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Re:The Dead Economy Theory by easyThrowaway on Saturday May 30, 2026 @04:41AM (#48334069)
It has become a meme at this point but this sentence still stands: "The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth".
Re:The Dead Economy Theory by bob1029 on Saturday May 30, 2026 @05:13AM (#48334255)
Taste and experience are so much more important than the raw talent. You can't fix this with money.

https://youtube.com/shorts/akcSX81KOv4

Re:The Dead Economy Theory by suncemoje on Saturday May 30, 2026 @07:45AM (#48335156)
There’s enough (massive) market share in automating things that don’t require taste
Re:The Dead Economy Theory by dynamite-ready on Saturday May 30, 2026 @06:20AM (#48334643)
Money is exactly what got us to this point! Besides, I always thought taste, or at least 'popular' taste, was a market function, or something?

That's what people like Rick Rubin (Iovine, the Medici's, etc), deep down, need us to believe. Probably.

Re:The Dead Economy Theory by easyThrowaway on Saturday May 30, 2026 @05:40AM (#48334402)
The whole "Taste makes all the difference" has been meme'd to death too: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYuj_4dxVg2/.

Also... I won't add any details to avoid doxing myself, but trust me on this, Rick is the last person nowadays you'd want to listen to for anything taste-related, unless we're talking about feeding your own ego and carefully curating your own public image, and disappearing for weeks. I'd pay very good money to be around his ghost producers/writers/engineers again, though.

Re:The Dead Economy Theory by scalemaxx on Saturday May 30, 2026 @07:27AM (#48335073)
What does taste generally mean these days?
Re:The Dead Economy Theory by cwmoore on Saturday May 30, 2026 @07:50AM (#48335197)
Large quantities of palm oil and fewer orangutans.
Re:The Dead Economy Theory by notpachet on Saturday May 30, 2026 @08:31AM (#48335491)
But orangutans are where the protein's at!
Re:The Dead Economy Theory by awesomeMilou on Saturday May 30, 2026 @09:57AM (#48336248)
havent heard taste being a defining factor in building farming robots that can replace labor.

"doing shit fast and good enough" seems to be a much better fitness function here

Re:The Dead Economy Theory by palmotea on Saturday May 30, 2026 @10:56AM (#48336939)
> Taste and experience are so much more important than the raw talent. You can't fix this with money.

Ok, so you've secured a future employment for 10,000 asethetes.

Congratulations! Then what about the other 8 billion people? Still unemployement, right?

Re:The Dead Economy Theory by hammock on Saturday May 30, 2026 @11:33AM (#48337322)
Haven’t heard that meme, but it seems like you could replace “AI” with “civilizational striving/class struggle” and extend it across the whole of human history
Re:The Dead Economy Theory by mplanchard on Saturday May 30, 2026 @01:17PM (#48338565)
Of course! This is just class consciousness. But AI does potentially represent a sea change in the ability of the capital class to make labor superfluous. Considering AI outside of the context of the eternal class struggle risks missing the forest for the trees.
Re:The Dead Economy Theory by corimaith on Saturday May 30, 2026 @02:24PM (#48339234)
You could also replace AI with (Proper) Education and get the same logical conclusion. The wealthy would be able to access future advanced pedagogical techniques that would equalize the advantages of both talent and hard work in a post-competence future.

But a post-competence future is ultimately a good thing for humanity. There is no inherent reason why somebody who is talented or skilled in the specific abilities that society deeems necessary should be privileged if those needs can now be automated. It just sounds more like an arbitary class deemed the "skilled" complaining about the loss of their elite status against another, more entrenched elite class relying on wealth. But as a commoner, why should I favour the meritocrats who look down on me over the wealthy who might be more magnanimous in understanding their privilege?

Re:The Dead Economy Theory by Denkel on Sunday June 07, 2026 @01:19AM (#48432046)
Oh God, what a sad day to know how to read. "Why should I favor the people that at some point had struggles like mine and has better chances to understand and empathize with me over the people who cannot understand what the expression 'paycheck to paycheck' really entails?"

Thinking that multi-millionaires/billionaires will "understand their privilege" or that they will be "magnanimous" is beyond naivite and goes straight to stupidity. Have you read any news in the past decade‽‽

Re:The Dead Economy Theory by corimaith on Saturday June 13, 2026 @09:09AM (#48516950)
The generation of elites fostered by academic "meritocracy" have little achievements and clearly are unable to solve or even perceive modern problems. In contrast, those who were fostered in closed patronage networks navigated their countries in times of great uncertainty and built many of the institutions we rely on today.