41–50 of 356 posts
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Because you'll be shot, probably by a robot.
That works OK as a deterrent against (some) individuals, but there are numerous historical examples of its failure to scale.
I just don't buy it. I understand I'm in a minority, so let me indulge myself and explain, for a moment, why I think AI / Robots are nothing to worry about. My claim is: Robots will not replace humans in all jobs. Further, it's more than because of Human preference, I think that Robots will lack cognitive abilities that we have. My expectation is that in each area where they are deficient then they may well become a…
Now remember truck drivers are the most populous single occupation in the US, and commercial trucking is expected to be largely automated within 20-30 years by most major shipping companies.
We don't need an science fiction style singularity to destroy our world, just a couple of small changes in the fringes will be enough.
"Player Piano" should be required reading for all. It doesn't have to be the future, but it's a future worth examining.
I just don't buy it. I understand I'm in a minority, so let me indulge myself and explain, for a moment, why I think AI / Robots are nothing to worry about. My claim is: Robots will not replace humans in all jobs. Further, it's more than because of Human preference, I think that Robots will lack cognitive abilities that we have. My expectation is that in each area where they are deficient then they may well become a…
Trouble is, there's a bunch of people out there who have no aptitude for those things, and have neither the desire nor the means to acquire that aptitude, and/or don't have the means to sell this aptitude for enough money for bare necessities. What do they do? This isn't a rhetorical question, I don't know the answer, and I'm kept up at night for the coming storm.
Interesting investment thesis, but isn't there a better way to hedge yourself than buying tech stocks? That's just a huge bet on a tiny number of cyclical revenue sources: online shopping, online advertising, cloud services, iPhones, Microsoft Office, and Windows.
What will that tech need to survive? Lithium, for batteries. Heavy metals, for processing. Energy, most of all. I wonder how long it'll be until we replace fiat currencies with a balance of kilowatt-hours.
It won't be any time soon. A kWh of potential energy is actually pretty bulky/heavy if it's stored as anything but nuclear fuel. Different forms of energy are not fungible. You'd either be bartering a large number of actual energy sources, or you'd be exchanging "normalized" energy-currency units whose normalization WRT different forms of energy is set by fiat.
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Investors are willing to accept much lower long-term returns for safe haven assets. If you're going to "just own the damn robots" at any price, you're essentially paying for this sort of insurance.
but Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are software, not hardware, so you're not owning the robots.
That said, Amazon and google are in the robot hardware business literally, too.
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Investors are willing to accept much lower long-term returns for safe haven assets. If you're going to "just own the damn robots" at any price, you're essentially paying for this sort of insurance.
but Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are software, not hardware, so you're not owning the robots.
Consider robo-advisors [0], automated financial advisors written in software.
Interesting investment thesis, but isn't there a better way to hedge yourself than buying tech stocks? That's just a huge bet on a tiny number of cyclical revenue sources: online shopping, online advertising, cloud services, iPhones, Microsoft Office, and Windows.
What will that tech need to survive? Lithium, for batteries. Heavy metals, for processing. Energy, most of all. I wonder how long it'll be until we replace fiat currencies with a balance of kilowatt-hours.
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Pretty sure the proposed solution is to buy stocks of the U.S. technology giants: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google.
The largest market cap companies in a given decade, overwhelmingly tend to be under-performers in the following decade. It's a trend that has repeated decade after decade. Many of these types of companies - AMZN, NFLX, GOOGL, FB - have pulled a massive share of their future returns forward (which is what happened to Microsoft, stagnating its stock for ~15 years). In 2007 the largest companies were: Exxon, GE, Microso…
Facebook and Google will stagnate and grow into their valuations. Google particularly is trading far beyond where it should versus its now modest growth rate. ~37 times earnings, $700 billion market cap, for 10%-15% annual growth over the next five years? No thanks. In the not very distant future, Google will pull a Microsoft and begin paying out a dividend, after this latest stock market bubble ends and their stock returns drift to mediocrity.
People said that three, five, ten years ago. What is happening is that the market for mobile and desktop ads and e-commerce is growing, combined with increased market share for these three companies, creating a double tailwind. I'm certain Google, Amazon and Facebook will not suffer the fates of Exxon, GE, PetroChina, Royal Dutch Shell, Citigroup, AT&T, Gazprom, BP, Toyota, Bank of America, China Mobile, HSBC, ICBC, and Walmart. Part of the reason Amazon, Google, and Facebook will be permanently successful and are so resilient is because they have market dominance, impassable moats, ubiquity, and are mostly immune to global macro conditions, whereas commodity and banking companies are much more vulnerable to macro conditions. It's much easier to create a steel, drilling, or mining company (look at all the overnight fracking companies that went bust in 2015-2016) than it is to, say, get 1/6 of the world population on your social network (Facebook), every website and phone displaying your ads (Google), or every consumer buying from your store (Amazon) (and also the cloud hosting services). http://greyenlightenment.com/will-the-silicon-valley-tech-fo...
But also, some of those companies you listed pay huge dividends, so when you factor those into the returns, it's not stagnant.
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Trouble is, there's a bunch of people out there who have no aptitude for those things, and have neither the desire nor the means to acquire that aptitude, and/or don't have the means to sell this aptitude for enough money for bare necessities. What do they do? This isn't a rhetorical question, I don't know the answer, and I'm kept up at night for the coming storm.
Invest in education rather than robots ;)