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The dead economy theory

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Re: The dead economy theory

#131

Post by xg15 »

spongebobstoes wrote: post #15

this whole blog post is basically "people need jobs to be happy, so we should design our society such that they need jobs" not only is the premise wrong, but forcing people to work is not a good or ethical way to address this problem most people like the social aspect of work, but not being beholden to their boss we can give people meaning, community, culture, growth, without relying on employment and money we can do…

> "people need jobs to be happy, so we should design our society such that they need jobs"

No, this is not what the article said. It's more "people need jobs to have any kind of leverage in society" which is something different.

Re: The dead economy theory

#133

Post by parliament32 »

Miner49er wrote: post #92
parliament32 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the business process is fully AI-able, why wouldn't it just be implemented by the next AI in line? I'd argue the only companies to survive will be the ones with either a human input or a human output. Everything else is effectively worthless now.

For the same reason it doesn't happen with humans. Even for AI, it's probably better off paying another AI that is specializing in something and done all the work rather then reimplementing everything from the ground up.

Is it specializing though? If both you and them have built your business on the latest Opus.. where is the specialization?

"From the ground up" used to be a moat, but if the LLM marketing materials are to be believed, Joe Lunchbox can slop-code a 95%-equivalent of any SaaS over a weekend with a $100 subscription.. so why would it ever make sense for a business to pay a non-trivial recurring expense for something they can do themselves?

Re: The dead economy theory

#134

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

10xDev wrote: post #115
alex_young wrote: post #53

Why is this time different? Won't super power AI tools allow companies to do more with the same number of people? Don't you think a smarter way to run a business is to capture more of the market if you have the resources to do so? If company A decides they just want the same slice of the market they have now and can fire half of their employees and pocket $$$, can't company B hire the same workers and compete harder…

Does every business scale that way? Sure video games for example have only required more people and resources to develop games as the ability to create larger scale games have increased. But does that really apply to accounting? Not a rhetorical question.

Does it need to?

99% of people used to work on farms. Now they don't.

Maybe ~99% of engineers won't write code in the future. They'll do some other engineering like thing...

Maybe ~99% of accountant type people won't do accounting things. They'll do some other financial thing...

We haven't even seen a rounding error in total unemployment directly attributed to AI, despite people saying the sky fell 24 months ago, and crying that's it's still falling every day since.

Re: The dead economy theory

#135

Post by T-RN-R »

dleslie wrote: post #110
alex_young wrote: post #53

Why is this time different? Won't super power AI tools allow companies to do more with the same number of people? Don't you think a smarter way to run a business is to capture more of the market if you have the resources to do so? If company A decides they just want the same slice of the market they have now and can fire half of their employees and pocket $$$, can't company B hire the same workers and compete harder…

> Won't super power AI tools allow companies to do more with the same number of people? Don't you think a smarter way to run a business is to capture more of the market if you have the resources to do so? It is possible to have excess productivity. AI allows an existing labour pool to rapidly surpass necessary productivity levels for the existing demand. IE, let's say I live in a small town and I open a machine shop.…

You can aim to expand your addressable markets. A small town is a small market. Open a second location in a nearby town. Lower profit margins to undercut competition.

Re: The dead economy theory

#136

Post by mrdependable »

I think a lot of this would be solved if the government would actually enforce anti monopoly laws. The penalties against Google were such a damn joke it makes me sick.

Companies aren’t going to hold off on trying to automate tasks AI performs poorly at. They are going to change the task so AI can do it, putting the burden of making up for the deficit on everyone else. The only reason this is able to happen now is because all the competition has been crushed or absorbed.

Re: The dead economy theory

#137

Post by amanaplanacanal »

troosevelt wrote: post #112
bayarearefugee wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can do better than this In theory we can do better than this, in practice we can't. 40% of the people in the US would rather starve to death themselves than live in a world where people they hate for their skin color get anything without toiling for it.

I appreciate that there is a significant chunk of people that are like this, but I think if you really believe the 40% number or anything like it, you're giving yourself a false worldview. The majority of people aren't racist nor do they have a problem with government helping them out. What was happening (are you referencing 2024?) in 2024 and today was a government saying the economy was fine when it is not. When th…

So do you expect Republicans to be thrown out of office en masse in the upcoming election?

I personally expect plenty of them to get reelected even if they claim that everything is just fine.

Re: The dead economy theory

#138

Post by aleqs »

alex_young wrote: post #53

Why is this time different? Won't super power AI tools allow companies to do more with the same number of people? Don't you think a smarter way to run a business is to capture more of the market if you have the resources to do so? If company A decides they just want the same slice of the market they have now and can fire half of their employees and pocket $$$, can't company B hire the same workers and compete harder…

> can't company B hire the same workers and compete harder with these new extra productive workers they hired

How much of the current tech world is actually about competing based on innovation/quality/merit? I'd wager not much. The circular big AI deals we're used to seeing now are not a new thing - that shit has been the standard playbook for VCs and their startups for a long time. That being said, I don't see why a bunch of these swampy tech companies could not be easily outcompeted on the tech/product quality side.

Re: The dead economy theory

#139

Post by autoexec »

CM30 wrote: post #89

I think the thing companies forget is that a lot of them can't remain functional if a shrinking percentage of the population can afford their products. Yes, you can try and appeal to the rich and sell products/services aimed at their needs. But does that work for most companies? I'd say no. The rich won't buy millions of food items or works of fiction or go to every service available in real life. So, many of those c…

Some companies are discovering that they can get by just fine by overcharging the insanely rich and never bothering with providing goods and services to the middle class or the poor at all. The rich don't buy as many food items or works of fiction, or services as the masses but they don't have to either.

Companies can save a ton of money by not being open to everyone all the time. They can instead focus on providing the most amazing luxury experience customized to the extremely wealthy individuals requesting their services and charge them more than anyone else could afford. While not every company can live off of whale meat, those who can will leave the rest of us behind.

Re: The dead economy theory

#140

Post by philipkglass »

xg15 wrote: post #131
spongebobstoes wrote: post #15

this whole blog post is basically "people need jobs to be happy, so we should design our society such that they need jobs" not only is the premise wrong, but forcing people to work is not a good or ethical way to address this problem most people like the social aspect of work, but not being beholden to their boss we can give people meaning, community, culture, growth, without relying on employment and money we can do…

> "people need jobs to be happy, so we should design our society such that they need jobs" No, this is not what the article said. It's more "people need jobs to have any kind of leverage in society" which is something different.

I don't think that "people need jobs to have any kind of leverage in society" is actually true, though. Retired people without jobs are (in-)famously known to be politically powerful, both regarding elections and regarding local political questions apart from elections (like city planning commission decisions).
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