Comment by discodonkey
9 hours ago
This article, like Citrini research's scenario before it, misses much of the economics.
AI is unlikely to be as revolutionary as is presumed. It's definitely going to lead to increased productivity, and will probably render some jobs redundant, but it's unlikely to have a significant effect on wages/employment [1], and as of now there isn't one [2]. When it does effect workers (which is still uncommon), AI mostly leads to task reallocation.
Right now, AI's massive valuations seem more like a reflection of the typical speculation that accompanies major technological innovations (thinking IoT, railroads, automobiles) than of its real economic value [3].
The "dead economy" scenario would only be possible in the event of extraordinary, and extraordinarily-unlikely levels of AI-driven unemployment.
[1] https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2024-04/The%20...
[2] https://www.nber.org/papers/w33509
[3] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2003-0...
I think the point is that even if AI returns don't materialise, there is a dangerous implicit political project among AI moguls to get to this state. Even if we get 10% the way there, there could be serious damage done to the system as part of that pursuit: the regulatory capture loop will tighten, inequality will rise [0], capital will be locked up in data centres. The economy is a big path-dependent system. We can hope, if AI is as middling as your sources suggest, that it collapses back to economic equilibrium. But plenty of past societies have had inefficient and politically captured economic systems. Movement towards equilibrium requires liberal institutions, the foundations of which might be under threat.
[0] Really as a continuation of existing trends rather than its own unique thing.
Sorry but AI is already revolutionary.
It is not AGI but current SOTA/Frontier models can do stuff that was never possible before. Even like 2 years ago AI was starting to disrupt whole industries.
I think you might have higher expectations to call something “revolutionary”. But for me revolution is already happening right here right now.
Revolutionary in the Internet sense, not revolutionary in the Skynet sense.
Tell that to copywriters and translators, all those tech workers that were fired in thousands.
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