Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by krashidov 28 days ago
> If AI is going to 10x our productivity across the board, that means that I should be able to produce the same amount of output by midday on Monday that, in the before times, would have taken all week.

That would be true if you and only you are 10x more productive than anyone else. Since everyone is now 10x more productive it just means you have to work just as much as before since you're competition can outwork you. I don't get why people don't understand this.
4 comments
lmm 28 days ago
> That would be true if you and only you are 10x more productive than anyone else. Since everyone is now 10x more productive it just means you have to work just as much as before since you're competition can outwork you.

Why? I don't need 10x more stuff. I'd far rather spend 10x less time working. If we're talking about an actual productivity increase, let's just produce the same amount of stuff in 10x less time.

link
markive 28 days ago
Because your competitor can now produce 10x more work with the same resources that your company can only produce 1x, therefore in short order your company isn't competitive and will cease to exist.
link
mil22 28 days ago
> Why? I don't need 10x more stuff. I'd far rather spend 10x less time working.

It's a free market - if you can find someone willing to hire you to work 0.5 days a week, and are happy receiving the same income you do today, you can do so.

But your living standards won't improve, while everyone else's will, and by 10x.

And the people you are competing with to buy housing, a car, consumer goods, healthcare, food, and everything else - people who want to work 5 days a week - will have 10x more money than you. Resources like housing, which are supply constrained, will seem to go up dramatically in price relative to your income, and you'll be living in a slum.

Does that still sound like a good idea?

link
lmm 28 days ago
> Resources like housing, which are supply constrained, will seem to go up dramatically in price relative to your income, and you'll be living in a slum.

That sounds like a problem with that system. If we're 10x more productive why can't we make 10x as much nice housing?

link
mil22 27 days ago
> That sounds like a problem with that system. If we're 10x more productive why can't we make 10x as much nice housing?

Because the supply of land is relatively inelastic (and to some extent building materials and construction labor). There isn't suddenly 10x more land on the planet because we all start using AI. Maybe we can make more land or build taller buildings, but it gets progressively more difficult and expensive. And because of NIMBY of course.

link
themanmaran 28 days ago
Sure the consumer won't consume 10x more, but they're still going to reach for the better products.

And let's say that work is correlated with quality. Company A wants to spend 10x less time working, while Company B works 10x more. Company B therefore has a better product than Company A, so eventually Company A goes away. The consumer still consumed the same amount, but they switched to the better product.

link
lmm 28 days ago
> The consumer still consumed the same amount, but they switched to the better product.

Either the product was 10x better, which I don't think I need, or it wasn't really a 10x increase in productivity.

link
krashidov 28 days ago
> Why? I don't need 10x more stuff.

If everyone had said this 100 years ago we wouldn't have the Polio vaccine, air conditioning etc.

There are lots of problems in the world and there are still a ton of incentives to fix those problems. Yes there is also greed, scams, and exploitation - but that's never going to go away

link
lmm 28 days ago
> If everyone had said this 100 years ago we wouldn't have the Polio vaccine, air conditioning etc.

If we got a 4-hour work week that might be a worthwhile trade.

link
krashidov 27 days ago
I agree it would be nice. Technically you can start a company and do 4 day work weeks only
link
themanmaran 28 days ago
Yea it's always been competition that's the issue. Greed too. But complacency is really difficult as a business owner.

In the world where someone can take your cake by working 25% more hours, it's always going to happen.

link
thundergolfer 28 days ago
This is downvoted but's it pointing out a fundamental dynamic in capitalism. Labour activists had to intervene in this dynamic to protect workers from being exhausted by the constant need for capital to increase labour exploitation to increase profits.

Almost this entire thread is people discussing a labour issue with no reference to the fundamental antagonism between labour and capital.

link
mil22 28 days ago
This comment should not be getting downvoted. It's exactly right.
link