Mastodawn

1. Replace workers with AI.
2. Now instead of wages you pay a company for AI services.
3. Despite the likely decline in quality of the work, suppose you become dependent as a company on this service. Suppose you make it work.
4. AI is heavily subsidized by venture capital, its priced lower than the cost to provide the service to attract early adopters (and to lock companies like you in.)
5. Inevitably the AI bubble bursts, AI services jack up their prices.

How is paying rent better than wages?

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myrmepropagandist 2d ago

I can understand the urge to cut the cost of wages. Wages are the greatest expense for most companies. But, they have to know it's not gonna "get cheaper" it will get more expensive. Maybe they plan to retool their production process two times over? Seems inefficient.

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myrmepropagandist 2d ago

People keep saying this is like buying machines to replace factory line workers, but it's not. It's renting machines to replace workers. And renting them from people who are on the verge of becoming desperate since they aren't making a profit.

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sollat

@futurebird
And the machine makers can decide at any moment that the model you’ve built your service around is no longer available due to maintenance issues or because they’ve decided to pivot. And then you’re SOL.