of wealth creation.

we then have to work out how to distribute those gains (hopefully fairly and equitably)

There is a oft quoted parallel with electricity replacing steam in factories- it took a generation or more for factories to stop being clustered around one large steam engine, running each corner of the factory to the speed of one central spindle. the idea is that eventually companies will adapt to use "Digital" rather than adapting digital to fit them.

As a mental sanity check, think about just how, ignoring ML/AI, just how advanced you could rewrite any company you have worked in in past ten years. All the crappy inefficiencies, the pointless spreadsheets. And you have probably worked at the tech end of the economy. is today's IT usage really the best we can do as a society? i doubt it - there seems to be a lot of room for improvement...

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#13

Post by hliyan »

Wildgoose wrote: post #9

"A third of the rise in the S&P 500 stock market index this year is attributable to Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp." And yet don't those companies directly employ only around 150,000 workers in total? Yes, Apple off-shores employment to Foxconn but they are open about their plans to automate their factories and replace all the workers. This isn't a matter of…

That's really not the author's point. I think this quote illustrates his point better:

"Online shopping came along in the 1990s but retailers struggled to adapt business processes to the internet. They needed to build complementary infrastructure such as fulfillment centers, and, the authors note, customers had to adapt their habits, as well."

The lag between commercialization and widespread adoption is wider than we think.

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#15

Post by eggie »

rectang wrote: post #10
inciampati wrote: post #8

I have frequently wondered if the lag in productivity is partly due to the distracting power of the internet and social media. This isn't really paralleled by the other technical advances that the authors of the study this piece summarizes were examining. Also, AI? We don't have anything even approaching AI in play now nor on the immediate horizon. The energy costs it would have are still enormous, even if we really…

> We got really good at problems that can be mapped into single precision matrix algebra, where the inputs and outputs are relatively small. General AI is a "wave of the future -- always has been, always will be" technology. Only when a piece gets broken out from general AI do we get practical benefits. The benefits from applying all that matrix algebra aren't small, though!

So we are breaking off small pieces of a bigger thing. If that thing is AI, does it already have a form and an older name in the world?

Would agree that in this article AI is a stand-in for what used to be called Math, Statistics, and Computer Science?

Our scientific output is an artifice, and it is "intelligent" in its ability to guide our action. To me it isn't then strange to think of the sciences as the "general AI".

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#16

Post by heisenbit »

Wildgoose wrote: post #9

"A third of the rise in the S&P 500 stock market index this year is attributable to Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp." And yet don't those companies directly employ only around 150,000 workers in total? Yes, Apple off-shores employment to Foxconn but they are open about their plans to automate their factories and replace all the workers. This isn't a matter of…

Yeah, that part made me cringe. The fact that the majority of the profits are accumulating at a few players is actually a sign of a late stage market after consolidation with monopoly profits.

Productivity gains only drive profits if they provide a sustainable competitive advantage. There is a reason Buffet stays from IT - we improve productivity all the time but he can't figure out where the moat is. Apple (iOS/Hardware engineering), Amazon (Warehouse, Scale), Google (Advertisement market leader), Facebook (Attention) and Microsoft (Office) have some form of sustainable moat. The broad market less so.

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#17

Post by garmaine »

eggie wrote: post #15
rectang wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We got really good at problems that can be mapped into single precision matrix algebra, where the inputs and outputs are relatively small. General AI is a "wave of the future -- always has been, always will be" technology. Only when a piece gets broken out from general AI do we get practical benefits. The benefits from applying all that matrix algebra aren't small, though!

So we are breaking off small pieces of a bigger thing. If that thing is AI, does it already have a form and an older name in the world? Would agree that in this article AI is a stand-in for what used to be called Math, Statistics, and Computer Science? Our scientific output is an artifice, and it is "intelligent" in its ability to guide our action. To me it isn't then strange to think of the sciences as the "general…

As soon as you solve a problem in AI, people start labeling that problem as “just” math, statistics, or computer science. It is no longer considered AI. Shifting goal posts mean “real AI” is always in the future.

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#18

Post by heisenbergs »

hliyan wrote: post #13
Wildgoose wrote: post #9

"A third of the rise in the S&P 500 stock market index this year is attributable to Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp." And yet don't those companies directly employ only around 150,000 workers in total? Yes, Apple off-shores employment to Foxconn but they are open about their plans to automate their factories and replace all the workers. This isn't a matter of…

That's really not the author's point. I think this quote illustrates his point better: "Online shopping came along in the 1990s but retailers struggled to adapt business processes to the internet. They needed to build complementary infrastructure such as fulfillment centers, and, the authors note, customers had to adapt their habits, as well." The lag between commercialization and widespread adoption is wider than we…

Lag is probably the wrong word. It's a misconception that adoption should be instant. It took a good 50 years for the electric motor to supplant the steam engine, despite it being superior in virtually every way. Tech adoption takes time, given that many things need to be re-learnt/engineered.

It's why i'm positive that there won't be swathes of unemployeed people due to tech. It will happen gradually, as it has always been, and people will have to be shifted into different and more productive employment types. It has always happened this way, and will likely continue to do so.

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#19

Post by eggie »

garmaine wrote: post #17
eggie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we are breaking off small pieces of a bigger thing. If that thing is AI, does it already have a form and an older name in the world? Would agree that in this article AI is a stand-in for what used to be called Math, Statistics, and Computer Science? Our scientific output is an artifice, and it is "intelligent" in its ability to guide our action. To me it isn't then strange to think of the sciences as the "general…

As soon as you solve a problem in AI, people start labeling that problem as “just” math, statistics, or computer science. It is no longer considered AI. Shifting goal posts mean “real AI” is always in the future.

Even if we claim that "real AI" is a system that can actively perform at human levels in creative tasks, I wouldn't believe that it will always be in the future. However, I don't think this is very near, and I think this is sort of what people are implying when they talk about AI. To me saying "general AI is what we're exploring and making mini-discoveries in" is a kind of apology. Unfortunately, this apology pushes us into a grey area where "AI" is really just the scientific artifice. That's not the same as AI that has auto-creative capacities.

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#20

Post by aristidb »

heisenbit wrote: post #16
Wildgoose wrote: post #9

"A third of the rise in the S&P 500 stock market index this year is attributable to Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp." And yet don't those companies directly employ only around 150,000 workers in total? Yes, Apple off-shores employment to Foxconn but they are open about their plans to automate their factories and replace all the workers. This isn't a matter of…

Yeah, that part made me cringe. The fact that the majority of the profits are accumulating at a few players is actually a sign of a late stage market after consolidation with monopoly profits. Productivity gains only drive profits if they provide a sustainable competitive advantage. There is a reason Buffet stays from IT - we improve productivity all the time but he can't figure out where the moat is. Apple (iOS/Hard…

Fun fact: Berkshire Hathaway (Buffett's company) now has a huge stake in Apple. So it's not really true anymore that he avoids IT.
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