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The dead economy theory

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Re: The dead economy theory

#61

Post by xiaoyu2006 »

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…

It's not about "this time's different" but rather "the recovery will take too long to an individual" if AI is indeed replacing humans as currently hyped by the model companies.

Re: The dead economy theory

#62

Post by worldsayshi »

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…

I guess it becomes different if instead of hiring more people to do more - all investment goes into more AI credits.

Then again, as long as there is more demand and there's a limited supply of compute you can still continue to hire people as well. If we assume that the market has infinite demand for whatever AI + humans can produce together both will have jobs.

If demand is limited and compute is plentiful it should make sense for a company to try to have AI do as much of the work as possible.

Re: The dead economy theory

#63

Post by yyyk »

3fff wrote: post #50
yyyk wrote: post #33

There are several good points there, but there are also several points where I must disagree. First, Acemoglu may have a Noble Prize (occasionally dubious data selection aside[0]), but even he does not pretend to have the information of a central planner nor does he think that central planning is good idea. If actual businesses, which have local information, believe AI helps them, I'll bet the actual businesses are m…

"Ultimately, we'll reach an economy which objectively does not need humans and everyone will know it. He needs to face that reality and overcome it, and not hide behind temporary and dubious estimates." Who are you projecting your views with such force on others? What have you achieved? I bet you are nobody of substance.

We can all read the news and see AI constantly improving at a very quick pace. What's the barrier AI can't improve beyond? One that would last a lifetime? By all means (since you're such an accomplished person), explain yourself.

Re: The dead economy theory

#64

Post by mrguyorama »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #7
treis wrote: post #4

This isn't how the economy works at all. We're not all unemployed because farms mechanized. We're not all unemployed because factories automated. We won't all be unemployed if AI takes over white collar work.

The article explicitly addresses this. Crushing inequality was often a side-effect of industrial advancement, and while it always went away in the past it took a lifetime to do so.

>Crushing inequality was often a side-effect of industrial advancement, and while it always went away in the past

Historically, inequality is only significantly reduced through events of extreme destruction, like the Black Plague and the world wars.

In other words, a society that ever lets massive inequality happen is just doomed. High inequality reliably stays that way until insane global black swans mildly correct it.

Re: The dead economy theory

#65

Post by some_random »

spongebobstoes wrote: post #15

this 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…

Star Trek isn't real life, when human labor stops being valuable the humans who's labor was previously vital will be at best left to rot in squalor.

Re: The dead economy theory

#66

Post by [deleted] »

spongebobstoes wrote: post #15

this 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…

[deleted]

Re: The dead economy theory

#67

Post by jdross »

The whole post is premised on a fixed pie economy.

"The financial model underneath requires the elimination of human cost centers at civilizational scale."

No, it is not. It requires humans to collectively want more things if they are offered and available at a lower cost. Which then requires more humans to fill in the blanks to provide those things. We've been doing this since the industrial revolution.

Re: The dead economy theory

#68

Post by 0xy »

foltik wrote: post #35
hexator wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not only is the premise wrong The blog post offers several studies as evidence, where's yours?

A study obviously can’t prove that people need jobs to be happy. If you can so much as imagine a society organized around some other source of happiness, there’s your evidence by counterexample.

There's a massive spike in mortality for those who retire from work versus those who keep working. In fact, working just a single year after you're 65 is associated with 11% lower risk of death for healthy people and 9% for unhealthy.

Working is objectively good for your health. Stopping work is associated with an extremely large increase in mortality risk, for both healthy and unhealthy people.

Any alternatives must weigh the resulting death it will cause.

Re: The dead economy theory

#70

Post by bigbadfeline »

bwanab wrote: post #21
kjkjadksj wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farms mechanized but we luckily had other jobs on hand to sponge that up. What used to be a farmhand is now a gas station worker selling zyn to a wallmart worker who sells food to the gas station worker. However, AI is coming for them too. This time it really is different. The whole business pitch is the elimination of any safe harbor. All human labor to be automated. Why have 8 billion humans in that environment? Sc…

In my now long lifetime, I can't tell you how many times I've heard the phrase "This time it really is different" for it to turn out that it really wasn't all that different. Maybe this time it is, but I'd put my bet on isn't.

> In my now long lifetime, I can't tell you how many times I've heard the phrase "This time it really is different"

This isn't an argument and it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of risk and game theory.

Besides, it's always been different, in the sense of boiling frog temperature going up. The present case is more different because this time, the rate of rising is high enough to make the frogs uncomfortable... and you're trying to calm them down and keep them in the water:

> Look frogs, the temps've always been rising, "many times I've heard the phrase "This time it really is different" for it to turn out that it really wasn't all that different."

> Maybe this time it is, but I'd put my bet on isn't.

Bro, it's not about betting... you have to try hard to learn something about risk.

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