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The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

danielhomola.com

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Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#161

Post by repelsteeltje »

trolleski wrote: post #57
bloppe wrote: post #30

Until I see median real income start to actually go down, I just don't buy it. AI is currently a commodity. Maybe one of the labs will be able to differentiate sufficiently to be able to charge the kinds of premiums they need just to pay back their investors. Maybe, instead, we'll see something akin to the FOSS revolution, where large, high-quality, open training sets are developed to make sure there's always a fair…

If you denominate your income in silly money such as USD, then it won't go down, probably will go up! However if you start asking questions on how much housing medical and materials it buys, then I think it will squeeze people even more than now.

I agree.

After a decade of "quantitative easing" there is still a shitload of money looking for a spot in the economy that needs it. NFTs, bitcoin mining farms, AI data centers, FAANG stocks, real estate, gold ... These are hedges (or attempts to hedge), but they add little to no intrinsic value to the world's prosperity.

They merely shift and concentrate wealth and power, for the most part.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#162

Post by demaga »

adverbly wrote: post #147
bloppe wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assertion that it's "flat" is rather unconvincing after looking at that graph. It's clearly been rising relatively consistently. The dip for covid I think is especially understandable, and it's currently higher than it's ever been. Maybe your personal expenses are not reflected by the CPI, but you can see for yourself: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2025.htm 44% housing, 8% medicine, 14% food…

Are you blind? 2019: 83260 2024: 83730

2018: 77700

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#163

Post by ixlixl »

botswana99 wrote: post #63
ixlixl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI automating (almost) all white collar work will concentrate all those salaries into the hands of a very small group of people. BTW the number of plumbers who become multimillionaires is vanishingly small, while the number of SWE who have in the last 15 years is enormous by comparison.

Neither statement is true, unfortunately. The reports that you read in the media don't reflect the state of the world. In the US, most plumbers and SWE make between 100-200K. The way to wealth is to start one's own business. Hence, hard work and character.

median plumber salary: $63k https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/plumbers... median Software Developer salary: $131k https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

Where are your statistics?

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#164

Post by TGower »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #149
TGower wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. It's by no means garunteed that we will get to a point where effectively all the jobs are being automated. If we eventually get there, it seems likely the path will be gradual and prosperous enough that we can handle the transition in a way that provides for everyone. The dangers of the alternative route are real, but hopefully obvious enough that we can collectively avoid them.

> it seems likely the path will be gradual and prosperous enough that we can handle the transition in a way that provides for everyone What are you talking about man, we don't even provide for everyone right now even though we actually could

Right now it is difficult for the average person to put themselves in the shoes of a homeless person. There are a litany of ready made excuses not to do so: "Oh it's the drugs", "They aren't even going to the shelter", "They must have mental illness", a variety of ways to say "I could never end up like that, if it was me I'd do better and pull myself out". These excuses evaporate in the face of a real automation wave where a large portion of friends and family you know to be hard working and intelligent are finding it impossible to find a job.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#165

Post by bloppe »

adverbly wrote: post #147
bloppe wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assertion that it's "flat" is rather unconvincing after looking at that graph. It's clearly been rising relatively consistently. The dip for covid I think is especially understandable, and it's currently higher than it's ever been. Maybe your personal expenses are not reflected by the CPI, but you can see for yourself: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2025.htm 44% housing, 8% medicine, 14% food…

Are you blind? 2019: 83260 2024: 83730

If you actually look at the rest of the graph, you'd quickly notice that 2 year dips are entirely normal. The overall trend is consistent. And it's risen over 5% in the last 4 years. Those are the 4 years since ChatGPT.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#166

Post by CalRobert »

pibaker wrote: post #108
CalRobert wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parallel economy could even kinda sorta work except that we made frontier living largely illegal in many places (though I understand you probably could get some cheap land in e.g. Idaho and try to live off it) and the existence of said parallel society represents a clear challenge to capital owners who say trading your labour for their profit is the most sensible way to live.

There is not enough space for 8 billion humans to do "frontier living."

Sure, but there might not be enough jobs for them to command the economic power that allows something better.

Even so for someone who's been crushed in the gears enough they might give it a try.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#167

Post by kjkjadksj »

TGower wrote: post #106
bluefirebrand wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper prices don't matter at all when no one has any income due to all of the jobs being automated

This is true. It's by no means garunteed that we will get to a point where effectively all the jobs are being automated. If we eventually get there, it seems likely the path will be gradual and prosperous enough that we can handle the transition in a way that provides for everyone. The dangers of the alternative route are real, but hopefully obvious enough that we can collectively avoid them.

You think the leaders of our planet would just wake up one day and walk back all the crap they’ve said for decades about dismantling the welfare state? And for what because we won’t be working? The whitehouse just added work requirements to medicare. That is the opposite of abundance providing for all.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#168

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

poorman wrote: post #110
cglan wrote: post #16

The future (if we keep using money to allocate resources) is something akin to feudalism but worse. If you are born at the bottom you will never rise to the top. It's bleak. Even worse, your labor will not be needed, nor will your intellectual abilities. There will be a few well off people with capital. The data centers will be guarded by automatons and drones. Everyone else will essentially live in a parallel econom…

I am going to say this for all the people thinking like this. This attitude will get you nowhere in life. It historically never has and in the future it never will.

Historical data is never a guarantee of future performance. The downside of your attitude is that you can’t really point at the right thing to do, so then you invest your time and effort on the same things, when it could be the case that the rules of the game have changed.

I don’t see the comment as necessarily defeatist. If anything, it’s an invitation to rethink what might work instead, and whether there are things worth lobbying for/against beyond what can be solved at the individual level.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#170

Post by manofmanysmiles »

pibaker wrote: post #108
CalRobert wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parallel economy could even kinda sorta work except that we made frontier living largely illegal in many places (though I understand you probably could get some cheap land in e.g. Idaho and try to live off it) and the existence of said parallel society represents a clear challenge to capital owners who say trading your labour for their profit is the most sensible way to live.

There is not enough space for 8 billion humans to do "frontier living."

It always intuitively felt to me like there was enough space, but I am now getting the sense that my intuition here has been wrong.

Will you define "frontier living" so I can better see the lack of space ?

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