What is all of this for if the result is that human beings are "made irrelevant"? If these LLMs truly become as game changing as so many say they will be, then can we agree that it's time to stop thinking that a person's worth equals their economic output?
I agree with you, the problem currently is that the balance of power has shifted so far in favor of the 0.1%. And those people will not want to give up the power that they already have.
I fear for a future where the technocrats win out and we end up in an "Altered Carbon" scenario. We are on the precipice of AI and robotics equalizing the playing field for everyone, but only if the power is held by the people and not the few at the top with the most resources.
Not sure how to steer the ship in that direction, but I do have a few ideas...
If you make 200k a year, you're not even in the top tax bracket of the US. On 200k alone you can hardly even afford a SFH in SV, NOVA, and NYC.
Meanwhile Elon Musk's net worth can swing 200+ million in a single day. He could buy up an entire neighborhood in those same zip codes you'd hardly be able to break into.
It is definitely past time to start thinking outside of the economy.
Although must we deal in "worth" at all at that point? If two people have conflicting visions, it shouldn't be the one who is "worth" more that gets their way, it should be the one whose vision is most appealing to the rest of us.
No, I disagree, and for everyone who bemoans capitalism or the power of money, its important to understand the foundational arguments from which economics is born.
Wants are infinite, and resources limited. Economics is the objective methods to order a system to achieve subjective ends.
For better or worse, money is a medium of exchange and signal of what people are willing to allocate for their needs. Unless you create economic markets, information markets, and political systems that are built to handle the forces being harnessed by society, you have failure states.
In other words, taxes need to bleed of wealth, to ensure that it cannot create advantage in other fields (media, politics), breaking the even playing field in those other economies.
Free markets are superior to planned economies because they’re able to instantly respond to consumer preferences, resulting in efficient allocation of resources.
On a side note, I’m not sure why HN is often hostile to economic arguments. Economics is a well-established science.
Horses were superior to steam engines for 100 years. It takes time for technology to improve, and money is a technology.
As technologists, we understand the the need for a new major version here and there. A breaking change where the new thing is not compatible with the old. Economics as we know it smells overdue.
The particular bit that doesn't seem to be fitting the bill anymore is "value". Back when more economic activity was undeniably a good thing... Back when the majority of our resources were spent fending off hunger, or exposure to the elements, or illness, we had enough of a common enemy that we could get by with a single untyped primitive notion of value. However much we disagreed, we still agreed enough for that to work.
But now we're able to handle the basics well enough that we spend the majority of our resources fending off each other. A single fungible notion of value feels awkward. When I accept a dollar from somebody I'm not sure whether I've helped or harmed myself by doing so because its just as likely that they made that dollar by degrading the water I drink or some other activity that's worth way more than a dollar for me to prevent. We lack shared values but still share a notion of value, and it's not working out.
So perhaps instead of "thinking outside the economy" I should've said "Update the economy to account for more". Whatever words you prefer for it, drastic change is on our doorstep.
There is not a single fair, well regulated economy in the world. Private interests of those with large amounts of capital skew the markets to their favor.
Who is "we" here? Because the current system is ran by people who have a vested interest in keeping things the same.
Also, I disagree on my comment being a fallacy. I'd almost argue the comment I replied to is a fallacy because it's comparing a theoretical well regulated market to the reality of what we actually have.
It's clear to me that such a thing could never truly work because it would require near omnipotence by whomever the regulating body is in order to prevent actors gaming the market.
