As others have pointed out, this is a fallacy. By reducing costs in the supply chain, higher volumes of outputs are enabled. Nobody digs holes for for the sake of digging holes; by reducing costs and transaction volume at this layer, more businesses can afford to open and more money can be spent at higher value layers.

I think you’re missing their point. Many things create value that don’t get tracked by economic measurements. Cooking lunch for yourself creates value, but there’s no way to measure that in terms of GDP.

Subsidizing daycare vs stay at home parents isn’t necessarily a net win, but daycare and ordering takeout look like economic growth even if it’s net neutral. In that context a lot of economic growth over the last century disappears.

Thus AI could be neutral on economic measurements and still a net positive overall.