Comment by koe123
16 hours ago
With this stuff I immediately wish I was more economically literate. Bare with me. Let’s say one of these labs can use agents to replicate work otherwise done by humans. This proves that anyone with agents can eventually do this, unfortunately I don’t think its a moat like a platform (like facebook) provides, given that everyone is leapfrogging each-other constantly. Thus, it kind of becomes a commodity / low margin business?
Depending on the type of output, the value immediately (?) goes to the electricity cost of the LLMs and the cost of materials. So: more “efficient”, but without a big margin, right? So its cheaper for the workers that remain working, other workers are displaced, and capital owners now have a super slim margin business which can be instantly replicated at a place where material cost are lower (?).
Thus, it almost seems like “value add” by humans would in this simplified view be vastly diminished, and all that remains is resource wealth. Pop the materials in on one end and let the AI manufacture the product. Great news for the third world assuming the USA doesn't invade them.
Also, whose the consumer? Or are we going back to a strange medieval time where consumers are not of concern?
I don’t know what to think
> all that remains is resource wealth
Final vindication of the Georgists. All value flows back as "rent", which in the 21st century includes IP licensing.
> Great news for the third world
Not sure about this in a world where there isn't demand for human labour. Especially in the post-consumer world. Very difficult future to see. Possible that it will deliver enough capability and expertise to drastically improve things; possible that without skilled human review that fails catastrophically.
I'm reminded of the Houthis asking Claude to build them a missile guidance system. We're going to see the Toyota Hilux + .50 cal "technical" combo get some weird targeting system upgrades.
Georgism is objectively correct, which is why it'll never happen. Every parasite on earth has incentives to destroy any attempt at real taxation of their wealth.
Electricity is important, even more important than AI (despite some rhetoric).
We don’t see electricity companies among the biggest companies in the world, except in China where they are a state owned monopoly… maybe a good analogy after all.
> We don’t see electricity companies among the biggest companies in the world except in China where they are a state owned monopoly… maybe a good analogy after all.
All over the world they're either state owned or very tightly controlled, precisely because they would be among the biggest companies in the world and even worse than that, they would be essential. If Google Search goes down for 2 days, meh, you can handle it. If the national grid goes down for 2 days your aggressive neighboring country can invade.
> Bare with me.
It depends; can you send pics first?
Mercy for us non native speakers i beg