Exactly. I believe that growth caused by the rise of IT, be it Internet or LLM, will be marginal, because the benefits for humanity are very marginal compared to that caused by steam engine, wing, antibiotics or telegraph.
Everything IT does is slightly simplifying things we already could do. We could already telegraph someone across Atlantic, we could extract knowledge in library, we could do accounting. The speedup is small compared to horses vs steam power for transportation for example.
I think the speedups and conveniences of modern IT and the Internet have been massive: I can bank from my pocket, review the best photos out of 100k+ just when riding a tram, get virtually any good produced anywhere delivered to my doorstep in 1-3 business days (and it will be the exact kind and make I chose, not something that happened to be available), read virtually any book ever published while my appointment is delayed.
However, almost all of these are purely private benefits that do not show in any ledger. This is at least in part why the Internet seems to have had such small impact on gdp.
How about AI? So far, even more private benefits than the Internet.
And most of the time savings gained from all this is blown on grind clicking "social media" so net effect is, yes, close to zero (or in more modern terms, not 100x, not 10x, but 1x at most).
Value is subjective, though. If you actually gave people an ultimatum to stop using AI tools for a year, with a negotiable price, I wonder what that would come out at. Many other personal goods are like this, they are valued highly but do not appear as commercial transactions.
Internet and AI profoundly increase an individual’s potential productivity. The difference between these technologies and those of the Industrial Revolution is that the earlier advancements were essentially democratic. Everyone benefitted from them, in ways that were quite obvious. Whereas with the newer technologies, an individual can start a unicorn from his laptop, but he can also waste his life doomscrolling.
The Industrial Revolution was basically the height of western civilization, and the modern revolution is the beginning of something else. It’s not surprising that the metrics we developed in the previous civilization can’t really account for the gains we’re seeing now.
My opinion on that is, it's not such a big gain compared to legacy banking with checks, phone calls etc. All the operations you can do now you could do with legacy banks, just a bit slower. Given banking is not something you do every second, the overall speedup is tiny.
When I was a kid, my dad would schedule a monthly visit to the bank. This is one afternoon freed. With 21 in the month, solid 4% of afternoons saved to do something else. Plus the peace of mind because you can check whatever you want whenever you want.
With e-commerce my shopping is down to just groceries. Clothes, electronics, tools, spare parts, furniture, all show up at my door magically without hunting them down in stores. I remember a small repair being half a day. It's an hour now.
My dad certainly did not and could not have maintained a 12 cafe outings a month habit. I can do it with a newborn. Still probably deflationary compared to his activity.
That's very myopic view. The gains by the rise of IT have been staggering in e.g. medicine. Modern drug discovery would be impossible without advances in computation, and we are getting breakthrough drugs all the time thanks to that.
We could already telegraph someone across Atlantic, we could extract knowledge in library, we could do accounting. The speedup is small compared to horses vs steam power for transportation for example.
The speedup is much larger than horses vs steam power. How much time would it take you to find some scientific article if your library did not stock journal it was published in? You'd have to write request to get that issue and then wait few weeks before it arrives. Now you can get it basically instantly.
Clearly written by someone who's never lived without steam power (semi tongue in cheek).
But seriously, your ability to expediently research just doesn't compare to the ability to ship a metric ton of freight across the country without marshalling an army of people for months on end. As one example.
There is more to pushing freight than just turning the ignition key.
The complexity of supply-chains is overwhelming. Your fancy boat or train needs a boatload (!) of grease, oils, spare parts, maintenance, logs, not to mention fuel, accounting, insurance, the list is endless and it’s all either fully enabled by or extraordinarily simplified by digital networks.
You realize it wasn't always that way, right? And that whole we continue to optimize this complex supply chain, there are diminishing returns. If you roll back recent computing technology, many people die, but if you roll back the industrial revolution, modern civilization collapses.
Clearly written by someone how did not get cancer that was deadly few years ago but now can be effectively suppressed.
I can make same argument - shipping back in time was absolutely possible, but many calculations we are performing now were not.
That's very myopic view. The gains by the rise of IT have been staggering ...
You can't make people who have basically been, their entire lives, coding variations of JavaScript "punch the monkey" abusive ads understand the impact the Internet had on the world.
I did live before internet bc widespread internet came quite late to my country, and I must say it wasn't all that different. Dating, job search and social interactions were actually easier and more pleasant.
I do believe efficiency gains have been significant. Not as big as with industrial revolution but still effective.
Does not mean that some of these gains have not been wasted or there has not been in sense waste introduced to waste excess productivity and efficiency. IT certainly has made this waste lot more easy to do.
South Africans use robots to control traffic. They're mounted to poles and have three different colored lights which tell the cars when to go. You're saying they're actually drones?
Comments
Exactly. I believe that growth caused by the rise of IT, be it Internet or LLM, will be marginal, because the benefits for humanity are very marginal compared to that caused by steam engine, wing, antibiotics or telegraph.
