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In 2024, global GDP was $111 trillion.[1] Investing 1 or 2 % of that to improve global productivity via AI does not seem exaggerated to me. [1] https://data.wo

In 2024, global GDP was $111 trillion.[1] Investing 1 or 2 % of that to improve global productivity via AI does not seem exaggerated to me. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD

throwaw12 8mo ago
I will put it differently, Investing 1 or 2% of global GDP to increase wealth gap 50% more and make top 1% unbelievable rich while everyone else looking for jobs or getting 50 year mortgage, seem very bad idea to me.
- cheonn638 8mo ago
  >Investing 1 or 2% of global GDP to increase wealth gap 50% more What’s your definition of wealth gap? Is it how you feel when you see the name of a billionaire?
  - fennecbutt 8mo ago
    Yes the very fact that billionaires exist mean our species has failed. I do not believe that there is a legitimate billionaire on the planet, in that they haven't engaged in stock manipulation, lobbying, insider trading, corrupt deals, monopolistic practices, dark patterns, corporate tax dodging, personal tax dodging. You could for example say that the latter are technically legal and therefore okay, but it's my belief that they're "technically legal/loopholes" because we have reached a point where the rich are so powerful that they bend the laws to their own ends. Our species is a bit of a disappointment. People would rather focus on trivial tribal issues than on anything that impacts the majority of the members of our species. We are well and truly animals.
  - mjamesaustin 8mo ago
    It's easy to access statistics about wealth and income inequality. It is worse than it has ever been, and continuing to get worse. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...
- simianwords 8mo ago
  It can be both? Both that inequality increases but also prosperity for the lower class? I don’t mind that trade off. If some one were to say to you - you can have 10,000 more iPhones to play with but your friends would get 100,000 iPhones, would you reject the deal?
  - techblueberry 8mo ago
    I think you inadvertently stepped in the point — Yes, what the fuck do I need 10,000 iPhones for? Also part of the problem is which resources end up in abundance. What am I going to do with more compute when housing and land are a limited resource. Gary’s Economics talks about this but in many cases inequality _is_ the problem. More billionaires means more people investing in limited resources(housing) driving up prices. Maybe plebes get more money too, but not enough to spend on the things that matter.
    - simianwords 8mo ago
      It’s just a proxy for wealth using concrete things. If you were given 10,000 dollars but your friends were also 100,000 dollars as well, would you take the deal? Land and housing can get costlier while other things get cheaper, making you overall more prosperous. This is what happened in the USA and most of the world. Would you take this deal?
      - techblueberry 8mo ago
        You’re missing the point. It’s not about jealousy it’s basic economics - supply and demand. No I would not take the deal if it raised the demand in something central to my happiness (housing) driving the price up for something previously affordable and make it unaffordable. I would not trade my house for a better iPhone with higher quality YouTube videos, and slightly more fashionable athleisure. I don’t care how many yacht’s Elon Musk has, I care how many governments.
        simianwords 8mo ago
- Anon1096 8mo ago
  Just being born in the US already makes you a top 10% and very likely top 5-1% in terms of global wealth. The top 1% you're harping about is very likely yourself.
  - whstl 8mo ago
    So what? If that's the case, they clearly mean the 0.0001% or whatever number, which is way worse.
  - majormajor 8mo ago
