The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related • Hacker News Board

Re: The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related

#21

Post by IIAOPSW » Mon, Nov 17, 2025, 6:31 PM UTC

parpfish wrote: post #16

that example of the radiologist review cases touches on one worry i have about automation with human-in-the-loop for safety. specifically that a human in the loop wont work as a safeguard unless they are meaningfully engaged beyond being a simple reviewer. how do you sustain attention and thoughtfully review radiological scans when 99% of the time you agree with the automated assessment? i'm pretty sure that no matte…

I have the same question about minor legislative amendments a certain agency keeps requesting in relation to its own statutory instrument. Obviously they are going to be passed without much scrutiny, they all seem small and the agency is pretty trustworthy.

(this is an unsolved problem that exists in many domains from long before AI)

Re: The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related

#22

Post by cwillu » Mon, Nov 17, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

CuriouslyC wrote: post #18

parpfish wrote: post #16

that example of the radiologist review cases touches on one worry i have about automation with human-in-the-loop for safety. specifically that a human in the loop wont work as a safeguard unless they are meaningfully engaged beyond being a simple reviewer. how do you sustain attention and thoughtfully review radiological scans when 99% of the time you agree with the automated assessment? i'm pretty sure that no matte…

The likelihood is that models will "box" questionable stuff for radiologist review, and the boxing threshold will probably be set low enough that radiologists stay sharp (though we probably won't do this at first and skills may atrophy for a bit). This is also a free source training data over time so market incentives are there.

There isn't a human in the loop if the loop determines whether to involve a human.

Re: The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related

#23

Post by nocoiner » Mon, Nov 17, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

RationPhantoms wrote: post #15

nocoiner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commend you for your imagination. Can I ask how you crafted the object to match the dimensions? I’m brand new to 3D printing and currently climbing the learning curve of printing itself but will want to start learning about doing my own modeling soon. The only criticism I’d make is that patching drywall is dead simple and cheap and so your solution seems possibly a bit overengineered (and, while I’m at it, that And…

I've personally used the Lidar sensors on my iPhone with an app like Polycam to some degree of success. I was doing a scan of a massive oak tree in my backyard to plan out the treehouse tab location and associated treehouse for my kids but fell flat after the model was created (Sketchup is truly enshittified). I'd imagine a similar process for creating the "fill" for the void in the wall.

Thanks, appreciate the recommendation! Polycam looks pretty pricy - is the subscription necessary for casual scanning, or does the free version work? I assume I would need at least the basic subscription.

I’m happy to pay for software, but I really don’t care for subscriptions. (Why no, holding back the tide is not going well at all, why do you ask?)

Re: The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related

#24

Post by huevosabio » Mon, Nov 17, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

```

Each of these phenomena have a name: there’s Jevons Paradox, which means, “We’ll spend more on what gets more productive”, and there’s the Baumol Effect, which means, “We’ll spend more on what doesn’t get more productive.”

```

I don't think that's exactly right. Jevons says "we consume more on what gets more productive" and Baumol says "the unit cost increases for that which is less productive".

The typical example for Baumol is the orchestra (or live music) which is today much more expensive than in the 1800s. I don't think we spend more in aggregate than we did in the 1800s!

Edit as I continue reading: ```

Other goods and services, where AI has relatively less impact, will become more expensive - and we’ll consume more of them anyway. ```

This definitely NOT the case. Basically the author is saying we will consume more of everything, which is not true! We famously stopped using horses and all the relevant industries.

The unit cost for horses, however, did increase!

What the author should be stating is that the new production bottlenecks will command a higher price and probably play a bigger role in the economy, but not everything gets to be a new bottleneck.

Re: The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related

#25

Post by gruez » Mon, Nov 17, 2025, 6:34 PM UTC

biophysboy wrote: post #14

>If you live in the United States today, and you accidentally knock a hole in your wall, it’s probably cheaper to buy a flatscreen TV and stick it in front of the hole, compared to hiring a handyman to fix your drywall. Is it cheaper than buying a TV, and then having someone come install it on your wall? More meaningless drivel from Marc Andreesen.

Drilling a few holes to mount a TV is so straightforward that nearly everyone can do it, in contrast to patching drywall, so excluding the cost of hiring a professional for that case is reasonable. Granted, you might be able to learn how to do it with some youtube videos, trips to home depot, and trial/error, but the cost of that will quickly exceed the cost of a handyman if you value your time at all.

Re: The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related

#26

Post by jwahba91 » Mon, Nov 17, 2025, 6:34 PM UTC

parpfish wrote: post #16

that example of the radiologist review cases touches on one worry i have about automation with human-in-the-loop for safety. specifically that a human in the loop wont work as a safeguard unless they are meaningfully engaged beyond being a simple reviewer. how do you sustain attention and thoughtfully review radiological scans when 99% of the time you agree with the automated assessment? i'm pretty sure that no matte…

This is a software problem! You can make the job be more engaging by sneaking in secret lies to see if the human is paying attention.

Re: The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related

#27

Post by techblueberry » Mon, Nov 17, 2025, 6:36 PM UTC

Aren’t real wages on the decline? We can afford to spend $100 on dog walking because $100 isn’t what it used to be.

Re: The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related

#28

Post by gruez » Mon, Nov 17, 2025, 6:36 PM UTC

lkey wrote: post #12

lkey wrote: post #5

I don't think any 'interesting thought' that serves as a conclusion to an article should begin like so: | 'With radiologists, I’m totally speculating and I have no idea what the actual workflow of a radiologist involves...' Speculation from a place of ignorance is suitable for bar-side musings, not an article that wants us to take it seriously.

Also as noted in the prior dupe, the article also misunderstands it's own topic, as explained in ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox ): In economics, the Jevons paradox occurs when technological advancements make a resource more efficient * to use* ; however, as the cost of * using the resource drops* , if demand is highly price elastic [PED] , this results in overall demand [for the resource] increasing.…

>The cost to use tokens is already zero or deeply negative, depending on your accounting

???

Sure, there's zero cost tokens in the form free chatgpt, but negative cost implies that you're getting paid to consume tokens, which I'm not aware of?

Re: The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related

#29

Post by gruez » Mon, Nov 17, 2025, 6:37 PM UTC

techblueberry wrote: post #27

Aren’t real wages on the decline? We can afford to spend $100 on dog walking because $100 isn’t what it used to be.

No, they're not.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

There's a spike and subsequent drop after the pandemic, but that was from service workers being forced out of the labor force by lockdowns. If you exclude that, it follows a steady trend up. And yes, the chart has already been adjusted for inflation.

Re: The Baumol Effect and Jevons paradox are related

#30

Post by RickS » Mon, Nov 17, 2025, 6:37 PM UTC

TekMol wrote: post #4

you accidentally knock a hole in your wall, it’s probably cheaper to buy a flatscreen TV and stick it in front of the hole What I recently did is that I 3D-printed an object with PLA that exactly fit the whole and just glued that in with assembly glue. What does the HN panel say? Is it a solution? Or does it have any downside?

Cosmetically it's probably fine. The downsides all have to do with predictability and the ability to reason about what the wall is made of in the future.

A person who goes to eg hang a picture frame or shelf there will encounter a different material with different load bearing properties than expected. Pushing into the center of that area with EG a drill bit will not have the same physical response or give, and depending on how it was braced/integrated with the surrounding wall, the patch itself may be pushed or pulled out of place. Similar for anyone that leans on that area if it's at such a height.