dankai4d ago

The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

https://danielhomola.com/m%20&%20e/ai/your-bridge-to-wealth-is-being-pulled-up/

Your bridge to wealth is being pulled up

For two centuries, the credential system gave intelligence a route to heritable capital. Artificial intelligence is closing that route. This essay builds the argument from first principles - with probability theory, interactive simulations, and a prediction specific enough to be falsifiable - and puts a number on the window that remains.

Daniel Homola
Show threadbloppe

Until I see median real income start to actually go down, I just don't buy it.

AI is currently a commodity. Maybe one of the labs will be able to differentiate sufficiently to be able to charge the kinds of premiums they need just to pay back their investors. Maybe, instead, we'll see something akin to the FOSS revolution, where large, high-quality, open training sets are developed to make sure there's always a fair alternative to the big players. Then who actually benefits from AI? Mainly users, not companies.

In many ways, the bar to having a competitive advantage is actually lowering. I reckon in the future, simply avoiding a crippling social media addiction that sucks up 4-8 hours of every day will be enough to get rich.

Mar 24 at 3:32pmWeb
Show threadshafyy4d ago
You can't just look at real median income. You also need to look at other factors like wealth inequality, housing prices and health care.
Show threadtrolleski4d ago

If you denominate your income in silly money such as USD, then it won't go down, probably will go up!

However if you start asking questions on how much housing medical and materials it buys, then I think it will squeeze people even more than now.

Show threadapercu4d ago

> Until I see median real income start to actually go down

I'm not sure I understand this, it doesn't feel like what I have "lived" for the least 30 years.

Median real income might not be down statistically, but the purchasing power of professional incomes relative to housing, education, and major life costs clearly feels lower than it did in the mid 90s. An inflation-adjusted six-figure salary today does not deliver the same lifestyle position it once did.

Man... healthcare costs, too. Hell, even computers! Raw computing power per dollar is cheaper than ever, but the minimum spec required to function professionally has risen so much that the real cost of staying technologically current feels higher.