For the rest of my life, AI will be coming for my job and full-self-driving cars will be just around the corner.
Ozarkian · 34m ago
Don't forget about nuclear fusion! It's the future!
vouaobrasil · 4h ago
The entire point of AI is not to make people more productive, but to trade productivity in the short-term for even more automation that goes beyond the point of diminishing returns so that those at the top can accumulate even more wealth. Big-tech corporations act as attractants for those who love power and money above any other concern and they certainly are not creating any tools to help anyone.
When a small company makes a product, they are happy to make something useful in exchange for a living. When big tech makes something, you are the product and they just want to use their economies of scale to squeeze you dry, making you think they have something useful.
People talk about AI now as if it is a great tool for them. Maybe it is, but in some years it won't really be a great tool at all except at keeping power in the hands of the most wealthy.
anovikov · 4h ago
Isn't this the case with any invention that greatly improves productivity? Ask early 1800s English textile workers. Their wages did not return back to late 1700s peak, inflation adjusted, till WWI. Does that mean that mechanisation of textile industry was a bad thing? It meant people no longer had to wear $5000 T-shirts (https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-... - I inflation-adjusted $3500 from 2013 to today).
lm28469 · 2h ago
If it was made in the US with a $7.25/hour wage sure, now do it in cambodia for $200 a month, at 48 hours a week that's barely a dollar an hour, all of a sudden it's a $500 shirt already.
Anyways I don't think you can use inflation over 700 years to come up with a tshirt price based on modern min wages, even peasants had clothes and they sure did not spend 6 months of labor to get a single item of clothing
After spending some times looking about more info on this topic you very quickly find people who debunk the original claim, and the inflation adjusted price the list is about I came up on my side using cambodia: https://www.bookandsword.com/2017/12/09/how-much-did-a-shirt...
tuatoru · 4h ago
The people alive in 2225 will be happy with what happened, and suitably grateful I am sure.
camillomiller · 3h ago
If this is true, can someone even remotely explain why boards and companies don’t see the existential risk this would pose to the economy? When the people that buy things and other companies that buy things can’t buy anymore, who gains from it?
lm28469 · 2h ago
Same reason a lot of governments seem to do completely counter productive things: short term personal gains, by the time the consequences are visible they're already retired with a fat stack of cash in the bank
PieTime · 2h ago
The richest already have nearly 50% of buying power. Elon Musk can make cities building rockets the size of skyscrapers. You don’t have to look forward, you can look at the past robber barons for examples. Yes it’s bad for the economy but it’s great for a few people who acquire wealth.
When a small company makes a product, they are happy to make something useful in exchange for a living. When big tech makes something, you are the product and they just want to use their economies of scale to squeeze you dry, making you think they have something useful.
People talk about AI now as if it is a great tool for them. Maybe it is, but in some years it won't really be a great tool at all except at keeping power in the hands of the most wealthy.
Anyways I don't think you can use inflation over 700 years to come up with a tshirt price based on modern min wages, even peasants had clothes and they sure did not spend 6 months of labor to get a single item of clothing
After spending some times looking about more info on this topic you very quickly find people who debunk the original claim, and the inflation adjusted price the list is about I came up on my side using cambodia: https://www.bookandsword.com/2017/12/09/how-much-did-a-shirt...