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Not all businesses can scale their revenue, but the businesses that can eat the ones that can't.

Retric 2y ago
Which then kills off even more high paying jobs. Machines shifted things away from manual labor, but AI sifts it from intellectual labor.
- emseetech 2y ago
  I don't follow. If AI can make high paying workers more efficient, then the companies that leverage that efficiency to grow will outpace the companies that can't. There's no net loss of high paying workers.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    I think there are greatly diminishing returns. 10x of me would probably not give even 2x the output. So instead it might make sense to employ 0.2x of me to get 2x the output.
  - Retric 2y ago
    If tractors can make farm labor more efficient why would that reduce the number of farmers? The argument boils down to diminishing returns. Honda can’t scale to producing 10,000x as many cars. What they can do is sell the cars they are already producing for less, so if some aspect of their business becomes more efficient they don’t just do more of it endlessly, they quickly cross a threshold and then spend less on it.
    - emseetech 2y ago
      No they don't do more of one thing endlessly, they expand into more products and markets. If you accept that AI as we know it is a tool (and not a wholesale replacement for human beings) then it will follow the same trend of any other productivity tool of expanding markets and increasing demands for labor.
      - Retric 2y ago
        > they expand into more products and markets. That changes nothing about diminishing returns here. Expanding into a market doesn’t dramatically increase the demand for products in that market. If Tesla started to make Hybrids they could sell more cars and employ more people, but other companies would experience fewer sales and thus cut back on staff. Competition is great for overall productivity, but the gains aren’t magically spread evenly across the economy. > expanding markets and increasing demands for labor. Many industries like banking, mining, and farming have drastically cut back on labor. When the majority of those lost jobs were low skilled the productivity benefits allowed more high skilled labor to be employed. But specifically cut high skill labor and new jobs are less likely to also be high skill.

Which then kills off even more high paying jobs. Machines shifted things away from manual labor, but AI sifts it from intellectual labor.

emseetech 2y ago
I don't follow. If AI can make high paying workers more efficient, then the companies that leverage that efficiency to grow will outpace the companies that can't. There's no net loss of high paying workers.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  I think there are greatly diminishing returns. 10x of me would probably not give even 2x the output. So instead it might make sense to employ 0.2x of me to get 2x the output.
- Retric 2y ago
  If tractors can make farm labor more efficient why would that reduce the number of farmers? The argument boils down to diminishing returns. Honda can’t scale to producing 10,000x as many cars. What they can do is sell the cars they are already producing for less, so if some aspect of their business becomes more efficient they don’t just do more of it endlessly, they quickly cross a threshold and then spend less on it.
  - emseetech 2y ago
    No they don't do more of one thing endlessly, they expand into more products and markets. If you accept that AI as we know it is a tool (and not a wholesale replacement for human beings) then it will follow the same trend of any other productivity tool of expanding markets and increasing demands for labor.
    - Retric 2y ago
      > they expand into more products and markets. That changes nothing about diminishing returns here. Expanding into a market doesn’t dramatically increase the demand for products in that market. If Tesla started to make Hybrids they could sell more cars and employ more people, but other companies would experience fewer sales and thus cut back on staff. Competition is great for overall productivity, but the gains aren’t magically spread evenly across the economy. > expanding markets and increasing demands for labor. Many industries like banking, mining, and farming have drastically cut back on labor. When the majority of those lost jobs were low skilled the productivity benefits allowed more high skilled labor to be employed. But specifically cut high skill labor and new jobs are less likely to also be high skill.