Wouldnt it make sense to murder most of the economy once you have unlocked electronic narcotics, a panopticon and virtual development to prevent planetary ecological exhaustexhaustion? As in degrowth while having societal stability is the endgoal?
The dead economy theory
931–940 of 1001 posts
Re: The dead economy theory
#932Spot on. Starfleet will be a jobs program.
Re: The dead economy theory
#933Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eventually AI-run banks will refuse credit to non-AI customers, directly or indirectly
It's nice to know they picked up their training data's penchant for racism in loans.
Time to start a business called "white billionaire" or name your kid "Rich White".
Re: The dead economy theory
#934Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If AI suddenly makes it possible for a law firm to be run with a skeleton crew, then what's stopping all those people you fired from starting new law companies, where AI also does most of the work, and competing with you for the same market? Money. They won't have the money to pay for the tokens, or the best models, because they'll be unemployed. They also won't have the connections to get the clients. When you're…
It has become a meme at this point but this sentence still stands: "The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth".
You could also replace AI with (Proper) Education and get the same logical conclusion. The wealthy would be able to access future advanced pedagogical techniques that would equalize the advantages of both talent and hard work in a post-competence future.
But a post-competence future is ultimately a good thing for humanity. There is no inherent reason why somebody who is talented or skilled in the specific abilities that society deeems necessary should be privileged if those needs can now be automated. It just sounds more like an arbitary class deemed the "skilled" complaining about the loss of their elite status against another, more entrenched elite class relying on wealth. But as a commoner, why should I favour the meritocrats who look down on me over the wealthy who might be more magnanimous in understanding their privilege?
Re: The dead economy theory
#935Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry that's no realistic. People start businesses, including law firms, all the time with little to no capital. Assuming token costs will be prohibitive assumes: A) tokens will be really expensive and B) you need to fund tokens before you have revenue. Your asserting AI makes the economy more capital intensive, when I think you'll see in practice it's the opposite.
In the same way that you cannot compete against Ford at making cars without capital because Ford used their capital to automate manual labor at prices and speeds you'll never be able to reach. "Intellectual" jobs, that require thought were yet spared, as the only way to use capital for that was just to pay for more meat: see Accenture, CapGemini, IBM, etc. You could carve yourself a spot for some people because it wa…
Actually there is effectively infinite demand for legal services, in the same way that there is effectively infinite demand for software. In highly regulated industries like healthcare we're constantly backlogged on legal capacity. It's not just "cases" but contract review, sales negotiations, customer documentation, regulatory affairs, civil enforcement activities, etc. Current LLMs are helpful for basic tasks like preliminary legal research and drafting documents but they still make frequent errors and can't carry out complex workflows lasting months that depend on high-context human relationships. Better automation would be a huge unlock to accelerate these business activities.
Re: The dead economy theory
#936Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's definitely going to be cheap or open source models
> There's definitely going to be cheap or open source models What makes you think your "cheap or open source model" running on your piddling desktop cluster will be able to complete against a SOTA one running in a billion-dollar datacenter? It's a cyberpunk fantasy. It won't work out that way.
I think the parent is speculating that there may be an order of magnitude improvement in the cheap / OSS model space such that one running on a piddling desktop cluster could match or exceed the capabilities of the current SOTA on billion-dollar datacenter.
Re: The dead economy theory
#937Earlier quoted context omitted.
The economics of a service economy really just don't make sense. We pay way too much for software (which should trend towards zero-cost to distribute), we pay too much for ads. The value of it is inherently downstream of the real economy, which is about making and distributing goods and stuff people actually need to live. Especially a company like facebook only provides a glorified forum, which should be free or coll…
> The economics of a service economy really just don't make sense. > …real economy, which is about making and distributing goods and stuff people actually need to live I don’t know about you, but I depend on services every day in order to live.
When I refer to services, I refer to paying people and not receiving material benefits. Accountants, microsoft word, google search, chatgpt, doordash
Re: The dead economy theory
#938Not 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…
Currently, 10–15% of GDP per year flows into corporate retained earnings never to leave. Think about the long term ramifications of that for you and your purchasing power.
That part is just an artifact of the tax system. The aim of corporations is to return excess earning to share holders. But because dividends are taxed, corporation essentially return their earnings as high share prices.
If it weren't for this, many more corporations would be hit by corporate raiders eager to unlock those retained earnings.
But overall, yeah, there has a flood of profits that have piled up.
Re: The dead economy theory
#939Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry that's no realistic. People start businesses, including law firms, all the time with little to no capital. Assuming token costs will be prohibitive assumes: A) tokens will be really expensive and B) you need to fund tokens before you have revenue. Your asserting AI makes the economy more capital intensive, when I think you'll see in practice it's the opposite.
People start businesses all the time yes. But like 80% shuts down before reaching 2 years as they run out of money.
If the rate of failure is slightly consistent then more layoffs will lead to more startups, so more will get on top. Many companies business are easier to attack than it looks. Look early 2000, early 2010 have both brought their set of amazing startups. 5 years ago people were most motivated to switch companies for more money.
Re: The dead economy theory
#940Earlier quoted context omitted.
The small town constraint is a bit artificial to this problem isn't it? If you operate a machine shop in a large urban area, have competitors, and access to much improved low cost tooling, would you: a) lay off a bunch of workers, or b) lower your prices and capture more orders? Same thing with accounting firms or marketers or business consultants.
The assumption that (b) happens is known as Say's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say's_law I can say that people are loathe to do it for various reasons.
No the assumption is just lower price increases demand