Re:Ask HN: As people in “tech”, are we inside an AI echo cha...
by dgroshev on Monday July 03, 2023 @10:22AM
(#36573307)
It's not as clear cut really.
Overall economic productivity didn't shoot up in the last decade despite the dramatic progress we had in software and hardware (e.g. [1]), and it's not clear that AI/ML will dramatically change that. Yes searching pictures on my iphone by text is convenient and Netflix recommendations might be more addictive, but the path from that to ubiquitous economic prosperity, safety, and comfort (the technoutopia many here are striving for) is not clear at all. It's also not very clear if those marginal improvements are worth the substantial share of total human brainpower thrown at them.
Overall economic productivity didn't shoot up in the last decade despite the dramatic progress we had in software and hardware (e.g. [1]), and it's not clear that AI/ML will dramatically change that. Yes searching pictures on my iphone by text is convenient and Netflix recommendations might be more addictive, but the path from that to ubiquitous economic prosperity, safety, and comfort (the technoutopia many here are striving for) is not clear at all. It's also not very clear if those marginal improvements are worth the substantial share of total human brainpower thrown at them.
[1] https://www.aei.org/economics/good-news-bad-news-on-us-produ...