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Another explanation that I find persuasive, put forward by Ezra Klein, is that productivity-sapping uses of technology grew along with the productivity-boosting

Another explanation that I find persuasive, put forward by Ezra Klein, is that productivity-sapping uses of technology grew along with the productivity-boosting ones: social media, for example, is a powerful mechanism for distracting people and destroying their attention spans. If this is a good explanation, it begs the question of what AI might do to destroy productivity as well. If you’re constantly sexting with your AI girlfriend, who just happens to be extraordinary adept at tapping into your sexual proclivities, maybe you won’t get as many support tickets resolved as your boss was hoping. More hypothetically, I would also expect that a world in which people spend a lot of time with screens strapped to their head, consuming an infinite stream of entertainment provided by generative AI, is not going to produce higher GDP.

evrydayhustling 3y ago
> More hypothetically, I would also expect that a world in which people spend a lot of time with screens strapped to their head, consuming an infinite stream of entertainment provided by generative AI, is not going to produce higher GDP. Yeah, I think this dovetails with the idea that IT may be satisfying preference allocations without increasing overall production. Watching 10 movies a month on a streaming service adds much less to the GDP than going to the cinema 10x, but if the selection is better it might satisfy you more. Economists sometimes attempt to measure this with "utility adjustments" which recognize increasing quality in the same goods, but it's very hard for those adjustments to account for the hidden preferences of the consumers as opposed to objective qualities of a good or service. Information goods like social media and streaming, financial services like pay-me-later, and conveniences like next-day delivery are all examples of activities that might suit preferences without showing up in GDP. They also may enable distraction, waste, reclusiveness and impulsiveness in ways we'd like to avoid as a society. At the same time they might also help some people feel more included and less lonely or trapped by circumstance.
adregan 3y ago
> put forward by Ezra Klein The explanation sounds pretty familiar, so I might have already read/heard this from Klein, but would you mind sharing a link?
- adriand 3y ago
  I believe he has mentioned it more than once, but one podcast that includes that discussion IIRC, and many other AI-related topics, is the April 7 episode “Why A.I. Might Not Take Your Job or Supercharge the Economy”. If you’re on iOS: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000607834685 https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id...
wak90 3y ago
[flagged]

evrydayhustling 3y ago

> More hypothetically, I would also expect that a world in which people spend a lot of time with screens strapped to their head, consuming an infinite stream of entertainment provided by generative AI, is not going to produce higher GDP. Yeah, I think this dovetails with the idea that IT may be satisfying preference allocations without increasing overall production. Watching 10 movies a month on a streaming service adds much less to the GDP than going to the cinema 10x, but if the selection is better it might satisfy you more. Economists sometimes attempt to measure this with "utility adjustments" which recognize increasing quality in the same goods, but it's very hard for those adjustments to account for the hidden preferences of the consumers as opposed to objective qualities of a good or service. Information goods like social media and streaming, financial services like pay-me-later, and conveniences like next-day delivery are all examples of activities that might suit preferences without showing up in GDP. They also may enable distraction, waste, reclusiveness and impulsiveness in ways we'd like to avoid as a society. At the same time they might also help some people feel more included and less lonely or trapped by circumstance.

adregan 3y ago

> put forward by Ezra Klein The explanation sounds pretty familiar, so I might have already read/heard this from Klein, but would you mind sharing a link?

adriand 3y ago
I believe he has mentioned it more than once, but one podcast that includes that discussion IIRC, and many other AI-related topics, is the April 7 episode “Why A.I. Might Not Take Your Job or Supercharge the Economy”. If you’re on iOS: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000607834685 https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id...

wak90 3y ago

[flagged]