> No mention of Jevons Paradox?

I wish HN commenters would stop bringing up Jevon's Paradox:

1. We see it mentioned all the time now, i.e. When AI makes producing software essentially free, there'll be more jobs. As HN has maybe 75% of the frontpage filled with AI stories, it means we see it almost every single day!

2. It essentially describes outliers. Driving food costs down to a fraction of the peak price (basically down by 90% over the last 200 years) did not result in correspondingly higher food consumption.

3. It only applies when the market is not yet saturated. Making cars more fuel efficient (by going EV) in the last 5 years did not result in correspondingly more miles being driven.

Any time you feel compelled to bring up Jevon's Paradox, ask yourself "Are we talking about energy here?" and if the answer is "No" then it probably doesn't apply.

Keep in mind that even if Jevon's Paradox applies, it does not mean that the society actually benefits. If you drive the value of all human labour to almost zero, you can't use Jevon's Paradox as an argument that the increased efficiency means that we're all living a life of leisure.