3 ms·

Well, you are assuming there is a central benevolent dictator who can compute "Value" more accurately than millions of people collectively voting with their wal

Well, you are assuming there is a central benevolent dictator who can compute "Value" more accurately than millions of people collectively voting with their wallets.

lenerdenator 10mo ago
Not to speak for the other poster but I didn't see any implication of a central benevolent dictator in their comment.
- overrun11 10mo ago
  It's implicit. Amazon has billions of dollars because customers freely handed over the money. We know they found the service valuable because they wouldn't have done so otherwise. The poster is suggesting there is some _true_ value separate from what these customers who know their own situations best think. That they are secretly being fleeced and a central planner will somehow better allocate the resources.
  - lenerdenator 10mo ago
    >It's implicit Not at all. What if it were an employee co-op? "The ultra-wealthy should have less power" != "We should implement a five-year plan for our command economy as thought up by glorious and correct Party."
Zigurd 10mo ago
If AGI is actually attainable, then, sure, planned economies will be more performant than market economies, especially for high value industrial captal equipment. No need for Gosplan to decide on your candy bars and craft breweries.
- andsoitis 10mo ago
  > If AGI is actually attainable, then, sure, planned economies will be more performant than market economies What is the logic?
  - Zigurd 10mo ago
    Most of the definitions I've heard of AGI are that it outperforms humans at complex professional tasks. That would include capital allocation.
    - machomaster 10mo ago
      Capital allocation is not an IQ problem with only one correct solution that can be made only with hard data.
      - Zigurd 10mo ago
        That sounds like the finance bro version of mystical woo. There's nothing special about it. There must be doctors who say diagnosis is an art form. But AI will still out perform the diagnosis.
        machomaster 10mo ago
        You misunderstood. AI can calculate stuff that can be measured and calculated. But investing (in stocks or otherwise) is not that. Investing is about the phychology of the people (all other investors). If investors as a whole make stupid decisions, the market movements make their decisions correct (like the incredibly stupid drop in Nvidia's stock due to release of Deepseek). AI can be more objective and better at calculating facts, but it doesn't matter if the market is driven by emotions and people.
  - int_19h 10mo ago
    A market economy is a distributed compute engine. The main reason why planned economies do worse historically is because the amount of compute needed to actually account for everything centrally is so immense (and thus costly), the implementers necessarily have to adopt some kind of simplified model, and then you get divergence between what the plan says and what's actually happening. It's not a given that this will remain true forever, although I don't think it's tied to AGI. One could argue that AGI push is the trigger for a massive increase in compute capacity and corresponding decrease in price that might make this kind of thing viable, but that's just wishful thinking, not a fact.
wizzwizz4 10mo ago
If I run around town smashing windows with a rock, GDP goes up. Computing value more accurately than financial markets is not difficult: the bar is on the floor.
- orangecat 10mo ago
  If I run around town smashing windows with a rock, GDP goes up. Not generally. Window repairmen get higher incomes, but the rest of the economy has less consumption and investment.
- erin_lave 10mo ago
  > If I run around town smashing windows with a rock, GDP goes up. I don't believe that's true. I believe that's called the "Broken Window Fallacy" in Economics.
  - machomaster 10mo ago
    Breaking windows DOES increase GDP, just like the parent said. The argument ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window ) only argues that not all GDP increase is good, because of waste of resources, because of the opportunity cost. That's why measuring success only by GDP is a bad idea.

Well, you are assuming there is a central benevolent dictator who can compute "Value" more accurately than millions of people collectively voting with their wallets.

lenerdenator 10mo ago

Not to speak for the other poster but I didn't see any implication of a central benevolent dictator in their comment.

overrun11 10mo ago
It's implicit. Amazon has billions of dollars because customers freely handed over the money. We know they found the service valuable because they wouldn't have done so otherwise. The poster is suggesting there is some _true_ value separate from what these customers who know their own situations best think. That they are secretly being fleeced and a central planner will somehow better allocate the resources.
- lenerdenator 10mo ago
  >It's implicit Not at all. What if it were an employee co-op? "The ultra-wealthy should have less power" != "We should implement a five-year plan for our command economy as thought up by glorious and correct Party."

Zigurd 10mo ago

If AGI is actually attainable, then, sure, planned economies will be more performant than market economies, especially for high value industrial captal equipment. No need for Gosplan to decide on your candy bars and craft breweries.

andsoitis 10mo ago
> If AGI is actually attainable, then, sure, planned economies will be more performant than market economies What is the logic?
- Zigurd 10mo ago
  Most of the definitions I've heard of AGI are that it outperforms humans at complex professional tasks. That would include capital allocation.
  - machomaster 10mo ago
    Capital allocation is not an IQ problem with only one correct solution that can be made only with hard data.
    - Zigurd 10mo ago
      That sounds like the finance bro version of mystical woo. There's nothing special about it. There must be doctors who say diagnosis is an art form. But AI will still out perform the diagnosis.
      - machomaster 10mo ago
        You misunderstood. AI can calculate stuff that can be measured and calculated. But investing (in stocks or otherwise) is not that. Investing is about the phychology of the people (all other investors). If investors as a whole make stupid decisions, the market movements make their decisions correct (like the incredibly stupid drop in Nvidia's stock due to release of Deepseek). AI can be more objective and better at calculating facts, but it doesn't matter if the market is driven by emotions and people.
- int_19h 10mo ago
  A market economy is a distributed compute engine. The main reason why planned economies do worse historically is because the amount of compute needed to actually account for everything centrally is so immense (and thus costly), the implementers necessarily have to adopt some kind of simplified model, and then you get divergence between what the plan says and what's actually happening. It's not a given that this will remain true forever, although I don't think it's tied to AGI. One could argue that AGI push is the trigger for a massive increase in compute capacity and corresponding decrease in price that might make this kind of thing viable, but that's just wishful thinking, not a fact.

wizzwizz4 10mo ago

If I run around town smashing windows with a rock, GDP goes up. Computing value more accurately than financial markets is not difficult: the bar is on the floor.

orangecat 10mo ago
If I run around town smashing windows with a rock, GDP goes up. Not generally. Window repairmen get higher incomes, but the rest of the economy has less consumption and investment.
erin_lave 10mo ago
> If I run around town smashing windows with a rock, GDP goes up. I don't believe that's true. I believe that's called the "Broken Window Fallacy" in Economics.
- machomaster 10mo ago
  Breaking windows DOES increase GDP, just like the parent said. The argument ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window ) only argues that not all GDP increase is good, because of waste of resources, because of the opportunity cost. That's why measuring success only by GDP is a bad idea.