logoalt Hacker News

Ekaroslast Tuesday at 5:56 PM2 repliesview on HN

I have been thinking. The reality is that in general employees are not paid for value/revenue/profit they generate. That sets the floor. But they are paid what market sets as rate for their demand. See people putting together high cost electronics. Clearly lot of value there with margins what they are, but not lot of pay.

Wouldn't AI largely be race to bottom? As such even if expensive employees get replaced, the cost of replacing them might not be that big. It might only barely cover the costs of interference for example. So might it be that profits will actually be lot lower than costs of employees that are being replaced?


Replies

m104last Tuesday at 7:15 PM

To your first point, yes we're moving slowly towards a more general awareness that most employees are paid market (replacement) rate, not their share of value generated. As the replacement rate drops, so will wages, even if the generated value skyrockets. Unsurprisingly, business owners and upper management love this.

To the second point, the race to the bottom won't be evenly distributed across all markets or market segments. A lot of AI-economy predictions focus on the idea that nothing else will change or be affected by second and third order dynamics, which is never the case with large disruptions. When something that was rare becomes common, something else that was common becomes rare.