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palmoteatoday at 2:00 PM5 repliesview on HN

> Whatever you think of AI for your own work, the fact that the entire economy is betting everything on it is really concerning. It’s not just the fact that it may not work well economically speaking and would end up with a market crash, or all the negative externalities from AI development, it’s also the opportunity cost we are paying.

It's worth pointing out that "entire economy is betting everything on [AI]" you're talking about here is in the economy in the "numbers go up sense" (e.g. the stock market). It's not the economy in the providing for the general well being sense (e.g. gives people jobs so they can get housing and food).


Replies

randusernametoday at 2:30 PM

Well estimates claim AI may contribute 50-75% of US GDP growth. Which is confusing because we're spending 2% of US GDP on AI.

I wasted like a half hour trying to find decent sources but I guess I don't know how to search the internet anymore.

I think we're betting more than the stock market on AI, even if I can't say for sure how much.

hvb2today at 4:12 PM

But you do realize that the entire 2008 financial crisis was also just financial 'wizards' increasing leverage more an more.

The real economy didn't change at all, but confidence was gone and so was lending.

dgellowtoday at 2:26 PM

Investment from VC and wealth funds is going pretty much only to AI projects. The massive capital expenditure we are currently seeing is going to AI infrastructure (HBM has pretty much no use case outside of LLMs and a few niche industries). It’s real money being allocated to a single bet