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Moore's Law for Everything
11–20 of 554 posts
Re: Moore's Law for Everything
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Altman isn't arguing that Moore's Law DOES apply to everything but rather than we should work toward such a world. It is good for society if the costs of goods and services decrease over time to allow a given income/wealth level to live a better life over time.
I'm all for driving down the costs of things low on Maslow's hierarchy, but it's arguably more reasonable in the short term to put effective public policy in place than hope the singularity gets here (an exaggeration, but not exceptionally so, considering "Moore's Law for Everything"). Tech people keep trying to fix people problems with tech. ~47k people die each year in the US from a lack of healthcare. Other countr…
Could it be that tech people try to fix problems with tech because tech people are familiar with tech?
Said another way, where are the non-tech public policy people solving these problems?
If they don't step up, maybe it's time the tech people do?
Re: Moore's Law for Everything
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've spent what is likely way too much mental energy wondering about this, and I'm no closer to an answer. Is there any limit to lifestyle inflation? Is it possible to have growth that simply outpaces what a human could possibly consume? Intuitively it seems obvious that there should be something like that, but in the 1800s our growth today would seem like it should be enough.
Read some Culture novels.
Oh man, I'd love to but there aren't any more. Fantastic concept, solid execution.
Re: Moore's Law for Everything
#14"This revolution will generate enough wealth for everyone to have what they need, if we as a society manage it responsibly." I worry that this is already the case, and we are already failing miserably. Globally we seem to have enough resources to feed, clothe, and shelter the global population and in a number of cases (see the USA) to be unable to do so.
Are we failing "miserably"? I mean, global poverty is down, down, down.[0] Famine mortality is down, down, down (in spite of population going up, up, up). [1] Not everyone gets an Escalade and a 5k square-foot home, but arguably they shouldn't be using those anyway. But it seems like in terms of what people "need" (food, shelter, clothing), globally humans are enjoying unprecedented prosperity, despite the enormous gaps that can and will exist - the mean seems higher. I'd call that improvement, not failure in the immediate sense, though of course this is all coming at a price to the environment whose balance due is only starting to be realized.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/size-poverty-gap-world [1] https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/files/2017/08/famine-mortality-b...
Re: Moore's Law for Everything
#15> AI will lower the cost of goods and services, because labor is the driving cost at many levels of the supply chain. If robots can build a house on land you already own from natural resources mined and refined onsite, using solar power, the cost of building that house is close to the cost to rent the robots. And if those robots are made by other robots, the cost to rent them will be much less than it was when humans made them.
The issue with rising costs of housing is not (completely) linked to labor costs, it's land value, regulatory capture, bad infrastructure, and heavily marketed house-in-the-suburbs-as-the-only-way-to-live.
Re: Moore's Law for Everything
#16I totally agree with this! I think it will be more like 15 to 20 years though. 5 years may be too soon. Great article!
Re: Moore's Law for Everything
#17I like this idea, but is the technical implementation of a progressive social policy (whether it be a tax on equity versus something else) actually the hard part?
Alternative take: the hard part is that the US is heterogeneous and people just don't trust each other to not abuse benefits. (You could also say it's racist). How could we give equity to every person when we can't even seem to agree that they deserve basic healthcare?
Re: Moore's Law for Everything
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm all for driving down the costs of things low on Maslow's hierarchy, but it's arguably more reasonable in the short term to put effective public policy in place than hope the singularity gets here (an exaggeration, but not exceptionally so, considering "Moore's Law for Everything"). Tech people keep trying to fix people problems with tech. ~47k people die each year in the US from a lack of healthcare. Other countr…
Could it be that tech people try to fix problems with tech because tech people are familiar with tech? Said another way, where are the non-tech public policy people solving these problems? If they don't step up, maybe it's time the tech people do?
Absolutely. This is not condemning technologists, but encouraging a reassessment of effective strategies for implementation to lead to the desired outcome.
Policy is written by the elected. Speak to or assume those roles. Provide covering fire for effective contributors who can execute on your mission and vision, just like a startup.
Re: Moore's Law for Everything
#19> Economic growth matters because most people want their lives to improve every year.
Improve how? Should I need economic growth to get better health care? This whole techno-utopian argument seems to hinge on extractive growth because it fails to actually tackle the problems of inequality by providing true redistribution of wealth in any meaningful sense. Trickle-down AI is a sham.
Re: Moore's Law for Everything
#20> If everyone owns a slice of American value creation, everyone will want America to do better: collective equity in innovation and in the success of the country will align our incentives.
I kind of doubt that. At Google we're paid in part with shares of GOOG, but at Google's scale that's just treated as cash compensation. At my level, nothing I do affects the stock price, and most Googlers feel this way.
Sure, I want Google to do well, and I want America to do well too. Both of them doing well benefits me. But it doesn't really encourage me to do something different day-to-day.