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The dead economy theory

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Re: The dead economy theory

#191

Post by rayiner »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #161
rayiner wrote: post #51

The random aside blaming "Trump and MAGA" is bizarre considering who actually is in the upper echelons of these AI companies. Last I checked, Peter Thiel doesn't run Anthropic. AI isn't being brought to you by rural Iowa or bumfuck Alabama. The people who will be replacing your job with AI are the same people who championed mass immigration and outsourcing industrial production to China. It's neoliberal globalists, w…

I'm pretty sure people like Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg don't really have any ideology beyond "what will make me more money".

It’s telling you left out the people running the biggest AI companies.

Re: The dead economy theory

#192

Post by fragmede »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #175
coffeemug wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future you're describing doesn't seem likely to me because in this event the public will force redistribution through political action.

hasn't happened in the US yet, and probably won't. and they have all of the guns and trucks and toxic masculinity culture that requires survivalism and toughness and defending muh freedom if the yanks won't, why would the public elsewhere?

There are plenty of other countries, with different cultures, and different expectations for how things should work. France for instance, is known for having unions that strike, frequently. Socialism isn't a evil concept in some countries. When America has been co-opted by various factions, why would it be up to the "Yanks" to show the rest of the world the way?

Re: The dead economy theory

#193

Post by asdff »

coffeemug wrote: post #157
ekidd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is this time different? If it was just programming being automated, then whatever. Lots of professions have been automated and society adapts. The underlying worry here is that current AI provides a partial automation of intelligence. The endgame for the investors and the corporations using AI is complete automation of intelligence (and manual labor, too). They want a $25,000 robot that works around the clock,…

The future you're describing doesn't seem likely to me because in this event the public will force redistribution through political action.

How low do we go before that happens? Look at how poor people are in other countries and still aren't threatening their ruling oligarchy at all.

And that is going to happen when all we have are what maybe some AR15s, and they have drones firing precision targeted ordinance at us from 50k feet?

Re: The dead economy theory

#194

Post by erelong »

It's not necessary for them to cut labor to boost profits, but rather just to produce more goods; ideally this could be done with them hiring more people to run machines that produce more goods, so that both workers get paid and the companies can profit

Re: The dead economy theory

#195

Post by daxfohl »

ekidd wrote: post #127
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…

> Why is this time different? If it was just programming being automated, then whatever. Lots of professions have been automated and society adapts. The underlying worry here is that current AI provides a partial automation of intelligence. The endgame for the investors and the corporations using AI is complete automation of intelligence (and manual labor, too). They want a $25,000 robot that works around the clock,…

Reminds me of the old short story "With Folded Hands" from 1947. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands_...

Re: The dead economy theory

#196

Post by scoofy »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #142
ekidd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is this time different? If it was just programming being automated, then whatever. Lots of professions have been automated and society adapts. The underlying worry here is that current AI provides a partial automation of intelligence. The endgame for the investors and the corporations using AI is complete automation of intelligence (and manual labor, too). They want a $25,000 robot that works around the clock,…

> Strictly speaking, they don't even need us as customers. They can just have the robots build them yachts and mansions directly. And act as security guards. That sounds like we'll devolve into wars over resources so houses can build more war-bots and get more resources....

I mean, you are describing the vast majority of history.

Re: The dead economy theory

#197

Post by alex_young »

crabbone wrote: post #178
alex_young wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The small town constraint is a bit artificial to this problem isn't it? If you operate a machine shop in a large urban area, have competitors, and access to much improved low cost tooling, would you: a) lay off a bunch of workers, or b) lower your prices and capture more orders? Same thing with accounting firms or marketers or business consultants.

Well, it's the same problem with all sorts of free-market capitalism and derivatives. They all believe there's infinite "somewhere else" that resources can come from, or the customers, or the funding etc. But reality is very much finite. And so instead of the theoretical equilibrium we get monopolies and collusion to manipulate markets. The article, actually, addresses your claims: > The optimists will tell you this…

I read it, but I don't think it's compelling. "the short run can be a lifetime" is kind of a throw away phrase not backed by evidence.

We've seen rapid growth of knowledge work at the same time as increased productivity, and there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason that greater productivity will reverse this persistent trend.

Re: The dead economy theory

#198

Post by fragmede »

convolvatron wrote: post #167
alex_young wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The small town constraint is a bit artificial to this problem isn't it? If you operate a machine shop in a large urban area, have competitors, and access to much improved low cost tooling, would you: a) lay off a bunch of workers, or b) lower your prices and capture more orders? Same thing with accounting firms or marketers or business consultants.

the number of functioning machine shop in the US in large urban areas has been plummeting for decades. where there were 50 there are now 3. the customers for machine shops are large production facilities with a need for custom parts. they're all gone. now its little bits of rnd work and some custom architectural design kind of stuff. and the margins are punishing. ok, so machine shops aren't really central to the arg…

Kinda. What's the lead time on my high precision metal part that needs to be cut on a 6-axis lathe? Or a metal 3d print? Neither of those machines are cheap, so not only is lead time astronomical, profit on them is also pretty great for the machine shop, which implies there's room for more machine shops. There's a lot of red tape for the orders I see, (CMMI etc) so maybe AI will help machine shops get that and be competitive.

Re: The dead economy theory

#200

Post by ChartMaster22 »

hnthrow0287345 wrote: post #189
Zigurd wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> later this year One can hope that reality intrudes before the bubble gets even more dangerously inflated, but how many years has Tesla had a ridiculous P/E ratio. Even after growth stagnated and market leadership was lost in Asia and Europe. Number still goes up.

If anything though, this shows that at least tech driven hype bubbles can stay around way longer than we think if we are looking at it from a product POV. This just means short sellers might have a hard time sinking a hype-category stock with reasoned research because the irrationality keeps it afloat.

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." - John Maynard Keynes
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