You are not wrong. This is what I would call a severe imagination deficit. Which is of course not a great trait for a venture capitalist. Andreesen is framing things in a very US centric context. Which of course represents the status quo there and the way things are; mostly for historic reasons. That's going to change for two simple reasons. Number 1 would be that it is sub optimal to say the least. It's simply not sustainable. And number 2 is that this is not the way things are elsewhere and the US is in competition with those places. Andreesen is making a closed world assumption and navel gazing. Failing to adapt basically means a slide towards being less relevant, less competitive, etc. Which is of course another way of saying that change is inevitably coming. Whether people like it or not and whether they are ready for it or not. Eventually the economy would collapse and people would adapt. But probably some time before that people will get a clue and start fixing things. Either way, things change. So predicting that things won't, shouldn't or can't change is a foolish prediction to make.

If you want a concrete example of a few places that aren't going to be held back by regulation and bureaucracy: China, India, most of Africa. They have bureaucracies of course but they are also booming economies and very much making the difference via technology. People are going to push boundaries with what is possible technically and some places are going to be more comfortable doing that than others. Ultimately, the willingness to push boundaries is what will lead to breakthrough results. If the US is not willing, too complacent, or too scared, that just means it happens elsewhere.

All this is true regardless of AI. But of course given that we have that, people are going to use that in anger for all sorts of things. Some misguided, some foolish, and some very productive and practical. Andreesen is arguing that flat panels are cheap and education is expensive. Flat panels are cheap because they are not made in the US and the production of those is not bogged down by how inefficient things have become in the US. For the same reason, you are better off getting your education outside of the US. Education is more or less free in other parts of the world. It's only this expensive in the US. Probably silicon valley is the worst place in the world to get one in terms of economics. Which is why a lot of the people working there are coming from abroad. Which is where they get most of their education.

Probably education is at the forefront of what AI can do short term btw. I've played a bit with chat gpt and it's an obviously awesome educational tool. It's like this patient tutor that is willing to explore any subject and answer any question. It might be a bit off with the facts and all the bat shit crazy hallucination. But that sounds like it should be a fixable problem. Once that is fixed, there will be no shortage of teachers any more. Anyone willing to learn will be able to learn and receive an education that is completely tailored to them. Anything, anyone, anywhere. Kids are using chat gpt already to fool their teachers. The next logical step is replacing them entirely. That's not going to take a lot of time. And it won't cost anywhere near a million dollars.