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The dead economy theory

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Re: The dead economy theory

#981

Post by IAmGraydon »

i2km wrote: post #874
IAmGraydon wrote: post #681

I quit Reddit because it became infected with the delusion. Now, it appears, Hacker News has as well, and I think my days here may be numbered as the discourse here is not based on reality. LLMs are largely useless except for writing code and marketing copy, but everyone here seems to be convinced already that they're going to supplant all knowledge workers. Yet, no one can give me a body of examples of any companies…

Of the same mind. It's a mass panic with overtones of covid. The only explanation I can think of is that most of those who are convinced that AI is going to make engineering redundant are those who've never ventured into the deeper engineering water; never experienced large-scale product engineering and support etc (or have forgotten what it's like). If there were real gains to be had, we'd see the biggest adopters p…

Precisely. That’s the elephant in the room and I’ll admit I’m surprised no one seems to want to address it yet. How long can it go on before the fantasy has to collapse back to its ground state?

And yeah - there have been a number of events that have occurred in the last 5-6 years that remind one of this. The Covid conspiracy theories. The mass drone sighting delusions. Things like that. I think it’s all coming from the over-connectedness of social media and mass communication in general. Fantasies are allowed to spread and become “truth” with zero filter or critical thought. Once this on comes back down to earth, who knows what the next thing will be? Like I said before, I think we have our eyes on the wrong danger here. It’s not AI, but it is the propagation of increasingly convincing mass delusions. A society and a country are a collection of people with shared beliefs. So what happens when no one knows what to believe anymore?

Re: The dead economy theory

#982

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…

Was 2

Re: The dead economy theory

#983

Post by kadhirvelm »

5701652400 wrote: post #409
kadhirvelm wrote: post #107

I think we need to look past software and spend more time and energy on the physical world. Let the digital world just be a means to an end, and we spend more time and resources on problems that matter. Reallocate societal attention to the next frontier

would be good if that happened. probably it would not though.

Sad

Re: The dead economy theory

#984

Post by louiskottmann »

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…

History repeats itself : it ends in blood. Always does.

As the concentration of power happens, the people who concentrate it become bigger and bigger targets.

There is no alternative to wealth distribution.

Re: The dead economy theory

#985

Post by einpoklum »

chii wrote: post #801
itake wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Unfortunately, many of my friends think I am crazy for not "enjoying life" more then, in 30-40 yrs time, those same friends all want gov't bailouts for their pensions, and higher taxation of people like yourself, to fund it (because, you know, you're rich enough to be able to spare it of course!).

And rightfully so.

By the way, GP could very well be investing in the AI behemoths, or some other 'friendly' corporations.

Re: The dead economy theory

#986

Post by epsteingpt »

xtn wrote: post #762
epsteingpt wrote: post #740

Not going to be popular, but this article misses the point entirely. The reason we are pursuing AI so quickly is the same reason we (the West, US) pursued the atomic bomb so quickly: not because having it was great (we've only used it twice), but because 'the other guys' having it is worse. As bad as anyone thinks AI is for a free and democratic society with oligarchs, you can be assured that a future in a China or R…

I don't post often, but want to write a bit here to change the world slightly. The outcome depends on how people think and believe. If everyone believe others are evil and will (e.g.) nuke the other country first, then indeed we are fucked. But this does not happen, right? I'm Chinese and lived in Europe for 10 years. I don't feel people are that different. Feel free to visit and talk to people here :)

Thank you. I (and others) do appreciate you commenting. I'm glad you are being part of the change. The attitude is useful and also naive.

Many ideologies are so 'hard won' (the price was so high) that they don't die easily.

You can see this concretely in the Middle East especially. In theory everyone could just start thinking and believing differently and achieve peace. The problem is it often only takes a single person to reopen old wounds.

Chinese and Russian and Americans are all the same - individually people are wonderful and have limited control over our day to day government activities. Have traveled the globe and know this - the individuals you talk to are amazing, even if you disagree.

Conflict can be repaired in the mind of the individual - it is the crowd's spirit that must be changed, and that is much harder.

Re: The dead economy theory

#987

Post by omcgrann »

senordevnyc wrote: post #8

This starts with a claim that last year over half the content on the internet was created by AI, and links to a source. The source makes no such claim, rather, over half of internet traffic is from bots. Even that claim is suspect, but it’s very different from half of the content on the internet coming from AI. I stopped reading at that point.

You're right. I pasted in the wrong link from my research file. That's my bad. The correct link is this: https://graphite.io/five-percent/more-articles-are-now-creat...

I don't think the dead internet theory is something that is particularly novel at this point.

Re: The dead economy theory

#988

Post by i2km »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #981
i2km wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the same mind. It's a mass panic with overtones of covid. The only explanation I can think of is that most of those who are convinced that AI is going to make engineering redundant are those who've never ventured into the deeper engineering water; never experienced large-scale product engineering and support etc (or have forgotten what it's like). If there were real gains to be had, we'd see the biggest adopters p…

Precisely. That’s the elephant in the room and I’ll admit I’m surprised no one seems to want to address it yet. How long can it go on before the fantasy has to collapse back to its ground state? And yeah - there have been a number of events that have occurred in the last 5-6 years that remind one of this. The Covid conspiracy theories. The mass drone sighting delusions. Things like that. I think it’s all coming from…

Much as I dislike some of Peter Thiel's ideas, I fully agree with him that Rene Girard's theory of mimetic desire is at the heart of the explanation. We've always been imitators who need to copy behavior and sentiments, but social media has turbocharged this cycle, allowing mass delusions and panics to be cycled through every few years. The herd always works itself up into a frenzy before collapsing and, a couple of years later, moving on to the next delusion/panic.

And when people are gripped by these crowd-following delusions it definitely leads to the baffling blindness to reality...

Re: The dead economy theory

#989

Post by satvikpendem »

fragmede wrote: post #231
ekidd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is this time different? If it was just programming being automated, then whatever. Lots of professions have been automated and society adapts. The underlying worry here is that current AI provides a partial automation of intelligence. The endgame for the investors and the corporations using AI is complete automation of intelligence (and manual labor, too). They want a $25,000 robot that works around the clock,…

> They want a $25,000 robot that works around the clock Don't you? For the cost of less than a new car, I can have a live-in butler/maid? I'd sell my car and downgrade to afford one at $25k if it actually worked . I can't afford to and don't want to hire a human to live in my house and do all my chores for me, 24/7, plus the overhead and the headache and liability, but a robot for $25k is pretty tempting. Never have…

You should live in Asia, live in maids are quite common there.

Re: The dead economy theory

#990

Post by itake »

Jensson wrote: post #868
patentatt wrote: post #859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all it cost was 15+ years of life?

It doesn't cost life to eat modestly and live smaller than you can afford, you live life while doing this. Many think the best part of their life was when they were young and poor, its not a bad life to have low costs so you can live stress free.

to add, SWE salaries are already significantly higher than everyone else.

I had the typical expense-level of a family of four, but I was living as a single adult.

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