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The dead economy theory
341–350 of 1001 posts
Re: The dead economy theory
#342This article describes a vicious cycle: Layoff of workers -> Workers stop spending -> businesses suffer This is not a foregone conclusion. Laid off workers could find other jobs, with higher incomes, due to productivity increases from AI. This narrative falls into the trap of zero sum thinking, taken at the limit, you can advocate for jobs programs and helicopter money where people get paid to do nothing to keep the…
> helicopter money where people get paid to do nothing to keep the economy humming
have you heard about government issued bonds? or people working and getting paid from government? or government subsidies? or buy-backs and corporate bailouts?
Re: The dead economy theory
#343I think this is where government steps in for each country, go on the path of exploration that has no profit per se in it like space exploration, human body understanding. I am drawing parallel to 1930s or 40s where great depression was smoothen because America embarked on to take many huge infrastructure projects. Lastly, OpenAI and Anthropic or any other frontier labs needs to be nationalized because they become a…
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Re: The dead economy theory
#344Power and wealth are not always the same. Current AI is helping people gather wealth within the American system. But as we are seeing in Iran, current AI does not provide a decisive edge in hard military power. If that stays true for the long term, then it seems to me there is a good chance the wealth built with AI will transfer to those nations that still have hard military power, who can fight and win wars. For exa…
China will experience the same problems described in the article, even if that war happens and even if they win. They are possibly better equipped to deal with the problems, but I don't think that nicely-asking-companies-to-keep-humans is a viable long term strategy. And given Chinas history, I'm not sure most humans would enjoy a China shaped solution.
Re: The dead economy theory
#345this 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…
You are ignoring the part where human labor is the leverage required for democracy to work.
I don't think it is required, democracies aren't designed that way
not everyone in charge is a cartoon villain
Re: The dead economy theory
#346My wife owns a business in a highly AI-resistant field (occupational therapy) in the most historically price-insensitive market (Silicon Valley). Her CAGR is 88% over the last 8 years. But we were talking about this economy problem today and with the SWE layoffs starting to roll through she said this morning: "It doesn't matter if AI can't replace us if no one can afford the service." That's crazy. Shit has changed. Not getting OT for your autistic kid is like not getting a wheel chair for a bilateral below-the-knee amputee. Whatever it takes.
Re: The dead economy theory
#347India has the problem with farming that the US is starting to have with AI. Farming in India is still far too labor intensive by world standards. 43% of workers still work in agriculture. [1] For the US, that number is under 2%. China is at 22% as of 2023, and dropping steadily. This inefficient agricultural system is not by accident. It is supported by heavy subsidies. Attempts to cut the subsidies resulted in riots…
The industrial revolution was enabled by more efficient agriculture feeing labour to do other work.
>The industrial revolution was enabled by more efficient agriculture feeing labour to do other work
you're not wrong, but that's not exactly what happened. Agriculture itself was mechanized by the industrial revolution, affordable tractors (tillers, farrowers, etc.) and harvesters. mechanized railroads put more perishable agricultural goods "closer" to urban areas, etc.
if you look at the growth industry before that, it was mercantilist overseas trade.
Re: The dead economy theory
#348>article complaining about AI destroying the economy >includes 2 dozen AI generated images in the article
I really don't understand why people feel the need to include this stuff. I am not saying that out of some anti-AI sentiment, i just genuinely don't understand how peoiple have so little taste as to think it adds to their writing.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hbbY!,f_auto,q_auto:...
Like what is this?
Re: The dead economy theory
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's any consolation, this is also a mystery to non developers like me. And developers likewise wonder why a business needs so many managers and what they do all day.
Managers schedule meetings so that developers can’t get anything done. Then they hire more developers, which means even more meetings. Virtuous cycle!
Good managers are like firewalls: they shield from negative outside influences and let good or important information and tasks pass.
That includes representing department in stupid meetings, instead of wasting developers/engineers time.
Re: The dead economy theory
#350India has the problem with farming that the US is starting to have with AI. Farming in India is still far too labor intensive by world standards. 43% of workers still work in agriculture. [1] For the US, that number is under 2%. China is at 22% as of 2023, and dropping steadily. This inefficient agricultural system is not by accident. It is supported by heavy subsidies. Attempts to cut the subsidies resulted in riots…
Large population countries / economies reach point where there are more people than jobs, excess people gets dumped into subsistence farming or other inefficient sunk cost make job programs so angry horde doesn't burn it all down. You can replace 95% of subsistence farmers, i.e. billions of people with machinery. Probably replace 95% of knowledge workers, i.e. 100s of millions in OECD with AI, but maybe it's just better/stabler for political serenity for horde to keep generating useless make work email chains. Smaller pop countries can probably meander through for a while specializing in a few high value sectors, larger countries will have to deal with disproportionate idle hands, but also more are in favorable position to exploit / consolidate industrial / resource advances.. Hopefully end game dwindling demographics supported by fully automated luxury communism within sustainable carrying capacity. But there's a lot of probably violent steps between draw some circles and draw the rest of the owl. Ultimately we're likely entering period of placating surplus people and managing demographic relative automation / ai progress.