Everything IT does is slightly simplifying things we already could do. We could already telegraph someone across Atlantic, we could extract knowledge in library, we could do accounting. The speedup is small compared to horses vs steam power for transportation for example.
I think the speedups and conveniences of modern IT and the Internet have been massive: I can bank from my pocket, review the best photos out of 100k+ just when riding a tram, get virtually any good produced anywhere delivered to my doorstep in 1-3 business days (and it will be the exact kind and make I chose, not something that happened to be available), read virtually any book ever published while my appointment is delayed.
However, almost all of these are purely private benefits that do not show in any ledger. This is at least in part why the Internet seems to have had such small impact on gdp.
How about AI? So far, even more private benefits than the Internet.
And most of the time savings gained from all this is blown on grind clicking "social media" so net effect is, yes, close to zero (or in more modern terms, not 100x, not 10x, but 1x at most).
Value is subjective, though. If you actually gave people an ultimatum to stop using AI tools for a year, with a negotiable price, I wonder what that would come out at. Many other personal goods are like this, they are valued highly but do not appear as commercial transactions.
I mean that’s to you as well as spending your time at the swimming pool.
"You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics." — Robert Solow (1987), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox
A revisit in 1999:
* https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-solow-productivity-pa...
Internet and AI profoundly increase an individual’s potential productivity. The difference between these technologies and those of the Industrial Revolution is that the earlier advancements were essentially democratic. Everyone benefitted from them, in ways that were quite obvious. Whereas with the newer technologies, an individual can start a unicorn from his laptop, but he can also waste his life doomscrolling.
The Industrial Revolution was basically the height of western civilization, and the modern revolution is the beginning of something else. It’s not surprising that the metrics we developed in the previous civilization can’t really account for the gains we’re seeing now.
My opinion on that is, it's not such a big gain compared to legacy banking with checks, phone calls etc. All the operations you can do now you could do with legacy banks, just a bit slower. Given banking is not something you do every second, the overall speedup is tiny.
When I was a kid, my dad would schedule a monthly visit to the bank. This is one afternoon freed. With 21 in the month, solid 4% of afternoons saved to do something else. Plus the peace of mind because you can check whatever you want whenever you want.
With e-commerce my shopping is down to just groceries. Clothes, electronics, tools, spare parts, furniture, all show up at my door magically without hunting them down in stores. I remember a small repair being half a day. It's an hour now.
My dad certainly did not and could not have maintained a 12 cafe outings a month habit. I can do it with a newborn. Still probably deflationary compared to his activity.
Banking from your phone isn't as transformative as just banking. It's incremental.
That's very myopic view. The gains by the rise of IT have been staggering in e.g. medicine. Modern drug discovery would be impossible without advances in computation, and we are getting breakthrough drugs all the time thanks to that.
The speedup is much larger than horses vs steam power. How much time would it take you to find some scientific article if your library did not stock journal it was published in? You'd have to write request to get that issue and then wait few weeks before it arrives. Now you can get it basically instantly.
Clearly written by someone who's never lived without steam power (semi tongue in cheek).
But seriously, your ability to expediently research just doesn't compare to the ability to ship a metric ton of freight across the country without marshalling an army of people for months on end. As one example.
There is more to pushing freight than just turning the ignition key.
The complexity of supply-chains is overwhelming. Your fancy boat or train needs a boatload (!) of grease, oils, spare parts, maintenance, logs, not to mention fuel, accounting, insurance, the list is endless and it’s all either fully enabled by or extraordinarily simplified by digital networks.
You realize it wasn't always that way, right? And that whole we continue to optimize this complex supply chain, there are diminishing returns. If you roll back recent computing technology, many people die, but if you roll back the industrial revolution, modern civilization collapses.
Clearly written by someone how did not get cancer that was deadly few years ago but now can be effectively suppressed. I can make same argument - shipping back in time was absolutely possible, but many calculations we are performing now were not.
You can't make people who have basically been, their entire lives, coding variations of JavaScript "punch the monkey" abusive ads understand the impact the Internet had on the world.
I wonder if people saying this really had an active life before Internet because if you do the change is so massive that it’s difficult to comprehend.
I did live before internet bc widespread internet came quite late to my country, and I must say it wasn't all that different. Dating, job search and social interactions were actually easier and more pleasant.
I do believe efficiency gains have been significant. Not as big as with industrial revolution but still effective.
Does not mean that some of these gains have not been wasted or there has not been in sense waste introduced to waste excess productivity and efficiency. IT certainly has made this waste lot more easy to do.
Speedup in communication is fast, but the real physical work still needed to be done. Machines were very powerful with this, but not flexible.
AI powered robots will be flexible (once they work reliable) ..
Most robots are better without AI.
A robot without AI ... is not a robot, but a (remote controlled) drone/machine.
How will South Africans control traffic then?
What?
South Africans use robots to control traffic. They're mounted to poles and have three different colored lights which tell the cars when to go. You're saying they're actually drones?