agent_turtle (u/agent_turtle)

agent_turtle commented on AI is propping up the US economy bloodinthemachine.com/p/t... · Posted by u/mempko

Did you miss the part where I said it helps me find new knowledge that I wouldn't have otherwise?

That is pretty significant in my book.

I don't know how you use search but I often find incredible information that I didn't explicitly search for.

How do you quantify such things? How can you say with a straight face that this magic box gives you more relevant information (which may be wrong!) and that will revolutionize the workforce?

agent_turtle commented on AI is propping up the US economy bloodinthemachine.com/p/t... · Posted by u/mempko

int_19h · 21 days ago

In the case of Microsoft layoffs, that is how it is sold to the public, but the reality according to my former colleagues is that fewer people tasked with the same amount of overall work just end up grinding more. But the charade must be sustained, and so now "how much do you use AI" is one of the performance metrics pushed from the top. Nobody wants to be in the next layoff wave so everybody finds ways to meet those metrics, which then Satya goes and parades to the investors.

(I am an AI optimist, by the by. But that is not one of its success stories.)

agent_turtle · 19 days ago

My partner works at MSFT and I can confirm this.

agent_turtle commented on AI is propping up the US economy bloodinthemachine.com/p/t... · Posted by u/mempko

rockemsockem · 21 days ago

I'm not talking about time saving. AI seems to speed up my searching a bit since I can get results quicker without having to find the right query then find a site that actually answers my question, but that's minor, as nice as it is.

I use AI in my personal life to learn about things I never would have without it because it makes the cost of finding any basic knowledge basically 0. Diet improvement ideas based on several quick questions about gut functioning, etc, recently learning how to gauge tsunami severity, and tons of other things. Once you have several fundamental terms and phrases for new topics it's easy to then validate the information with some quick googling too.

How much have you actually tried using LLMs and did you just use normal chat or some big grand complex tool? I mostly just use chat and prefer to enter my code in artisanally.

agent_turtle · 21 days ago

OpenAI is currently being evaluated in terms of hundreds of billions. That’s an insane number for creating a product that “speeds up searching a bit”.

agent_turtle commented on AI is propping up the US economy bloodinthemachine.com/p/t... · Posted by u/mempko

gruez · 21 days ago

>Have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?

Have you heard of the disagreement hierarchy? You're somewhere between 1 and 3 right now, so I'm not even going to bother to engage with you further until you bring up more substantive points and cool it with the personal attacks.

https://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

agent_turtle · 21 days ago

One of the major reasons there’s such a shortage of homes in the US is the extensive permit process required. Pivoting from data centers to home construction is not a straightforward process.

Regarding the economics, the reason it’s a big deal that AI is powering growth numbers is because if the bubble pops, jobs go poof and stock prices with it as everyone tries to salvage their positions. While we still create jobs, on net we’ll be losing them. This has many secondary and tertiary effects, such as less money in the economy, less consumer confidence, less investment, fewer businesses causing fewer jobs, and so on. A resilient economy has multiple growth areas; an unstable one has one or two.

While you could certainly argue that we may already be in rough shape even without the bubble popping, it would undoubtedly get worse for the reasons I listed above,

agent_turtle commented on AI is propping up the US economy bloodinthemachine.com/p/t... · Posted by u/mempko

keeda · 21 days ago

That study gets mentioned all the time, somehow this one and many of the others it cites don't get much airtime: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/sep/rapid-ado...

>This implies that each hour spent using genAI increases the worker’s productivity for that hour by 33%. This is similar in magnitude to the average productivity gain of 27% from several randomized experiments of genAI usage (Cui et al., 2024; Dell’Acqua et al., 2023; Noy and Zhang, 2023; Peng et al., 2023)

Our estimated aggregate productivity gain from genAI (1.1%) exceeds the 0.7% estimate by Acemoglu (2024) based on a similar framework.

To be clear, they are surmising that GenAI is already having a productivity gain.

agent_turtle · 21 days ago

The article you gave is derived from a poll, not a study.

As for the quote, I can’t find it in the article. Can you point me to it? I did click on one of the studies and it indicated productivity gains specifically on writing tasks. Which reminded me of this recent BBC article about a copywriter making bank fixing expensive mistakes caused by AI: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyvm1dyp9v2o

agent_turtle commented on AI is propping up the US economy bloodinthemachine.com/p/t... · Posted by u/mempko

gamblor956 · 21 days ago

This is backwards.

The AI bubble is so big that it's draining useful investment from the rest of the economy. Hundreds of thousands of people are getting fired so billionaires can try to add a few more zeros to their bank account.

The best investment we can make would be to send the billionaires and AI researchers to an island somewhere and not let them leave until they develop an AI that's actually useful. In the meanwhile, the rest of us get to live productive lives.

agent_turtle · 21 days ago

There’s no evidence of AI causing layoffs. There’s lots of evidence of CEOs using AI as a scapegoat to entice investors: https://apnews.com/article/ai-layoffs-tech-industry-jobs-ece...

agent_turtle commented on AI is propping up the US economy bloodinthemachine.com/p/t... · Posted by u/mempko

margalabargala · 21 days ago

> Likely one that makes the first look like a sideshow.

The first Great Depression was pretty darn bad, I'm not at all convinced that this hypothetical one would be worse.

agent_turtle · 21 days ago

Some of the variables that made the Great Depression what it was included very high tariff rates and lack of quality federal oversight.

Today, we have the highest tariffs since right before the Great Depression, with the added bonus of economic uncertainty because our current tariff rates change on a near daily basis.

Add in meme stocks, AI bubble, crypto, attacks on the Federal Reserve’s independence, and a decreasing trust in federal economic data, and you can make the case that things could get pretty ugly.

agent_turtle commented on AI is propping up the US economy bloodinthemachine.com/p/t... · Posted by u/mempko

gruez · 21 days ago

It's not as bad as the alarmist phrasing would suggest. Consider a toy example: suppose consumer spending was $100 and grew by $1, but AI spending was $10 and grew by $1.5, then you can rightly claim that "AI added more to the grow of the US economy than all consumer spending combined"[1]. But it's not as if the economy consists mostly of AI, or that if AI spending stopped the economy will collapse. It just means AI is a major contributor to the economy's growth right now. It's not even certain that the AI bubble popping would lead to all of that growth evaporating. Much of the AI boom involves infrastructure build out for data centers. That can be reallocated to building houses if datacenters are no longer needed.

[1] Things get even spicier if consumer growth was zero. Then what would the comparison? That AI added infinitely more to growth than consumer spending? What if it was negative? All this shows how ridiculous the framing is.

agent_turtle · 21 days ago

[flagged]

agent_turtle commented on AI is propping up the US economy bloodinthemachine.com/p/t... · Posted by u/mempko

rockemsockem · 21 days ago

I'm continually amazed to find takes like this. Can you explain how you don't find clear utility, at the personal level, from LLMs?

I am being 100% genuine here, I struggle to understand how the most useful things I've ever encountered are thought of this way and would like to better understand your perspective.

agent_turtle · 21 days ago

There was a study recently that showed how not only did devs overestimate the time saved using AI, but that they were net negative compared to the control group.

Anyway, that about sums up my experience with AI. It may save some time here and there, but on net, you’re better off without it.

agent_turtle commented on The US military’s on-base slot machines wired.com/story/us-milita... · Posted by u/impish9208

nipponese · 23 days ago

When/where did his addiction start?

agent_turtle · 23 days ago

Long before I was born. If you're trying to suss out which came first, the addiction or the slot machines, I don't have a definitive answer for you.