    And so many people in the US are already miserable before yet another round of "become more efficient and productive for essentially the same pay or less as before!!" So maybe income equality + disposable material goods is not a good path towards people being happier and better off. It's our job to build a system that will work well for ourselves. If there's a point where incentivizing a few to hoard even more resources to themselves starts to break down in terms of overall quality of life, we have a responsibility to each other to change the system. Look at how many miserable-ass unhappy toxic asshole billionaires there are. We'll be helping their own mental health too.
    - fatherwavelet 8mo ago
      It is not really obvious to me that happiness should be part of the social contract. Happiness is very slippery even in your own life. It seems absurd to me that you should care about my happiness. So much of happiness is the change from the previous state to the present. I am happy right now because 2026 has started off great for me while 2025 was a bad year. I would imagine there was never a happier American society than the year's after WW2. I imagine some of the most happy human societies were the ones during the years after the black plague. No one though today gains happiness because of the absence of black plague. To believe a society can be built around happiness seems completely delusional to me.
      - accrual 8mo ago
        Agree targeting happiness is the wrong approach. Happiness comes and goes. We should raise the baseline, not the ceiling.
- Archelaos 8mo ago
  This problem is not specific to AI, but a matter of social policy. For example here in Germany, the Gini index, an indicator of equality/inequality has been oszillating about 29.75 +/-1.45 since 2011.[1] In other words, the wealth distribution was more or less stable in the last 15 years, and is less extrem than in the USA, where it was 41.8 in 2023.[2] [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1184266/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1184266/ [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA
catlifeonmars 8mo ago
It’s implied you mean that the ROI will be positive. Spending 1-2% of global GDP with negative ROI could be disastrous. I think this is where most of the disagreement is. We don’t all agree on the expected ROI of that investment, especially when taking into account the opportunity cost.
mitthrowaway2 8mo ago
2% is a lot! There's only fifty things you can invest 2% of GDP in before you occupy the entire economy. But the list of services people need, from food, water, shelter, heating, transportation, education, healthcare, communications, entertainment, mining, materials, construction, research, maintenance, legal services... there's a lot of things on that list. To allocate each one 1% or 2% of the economy may seem small, but pretty quickly you hit 100%.
- Archelaos 8mo ago
  Most of you have mentioned is not investment, but consumption. Investments means to use money to make more money in the future. Global investment rates are around 25 % of global GDP. Avarage return on investement ist about 10% per year. In other words: using 1% or 2% of GDP if its leads to an improvement in GDP of more than 0.1% or 0.2% next year would count as a success. I think to expect a productivity gain on this scale due to AI is not unrealistic for 2026.
  - simoncion 8mo ago
    > Most of you have mentioned is not investment, but consumption. It's ongoing investment in the infrastructure of civil society. These sorts of investments usually give you indirect returns... which is why it's usually only done by governments.
- tim333 8mo ago
  AI is a big deal though.
  - Lionga 8mo ago
    Is it? I am using AI daily, but would rank it dead last compared to food, water, shelter, heating, transportation, education, healthcare, communications

