Discussion
Reminder that AI is "propping up" the economy the same way a tape worm props up your metabolism.
It has completely choked off all capital investment to any other activity for years. It completely devours resources needed by any other endeavor. And for all that, it produces practically nothing that people want or need. It's strangling the economy.
@jenniferplusplus Love the tapeworm analogy.
@jenniferplusplus The billions "invested" in AI help the economy the same way breast cancer increases bra size.
@jenniferplusplus Wasn’t the MetaVerse the same thing at a much smaller scale, and was a complete failure?
@shsbxheb kind of the opposite, actually. When Zuckerberg poured 4 billion dollars into the "metaverse" that money was almost all salaries, and the impact on the wider world was that Facebook had well paid employees for 2 years.
AI, on the other hand, has captured a trillion dollars of investable cash. That is almost every last dollar of the money that the United States might have otherwise used to fund business loans or other productive investments. And the impact was 3/4 of a million layoffs, obliterating the freelance art market, keeping coal and gas plants online longer, and a mountain of gpus that aren't even useful for other things.
@jenniferplusplus @shsbxheb And while the product was a massive flop, there is a very real market for VR remote communication software.
@jenniferplusplus I would not say opposite at all. AI has also added a lot of salaries up front that will go away. It’s not a perfect comparison but not opposite. I’d say the Metaverse failure likely led to Zuck doubling up on tech broligarch support of Trump/Vance that contributed to all the bad things you mentioned too.
@jenniferplusplus i'm so furious at a society that has for years said "we need to balance health spending", "renewables are too risky", "reducing emissions would cost us too much", "everyone needs to tighten their belt in this economy", "people gaming our social nets are sucking us dry", "immigrants steal our jobs", "our aging population means we need to work longer", "public transport can be profitable", "we have to discontinue this research funding"....
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@jenniferplusplus AI - and it is sucking water and electricity and doubling our carbon footprint.
@jenniferplusplus best metaphor as of yet. Big thanks!
@jenniferplusplus Not only strangling the economy but sucking money from small creators, traffic from smaller websites. Making energy more expensive, destroying the environment... you name it. All for what?
@jenniferplusplus Since AI produces slop, I propose we start referring to them as “slop machines.” It works because it makes them sound like “slot machines” and they have roughly the same probability of paying off.
An economy simply can't sustain a permanent boom cycle like this driven by hype with little underlying utility or value. And the longer you delay the recession, the worse the crash. We're building up the mother of all gilded age right now.
@JessTheUnstill We're already in the recession, but yes
@jenniferplusplus What better place to further disenfranchise the 99% value, than the 1%'s further application of 'ultraprocessed' - this iteration in data/younger generations addicted to phones?
And you though ultraprocessed foods was a root infrastructure problem?..
@jenniferplusplus
Ooh...I love this analogy.
@jenniferplusplus
It's another Ponzi scheme. When it crashes, the entire economy will crash with it.
@jenniferplusplus It's redirected development away from research that would probably be more productive.
And they're not even researching AI anymore. They're not asking, "How can we achieve this?" They're asking, "How can we trick people into thinking we can and have achieved this?"
Answer: easily.
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