To borrow some words of David Graeber, the author might be looking for productivity gains while the real world is mostly busy frying fish (a reference to self-r

To borrow some words of David Graeber, the author might be looking for productivity gains while the real world is mostly busy frying fish (a reference to self-referential and mutual-imposed busy work). Any efficiency gains in those areas would result in nil or even negative real productivity gains. Then there is the whole 'attention economy' we have shifted the majority of our economic endeavors to. Just like some examples in the article, 'efficiency gains' in that space are just a red-queen race in a zero-sum game. This is not to say AI will not have major impacts on those whose livelihoods are swept up in its evolutionary or revolutionary (isn't that mostly just a difference in timescale) jaws. And even AI might open up new pathways of improvement and genuine innovations for mankind, and at the very least it is exiting and intellectually stimulation to advance. But to look at 'economic gains' might not be the right paradigm. That might just be like trying to improve the health of a morbidly obese cat by feeding it more.