throwaw12 8mo ago

I will put it differently, Investing 1 or 2% of global GDP to increase wealth gap 50% more and make top 1% unbelievable rich while everyone else looking for jobs or getting 50 year mortgage, seem very bad idea to me.

cheonn638 8mo ago
>Investing 1 or 2% of global GDP to increase wealth gap 50% more What’s your definition of wealth gap? Is it how you feel when you see the name of a billionaire?
- fennecbutt 8mo ago
  Yes the very fact that billionaires exist mean our species has failed. I do not believe that there is a legitimate billionaire on the planet, in that they haven't engaged in stock manipulation, lobbying, insider trading, corrupt deals, monopolistic practices, dark patterns, corporate tax dodging, personal tax dodging. You could for example say that the latter are technically legal and therefore okay, but it's my belief that they're "technically legal/loopholes" because we have reached a point where the rich are so powerful that they bend the laws to their own ends. Our species is a bit of a disappointment. People would rather focus on trivial tribal issues than on anything that impacts the majority of the members of our species. We are well and truly animals.
- mjamesaustin 8mo ago
  It's easy to access statistics about wealth and income inequality. It is worse than it has ever been, and continuing to get worse. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...
simianwords 8mo ago
It can be both? Both that inequality increases but also prosperity for the lower class? I don’t mind that trade off. If some one were to say to you - you can have 10,000 more iPhones to play with but your friends would get 100,000 iPhones, would you reject the deal?
- techblueberry 8mo ago
  I think you inadvertently stepped in the point — Yes, what the fuck do I need 10,000 iPhones for? Also part of the problem is which resources end up in abundance. What am I going to do with more compute when housing and land are a limited resource. Gary’s Economics talks about this but in many cases inequality _is_ the problem. More billionaires means more people investing in limited resources(housing) driving up prices. Maybe plebes get more money too, but not enough to spend on the things that matter.
  - simianwords 8mo ago
    It’s just a proxy for wealth using concrete things. If you were given 10,000 dollars but your friends were also 100,000 dollars as well, would you take the deal? Land and housing can get costlier while other things get cheaper, making you overall more prosperous. This is what happened in the USA and most of the world. Would you take this deal?
    - techblueberry 8mo ago
      You’re missing the point. It’s not about jealousy it’s basic economics - supply and demand. No I would not take the deal if it raised the demand in something central to my happiness (housing) driving the price up for something previously affordable and make it unaffordable. I would not trade my house for a better iPhone with higher quality YouTube videos, and slightly more fashionable athleisure. I don’t care how many yacht’s Elon Musk has, I care how many governments.
      - simianwords 8mo ago
Anon1096 8mo ago
Just being born in the US already makes you a top 10% and very likely top 5-1% in terms of global wealth. The top 1% you're harping about is very likely yourself.
- whstl 8mo ago
  So what? If that's the case, they clearly mean the 0.0001% or whatever number, which is way worse.
- majormajor 8mo ago
  And so many people in the US are already miserable before yet another round of "become more efficient and productive for essentially the same pay or less as before!!" So maybe income equality + disposable material goods is not a good path towards people being happier and better off. It's our job to build a system that will work well for ourselves. If there's a point where incentivizing a few to hoard even more resources to themselves starts to break down in terms of overall quality of life, we have a responsibility to each other to change the system. Look at how many miserable-ass unhappy toxic asshole billionaires there are. We'll be helping their own mental health too.
  - fatherwavelet 8mo ago
    It is not really obvious to me that happiness should be part of the social contract. Happiness is very slippery even in your own life. It seems absurd to me that you should care about my happiness. So much of happiness is the change from the previous state to the present. I am happy right now because 2026 has started off great for me while 2025 was a bad year. I would imagine there was never a happier American society than the year's after WW2. I imagine some of the most happy human societies were the ones during the years after the black plague. No one though today gains happiness because of the absence of black plague. To believe a society can be built around happiness seems completely delusional to me.
    - accrual 8mo ago
      Agree targeting happiness is the wrong approach. Happiness comes and goes. We should raise the baseline, not the ceiling.
Archelaos 8mo ago
This problem is not specific to AI, but a matter of social policy. For example here in Germany, the Gini index, an indicator of equality/inequality has been oszillating about 29.75 +/-1.45 since 2011.[1] In other words, the wealth distribution was more or less stable in the last 15 years, and is less extrem than in the USA, where it was 41.8 in 2023.[2] [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1184266/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1184266/ [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA

catlifeonmars 8mo ago

It’s implied you mean that the ROI will be positive. Spending 1-2% of global GDP with negative ROI could be disastrous. I think this is where most of the disagreement is. We don’t all agree on the expected ROI of that investment, especially when taking into account the opportunity cost.

mitthrowaway2 8mo ago

2% is a lot! There's only fifty things you can invest 2% of GDP in before you occupy the entire economy. But the list of services people need, from food, water, shelter, heating, transportation, education, healthcare, communications, entertainment, mining, materials, construction, research, maintenance, legal services... there's a lot of things on that list. To allocate each one 1% or 2% of the economy may seem small, but pretty quickly you hit 100%.

Archelaos 8mo ago
Most of you have mentioned is not investment, but consumption. Investments means to use money to make more money in the future. Global investment rates are around 25 % of global GDP. Avarage return on investement ist about 10% per year. In other words: using 1% or 2% of GDP if its leads to an improvement in GDP of more than 0.1% or 0.2% next year would count as a success. I think to expect a productivity gain on this scale due to AI is not unrealistic for 2026.
- simoncion 8mo ago
  > Most of you have mentioned is not investment, but consumption. It's ongoing investment in the infrastructure of civil society. These sorts of investments usually give you indirect returns... which is why it's usually only done by governments.
tim333 8mo ago
AI is a big deal though.
- Lionga 8mo ago
  Is it? I am using AI daily, but would rank it dead last compared to food, water, shelter, heating, transportation, education, healthcare, communications