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It seems to me all the money is just getting more and more concentrated. If Amazon succeeds in completely automating it's warehouses, who will see the bulk of t

It seems to me all the money is just getting more and more concentrated. If Amazon succeeds in completely automating it's warehouses, who will see the bulk of that saved money, the customers or bezos?

ChatGTP 4y ago
Well the more you automate everything, the less consumers you're going to have so it does create a bit of a conundrum no ? Probably what's going to happen is everyone will get more productive as open source AI models become more accessible and cheaper to run yourself, tooling, robots etc, then it will kind of end up leveling off again. Amazon will become less relevant because many other companies will have factories that are automated too. It would be nice if we end up in a society where it's so cheap to produce everything that we're all wealthy. I actually think there are so so so many variables at place that no one can predict where this is going... I get a feeling it's going to be a surprise.
AnthonyMouse 4y ago
> If Amazon succeeds in completely automating it's warehouses, who will see the bulk of that saved money, the customers or bezos? The answer depends on whether Amazon is a monopoly. If everybody else who sells goods on the internet also automates their warehouses and customers choose the retailer with the lowest prices, they have to pass the savings on to the customer or the customer will buy from Walmart or some other competitor. But "monopolies raise the cost of living" is a separate problem the solution to which is to get rid of monopolies, not to get rid of automation.
- dogcomplex 4y ago
  Wholeheartedly agreed there. If (still an if) the automation tools are widespread (preferably open source), the vector of possible businesses that could compete in those areas also greatly increases. What once took a firm of thousands of people might be doable by a few nerds with some AI tools they copied from the internet. Yes, that means a lot of jobs lost at those firms, but it also means massive competition to drive prices down to their minimums - which benefits the consumer and enables entirely new second-order effects. Regardless of how this all plays out... there's gonna a whole lot of Abundance of Things, and Services. As producers/workers - it's gonna be an awkward time. As Consumers? Ho boy baby - shit's gonna get crazy cheap
TimPC 4y ago
Without a doubt the customers will see the bulk of the saved money. But Bezos capturing 5% of it will lead to an even more massive fortune. The minute any sizeable competitor follows suit it’s likely to be back to the typical roughly 2% retail margin with 98% of the savings going to customers.

ChatGTP 4y ago

Well the more you automate everything, the less consumers you're going to have so it does create a bit of a conundrum no ? Probably what's going to happen is everyone will get more productive as open source AI models become more accessible and cheaper to run yourself, tooling, robots etc, then it will kind of end up leveling off again. Amazon will become less relevant because many other companies will have factories that are automated too. It would be nice if we end up in a society where it's so cheap to produce everything that we're all wealthy. I actually think there are so so so many variables at place that no one can predict where this is going... I get a feeling it's going to be a surprise.

AnthonyMouse 4y ago

> If Amazon succeeds in completely automating it's warehouses, who will see the bulk of that saved money, the customers or bezos? The answer depends on whether Amazon is a monopoly. If everybody else who sells goods on the internet also automates their warehouses and customers choose the retailer with the lowest prices, they have to pass the savings on to the customer or the customer will buy from Walmart or some other competitor. But "monopolies raise the cost of living" is a separate problem the solution to which is to get rid of monopolies, not to get rid of automation.

dogcomplex 4y ago
Wholeheartedly agreed there. If (still an if) the automation tools are widespread (preferably open source), the vector of possible businesses that could compete in those areas also greatly increases. What once took a firm of thousands of people might be doable by a few nerds with some AI tools they copied from the internet. Yes, that means a lot of jobs lost at those firms, but it also means massive competition to drive prices down to their minimums - which benefits the consumer and enables entirely new second-order effects. Regardless of how this all plays out... there's gonna a whole lot of Abundance of Things, and Services. As producers/workers - it's gonna be an awkward time. As Consumers? Ho boy baby - shit's gonna get crazy cheap

TimPC 4y ago

Without a doubt the customers will see the bulk of the saved money. But Bezos capturing 5% of it will lead to an even more massive fortune. The minute any sizeable competitor follows suit it’s likely to be back to the typical roughly 2% retail margin with 98% of the savings going to customers.