Economists say 'we must act now' on AI's economic impact and job displacement | Hacker News Reader

Economists say 'we must act now' on AI's economic impact and job displacement

apnews.com

20 pointsgeox12 comments

Politicians are debating whether to setting up committees as we speak.

Source: https://www.wemustactnow.ai/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48894640)

The Genie is already out of the bottle. Economists sounding the alarm will not translate into action because poor countries see AI as an equalizer and the economists & the rich as one in the same, their common enemy. Only way to reverse course is for them tricky political varmints to feel the effects of AI in the polls and their pockets. "I should have seen this coming. Can't be top dog forever." Good thing am a living in a holodeck simulation, with the ability to reboot my program, or I'd be real worried, right bout now, yes sir! :)

Buster Scruggs

I hate to be cynical but I expect this call will generate as much action as climate change warnings.

Yep, plain as day issues aren't being solved: Climate catastrophe, extreme concentration of wealth (with asset buying blowing up house prices), monopolies and oligopolies is now the standard/expectation for anything you are allowed to buy in your local foreign-owned chain store, social media and phone addiction impact on our kids, ourselves and other adults, and our parents, and now AI (faulty basic expertise turned commodity) as well as making many forms of artistry and jobs complete dead-ends.

The number one thing to learn from all of this is that governments aren't really hands-on-wheel and maybe never have been. It's interesting to watch an old video of a politician from eg. the 60s, 70s or 80s and compare to today, though. So, I could be wrong.

And "others" will be blamed, if history repeats.

Voters don’t reward politicians for solving problems.

If they did these problems would have been solved.

I've been pondering this, and have been moving between cynicism and (cautious) optimism.

I think there will be more action on this than climate change, only because the AI impact will have a more immediate, direct impact on politicians.

One thing I can't get my head around is the promise that AI will make everyone better off. If AI is taking peoples jobs, that will lead to more people unemployed, which will lead to more people not being able to purchase goods that ultimately benefit the rich who have large amounts of influence on politicians.

Once this impact starts to hurt the people that has influence, we will start to see some action.

Climate change is something that won't impact many of today's leaders for too long, so the can is constantly kicked down the road.

Why would that impact hurt the people that have influence? In the K shaped economy, the people with influence are on the top side going up. They're not losing their job, and even if they did, they're independently wealthy and can live off of interest on their investment accounts. Much like when all the money went to Google and Facebook in the previous economic shift, if the money all goes to OpenAI and Anthropic, the question is what will they spend their money on? Something to do with yachts is probably a good business to get into, but other than that, how are they going to spend their money? ChatGPT-12 comes out and it's as competent as a $60,000/yr employee, without the human messiness and companies fire all their human employees and give OpenAI $60,000/yr instead. What's OpenAI going to do with that money? It's not just going to disappear into the ether. Their millionaire employees will invest that money somewhere, it isn't going anywhere. Even if it's just sitting in a Chase investment account in an index fund, it's there on Chase's books and Chase can loan out money to people to do things.

Because you're assuming the people on the top have liquid assets needed to sustain themselves. They would need the economy to be operating and funds flowing into their accounts via their businesses/holdings.

And these investments you talk about - they'll just be even more concentration of wealth than what we see today, especially with these more advanced AI systems and robots, not needing to hire as many people for the same output.

Why would Chase loan out money to someone that doesn't have a job, because the above AI systems/robots are now doing those jobs for the capitalists?

What's this hypothetical loan for? Chase wants an ROI, same as every investor. If the someone that doesn't have a job is trying to start a company that will generate returns, Chase will want to get those returns.

the problem, of course, is all the value could pop in a bubble, and then what, you're just making the world a better place without all that delusions of grandeur?

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