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The dead economy theory

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Re: The dead economy theory

#841

Post by wallst07 »

Joeri wrote: post #832
rootusrootus wrote: post #226

I know this isn't exactly related, so maybe a low value comment, but it itches in my mind. Years ago I talked with a recruiter at Facebook and they bragged about how many floors of developers they had working on Messenger in just one location (Seattle). What on earth do you do with that many devs on a project like Messenger? I mean, really? I feel like in a way, AI just adds to that weird situation of overcapacity. M…

Before the AI craze, Musk chopped an awful lot of headcount at Twitter, right, and proved it was overkill, has that panned out? Before a covid hiring spree twitter had around 4000 headcount, now they’re around 3000. Basically musk stopped moderating and fired the moderators. What he did demonstrate is that the market didn’t care about moderation, because active user counts increased instead of decreasing.

I think it's more like 7500 to 2800.

Re: The dead economy theory

#842

Post by wallst07 »

staticcaucasian wrote: post #515
llbbdd wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt that they were a bit overstaffed, but it doesn't seem unreasonable when you consider that "Messenger" is an umbrella that includes video calling, payments, games, integrations with business chatbots, Uber/Lyft integrations etc, across web/iOS/Android/Quest, internationally. If you took every feature Messenger has and multiplied it by even ~3 engineers for each one you could fill a few floors pretty quic…

messenger is an absurdly popular app that keeps users in the platform and also increases the intensity of their usage, ultimately leading to more eyeballs, ads and revenue. If you look at it that way, relatively small features, and by association, improvements to the effectiveness of those features by a couple of SWEs each, gets you tons of business impact.

FB finally got me with this. I refused to install any social media apps, but had to get messenger as I was missing important messages. So it's the only one I have.

Re: The dead economy theory

#843

Post by gwerbin »

knivets wrote: post #714

This is not a serious analysis. No mention of open source LLMs and their impact on american AI companies. There’s also no evidence that LLMs can make significant scientific progress on their own.

It's a weird way to arrive at an important idea in economics: simply maximizing productivity is not good for society if the surplus of that productivity is entirely captured by a small group of people.

Re: The dead economy theory

#844

Post by lexicality »

hunterpayne wrote: post #464
mullingitover wrote: post #456

Relatedly: a tip for writers. When an article has an obviously AI-generated slop image followed by a wall of text, I immediately know that the wall of text is also a mechanical product and I stop reading. There's nothing worse you can do to tarnish your personal brand than to open with obvious zero-effort graphics. The text might be insightful, who knows, but the AI slop images are such an immediate red flag that the…

You are probably right but if you think it through, you would probably realize that's no different from using stock photos. Also, this piece you should really read. Its a bit better than the majority of opinions on this topic.

I disagree - finding a relevant stock photo requires you to do some searching and filtering. Using an obviously flawed generated image makes it look like you typed a vague prompt in and picked the first thing that came up without doing any refinement.

Re: The dead economy theory

#845

Post by abalashov »

Just to be clear, the people engaged in this discussion with any degree of seriousness think... LLMs (large language models) are going to get us there?

A bit of touching grass may be warranted.

Re: The dead economy theory

#846

Post by d1l »

There are obvious tells that this was heavily curated by AI, the very thing it criticizes in the opening paras and roasts throughout as a life-destroyer.

I don’t disagree with the premise, and I appreciate the roasts of the SV pseudophilosophers (he left out Ayn Rand tho).

Re: The dead economy theory

#847

Post by jeffhuys »

abalashov wrote: post #845

Just to be clear, the people engaged in this discussion with any degree of seriousness think... LLMs (large language models) are going to get us there? A bit of touching grass may be warranted.

It is generally appreciated you include counter-arguments if you challenge the point.

Re: The dead economy theory

#848

Post by suncemoje »

itake wrote: post #796
My_Name wrote: post #784

Not many people see that the end result is that when ordinary people stop earning money, and stop buying products, all the money will be used purely for B2B transactions. Money will still exist, but people will not see hardly any of it. To break out of being just a person and start a business you will still need money, but be unable to get any. Thus, the endgame is revealed. You don't need to form a dictatorship, you…

> That inequality is not going down, only upwards. This was talked about 15+ years ago when I was a young student. I saw the writing on the wall and made it a priority to live below my means and aggressively invest. Unfortunately, many of my friends think I am crazy for not "enjoying life" more... We shall see what happens I guess.

What do you invest in?

Re: The dead economy theory

#849

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #653

Alternative theory: "AI" is Silicon Valley searching for a new "business model" Because it knows the current business model is not likely going to stand the test of time. Reality has returned. While it was suspended, Silicon Valley went on an incredible run and was able to stockpile absurd amounts of cash As so-called "tech" companies now shrink in face of reality, Silicon Valley wants people to believe this is becau…

Bullshit jobs in so-called "tech" companies are being eliminated because the "business model" is unsustainable

Silicon Valley wants to reframe this as "AI threatens white-collar jobs"

Not quite. No evidence

Re: The dead economy theory

#850

Post by abalashov »

jeffhuys wrote: post #847
abalashov wrote: post #845

Just to be clear, the people engaged in this discussion with any degree of seriousness think... LLMs (large language models) are going to get us there? A bit of touching grass may be warranted.

It is generally appreciated you include counter-arguments if you challenge the point.

I normally would, but in this case, I simply don't know where to start. The counterargument is that LLMs just don't shift the graph on productivity remotely enough to entertain this level of doomerism.

Now, it may be that people are extrapolating comparable, but non-LLM successes in AI based on our current "AI" cultural moment, but if that's the premise, I wish that were made a little clearer.

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