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The title is slightly misleading. What the article is really about is the idea that all of the money that is now paid in wages will somehow be paid to AI compa

The title is slightly misleading. What the article is really about is the idea that all of the money that is now paid in wages will somehow be paid to AI companies as AI replaces humans. That idea being muddle-headed. It points out that businesses think of AI as software, and will pay software-level money for AI, not wage-level money. It finishes with the rhetorical question, are you paying $100k/year to an AI company for each coder you no longer need?

tines 1y ago
Not sure I quite get the point of the article. Sure, you won't capture $100k/year/dev. But if you capture $2k/year/dev, and you replace every dev in the world... that's the goal right?
- gh0stcat 1y ago
  I don't think the value stacks like that. Hiring 10 low level workers that you can pay 1/10th the salary to replace one higher level worker doesn't work.
  - RedOrZed 1y ago
    Sure it does! Let me just hire 9 women for 1 month...
- aerostable_slug 1y ago
  They're saying expectations that AI revenues will equal HR expenditures, like you can take the funds from one column to the other, are wrong-headed. That makes sense to me.
  - tines 1y ago
    I agree, but that doesn't have to be true for investors to be salivating, is my point.
- blibble 1y ago
  that $2k won't last long as you will never maintain a margin on a service like that employee salaries are high because your competitors can't spawn 50000 into existence by pushing a button competition in the industry will destroy its own margins, and then its own customer base very quickly soon after followed by the economies of the countries they're present in the whole thing is a capitalism self destruct button, for entire economies
Revisional_Sin 1y ago
> What the article is really about is the idea that all of the money that is now paid in wages will somehow be paid to AI companies as AI replaces humans. Is anyone actually claiming this?
- lelandbatey 1y ago
  Not directly, but indirectly. It's what's leading to the FOMO w.r.t. investors. See the image in the parent blog post, where VCs are directly comparing the amount of money spent on AI at the moment (tiny) against the amount of money spent on headcount in various industries, with the implication being that "AI could be making all the money that was being spent on headcount, what an opportunity!"
- mathw 1y ago
  The author claims so, but there don't seem to be any sources. Given how the AI hype has been going though I wouldn't be at all surprised. And the article's following conclusions are also unsurprising (other than the bit where it claims AI can actually replace your software engineers)
satyrnein 1y ago
It's almost more of a warning to founders and VCs, that an AI developer that replaces a $100k/year developer might only get them $10k/year in revenue. But that means that AI just generated a $90k consumer surplus, which on a societal level, is huge!

tines 1y ago

Not sure I quite get the point of the article. Sure, you won't capture $100k/year/dev. But if you capture $2k/year/dev, and you replace every dev in the world... that's the goal right?

gh0stcat 1y ago
I don't think the value stacks like that. Hiring 10 low level workers that you can pay 1/10th the salary to replace one higher level worker doesn't work.
- RedOrZed 1y ago
  Sure it does! Let me just hire 9 women for 1 month...
aerostable_slug 1y ago
They're saying expectations that AI revenues will equal HR expenditures, like you can take the funds from one column to the other, are wrong-headed. That makes sense to me.
- tines 1y ago
  I agree, but that doesn't have to be true for investors to be salivating, is my point.
blibble 1y ago
that $2k won't last long as you will never maintain a margin on a service like that employee salaries are high because your competitors can't spawn 50000 into existence by pushing a button competition in the industry will destroy its own margins, and then its own customer base very quickly soon after followed by the economies of the countries they're present in the whole thing is a capitalism self destruct button, for entire economies

Revisional_Sin 1y ago

> What the article is really about is the idea that all of the money that is now paid in wages will somehow be paid to AI companies as AI replaces humans. Is anyone actually claiming this?

lelandbatey 1y ago
Not directly, but indirectly. It's what's leading to the FOMO w.r.t. investors. See the image in the parent blog post, where VCs are directly comparing the amount of money spent on AI at the moment (tiny) against the amount of money spent on headcount in various industries, with the implication being that "AI could be making all the money that was being spent on headcount, what an opportunity!"
mathw 1y ago
The author claims so, but there don't seem to be any sources. Given how the AI hype has been going though I wouldn't be at all surprised. And the article's following conclusions are also unsurprising (other than the bit where it claims AI can actually replace your software engineers)

satyrnein 1y ago

It's almost more of a warning to founders and VCs, that an AI developer that replaces a $100k/year developer might only get them $10k/year in revenue. But that means that AI just generated a $90k consumer surplus, which on a societal level, is huge!