Marc Andreessen Is Right That AI Isn't Killing Jobs. Interest Rate Hikes Are | Hacker News Reader

Marc Andreessen Is Right That AI Isn't Killing Jobs. Interest Rate Hikes Are

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39 pointsbigbobbeeper9 comments

What's causing the interest rate hikes, Marc? Could it be inflation? Could that be caused, at least in part, by AI sucking up all kinds of things? There's more than one way for it to kill jobs.

Why would AI cause inflation? If anything the drop in cost of labor should be massively deflationary.

As the other commenter pointed out, AI is deflationary unless it’s a scam. Cost increases in a subset of the market doesn’t counteract that.

Tariffs and dropping 20% of global fossil fuel production on the other hand are _massive_ inflation boosts. The US government is using an assault rifle to shoot the US economy in the foot.

> As the other commenter pointed out, AI is deflationary unless it’s a scam.

That other commenter made a very common mistake - confuse shallow econ theory with reality. In practice, AI doesn't have to be a scam in order to be inflationary, it has to only incur higher costs than the labor savings, which is clearly the case today.

The cost of AI has to include the cost of public assistance to the "saved labor" because without that things get political. If you think about it, there's no way for AI to result in anything other than harm in a system which is not specifically built to accommodate AI.

The inflationary pressure is additionally increased by providing the services far below cost on a vast scale. Think about near-worldwide free LLM usage funded by... US inflation, that's the reality.

> Tariffs and dropping 20% of global fossil fuel production on the other hand are _massive_ inflation boosts.

War and war funding are also massive inflation boosts, they should not be missed when discussing inflation.

This rings true to me, but I also think the AI models and harnesses are getting better at a frightening rate and that unemployment (the kind which _is_ due to AI) will be a major focus of the 2028 or, at the latest, 2030 elections.

> If these companies are so bloated, where are the good products? Microsoft has over 220,000 employees, yet Windows 11 shipped with a Start menu that broke basic workflows

Doesn’t this part sound like “guy not in software asks the usual question about software”?

Big orgs in the field are renowned for shipping worse product.

Sure, that is why I see translation and asset creation teams being let go, replaced by AI.

Or head count in dev teams, now doing even more with less.

Not to count all those gas stations, supermarket checkouts, or underground lines that are fully automated.

Still wondering when I will also be shown the door.

I find it very hard to take the opinions of Trump supporters seriously since they have clearly shown terrible judgement.

Can't be both? Add work from home to the list too.

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