One thing I don't hear people talking about very is about how AI is going to make money in any other way other than cutting employment.

With the internet, and especially with the internet being accessible by anyone anywhere in the world in the late 2000s and early 2010s globally, that growth was more obvious to me. I don't see where this occurs with AI. I don't see room for "growth", I see room for cutting. We were already connected before, globalization seems to have peaked in that sense.

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cal_dent 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

That's a pretty significant way to make money though.

I do think at this stage the best analogy is the offshore call centres. Yes, the excess in the market is likely because of misunderstanding about what LLMs can actually do and how close AGI is, the short term attraction is the labour cost savings. People may not think wages are high enough etc but the total cost for one hire to companies, particularly outside the US, is nothing to sniff at. And at current pricing of ai services, the maths would make complete sense for the bottom line.

I don't like it, because I ultimately err on the side of even limited but significant changes to people's livelihood will make the world a more hostile place (particularly in the current climate), but that's the society we live in

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encyclopedism 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You've hit the nail on the head.

AI use cases do not appear to be of the type that unlock NEW capabilities.

The main use cases in AI are not about wealth creation but about saving existing wealth (largely through increased automation of human operators).

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simianwords 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why not? AI assisted shopping for example will boost growth. Productivity also boosts growth.

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x0x0 3 days ago | parent [-]

How does AI assisted shopping create more economic activity? Even assuming you can do it, and people do find it helpful, it likely just shifts who people buy from, not how much?

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simianwords 3 days ago | parent [-]

How did Amazon.com create more economic activity? Same way. It just has to make it more efficient.

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encyclopedism 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Amazon.com is a business. AI is a technology in of itself it isn't a business.

Thus far it appears applications of AI that provide 'benefit' do so by removing or reducing the need for human operators. Examples include: fewer software engineers, fewer call centres, removing potentially whole areas of work such as paralegals and in general automating away many white collar jobs.

By far the largest use case of AI is this.

	▲	simianwords 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Internet is also not a business but it removed a lot of people but increased productivity and prosperity.

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bagacrap 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Well Amazon makes it take way less time to buy something (almost anything). I dont have to waste time and money going to the hardware store, it only takes 90 seconds of my time and the price including shipping is less than what the hardware store wants to charge, with its rent and utilities and so on to cover. Amazon cut out a middleman between the warehouse and the household. It made things more efficient, and I can use the time and money savings to spend more money or work harder at my job. (I for one do spend more hours working if I have more time in my day. Not everyone is like this.)

AI could do the same thing. It could cut 90 seconds down to... 10 seconds? It doesn't seem like the same impact as Amazon, where an hour's investment became 90 seconds. And I can't see how AI shopping is going to save me money here. There's no middleman to cut out, except maybe some web site storefront?? There's also a huge downside: with Amazon, I suddenly had access to 100 different pairs of scissors to choose from, instead of the 2 or 3 I could find in Staples. That was a plus. With AI shopping, suddenly I'm down to one choice: whatever Chat chooses for me. If I want to have a say in which pair of scissors I buy, I'm back to shopping for myself.

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internet_points 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, can someone explain how you get rich by making the previously-employed workforce unable to afford your products?

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jiggawatts 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

"There is no good outcome for the 99% because of AI" should be talked about more, but the media is owned by the 1%.

Either the bubble bursts and everyone's retirement funds take a hit, 2008 style,

Or a decent chunk of the workforce becomes unemployed and unemployable.