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AI's economics don't make sense

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Re: AI's economics don't make sense

#101

Post by causalmodels »

CodingJeebus wrote: post #85
JohnMakin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Early on, it felt more like journalism, then I think he blew up and found something that works. If you challenge him on this, he will call you insecure or jealous, which I also find obnoxious[0]. I also find it highly ironic that all the ads on his podcast, at least on apple, are selling AI related products. [0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/comments/1p5zv33/why_...

FWIW, iHeart Radio probably manages his ad runs. He likely has no say over which ads get run on his show, and as I understand, the podcast advertising market has slowed tremendously in 2026. Podcasting platforms can't be as picky as they used to be.

He may not have control over the podcast spots, but his PR firm does have several AI companies as clients.

Re: AI's economics don't make sense

#102

Post by 1attice »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #86
1attice wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that and I found it unconvincing. KP is correct that EZ is, by now, emotionally and perhaps ideologically fixated on AI's approaching reckoning, but that's KP psychologizing about Ed's inner states, which is neither fruitful nor relevant to consider when confronting a reasoned argument (or, in Ed's case, several.) EZ might have incautiously and incorrectly called the peak several times, but his newsletter is n…

> His argument(s) have evolved over time, but what of it? That just shows he's not the dogmatist the author wants him to be. Discourse evolves, get over it. I disagree. It really reads as conclusion is fixed argument change as they are disproven.

Sometimes it takes any writer some time to tease out what's bothering them. Motivations are like navels, everyone has one, and often they are obscure and strange, even to the motivated.

Re: AI's economics don't make sense

#103

Post by hparadiz »

xienze wrote: post #69
hparadiz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics is spending a few hundred bucks on software for an IC you're already paying over ten grand a month in order to make them more productive. How are supposedly smart industry experts not seeing this obvious fact? Are these guys actually experts?

> The economics is spending a few hundred bucks on software for an IC you're already paying over ten grand a month Let's be fair here, the endgame is not "a few hundred bucks a month." Not for how much money has been invested. How much extra you have to spend to make developers how much more productive, and will companies go along with it is the trillion dollar question.

You know I can just lookup the costs per seat right? It's not that much and not everyone is a heavy user at an org. And for code the costs are falling per compute cycle.

Re: AI's economics don't make sense

#104

Post by georgeburdell »

christkv wrote: post #17

I'm just flabbergasted at the massive inefficient usage of tokens. What are people doing to spend 500 usd/day in tokens. I just don't understand what you could possibly be doing that would be not complete spagetti at the end if you run something in an autoloop.

No employer is telling their employees to use tokens thoughtfully. They might even have token usage leaderboards. One of my team’s agents runs on Opus 4.6 for a fairly narrowly defined scope of a few MCPs and skills. But everyone’s getting their promos and bonuses based on this alone. Next year we’ll get another bonus when we save $1000/day by switching it to Qwen 32B on a Mac Studio

Re: AI's economics don't make sense

#105

Post by aaroninsf »

Ed, my friend, I've got some news for you.

Economics Don't Make Sense.

I mean, seriously... our current late-stage capitalist economy is the chaotic sloshing of excess capital or inverted debt in a shallow tub within which clumsy giants are stamping like toddlers, and a parasitic kleptocratic oligarch class balances its efforts biting the toddler ankles in hope of more stamping judged advantageous, and, bagging what water they can.

Re: AI's economics don't make sense

#107

Post by jsLavaGoat »

Ed could have been right, but I think he's a bit of a front runner than ended up being out too far and not accepting that, for coding at least, the tool is useful. And coding is a big business itself. Of course there are always going to be shenanigans to point out, and I'm glad there are skeptics.

Re: AI's economics don't make sense

#108

Post by pmdr »

davikr wrote: post #66
pmdr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A $20 subscription 2 years ago is not providing the same level of intelligence you're getting today. That subscription was then and is now likely still subsidized.

For all we know, there could be 10 people paying for a ChatGPT subscription and not using it enough to subsidize 1 power user _and_ still have money left for profit.

Oh they'd be sure to let us know if that were the case.

Re: AI's economics don't make sense

#109

Post by pmdr »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #74
pmdr wrote: post #68

I wonder how long until this post is flagged/"shadowbanned". Such was the fate of almost all of Ed's posts on HN, with little surprise as to why.

People who don't adjust their prior outlook in light of newer data may not be the best fit around here. I'm OK with that.

What is the newer data?

Re: AI's economics don't make sense

#110

Post by xienze »

hparadiz wrote: post #103
xienze wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The economics is spending a few hundred bucks on software for an IC you're already paying over ten grand a month Let's be fair here, the endgame is not "a few hundred bucks a month." Not for how much money has been invested. How much extra you have to spend to make developers how much more productive, and will companies go along with it is the trillion dollar question.

You know I can just lookup the costs per seat right? It's not that much and not everyone is a heavy user at an org. And for code the costs are falling per compute cycle.

First, the key phrase here is "end game." Whatever you're looking at now isn't where prices will be in short order.

Second, it seems a hard to believe that hundreds of billions of dollars would be spent and untold numbers of data centers would be built just to gain a measly couple hundred dollars per seat.

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