Vivek Wadhwa: “Every great technological leap is preceded by a period of frustration and false starts, but when the inflection point hits, it leads to breakthroughs that change everything. That’s where we’re headed with AI. When the next S-curve hits, it will make today’s technology look primitive by comparison. The lemmings may have run off a cliff with their investments, but for those paying attention, the real AI revolution is just beginning.”
The Daily Economy: “Adam Smith said it all, in Wealth of Nations: “The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.” Now, we might interpret “toil” as the cost, or money price, of the thing, and “trouble” as the transaction cost, or inconvenience of the purchase. Then an increase in either the money price, or an increase in trouble, are both cost increases. Demand curves slope downward, so people are better off if the price, or the “trouble,” are reduced. They are substitutes, for citizens. The problem is that these two costs are not seen as substitutes for bureaucracies, not at all. The result is that citizens are constantly paying substantial, and easily avoidable, “taxes” in the form of trouble, just so bureaucracies can save money.”
Dario Amodei: “I think innovation is going to coexist with this industrial scaling up. Getting to very powerful AI, I don’t think there’s one point. We’re going to get more and more capable systems over time. My view is that we’re basically on the right track and unlikely to be more than a few years away. And, yeah, it’s going to be continuous, but fast.”
NYTimes: “Whether you’ve bought detergent or just had a colonoscopy, every store, website, health care provider, airline, credit card company, hotel and car dealership wants to know if you’re satisfied, how they could improve and whether you’ll recommend them. Fueled by the ease of responding online, our inboxes are now clogged with multiple requests per day for five-star ratings and glowing reviews. And today no transaction, however mundane, comes without a plea for feedback. Drivers who retrieve their cars from the valet at the Residence Inn in Berkeley, Calif., immediately receive a text message asking, “How was your valet parking experience?” The simple act of delivering a parked car now becomes an “experience” that needs to be rated. The quest for reviews “is the ultimate fetishization of capitalism,” said Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “For centuries, our buy/sell relationship was akin to a one-night stand. Now every transaction is the beginning of a relationship,” one that introduces a social dimension with the supplier.”
