AI is not so impressive as all of that. The best and brightest business leaders are using government funding and public resources to enrich themselves. I think that most people don't understand that most innovation is government funded. And that markets are cooked, too. You see, if you have a 401K, pension, or mutual fund, your retirement is riding on the stock market increasing forever. Most of us need that to happen if we want to retire, but this is not a fix for the economy or the fact that the US is lagging the modern world.
Like every empire, the US will fall from its military ambitions and forever wars, like the current entanglement in Iran that has no exit in sight.
AI as it exists is trained by humans and prompted by humans. It's not as though it's just out there thinking and innovating. It's more like a search engine on steroids. The drugs mentioned in this piece weren't developed by AI alone. Also, the total mentioned is from 2019. None of them are in use yet. AI was used as a tool. Indeed for years computers have been able to do some tasks faster than humans. A pocket calculator from 1982 can multiply two larger numbers faster than I can do it in my head.
for example, health care. The US spends more on health care than other first world countries but has higher infant mortality and lower life expectancy. The idea of the middle class is kinda mythology. After WWII, the US was not destroyed in the way that Europe was. So the US had a period of greatness by virtue of being the last man standing. But it couldn't keep up. Germany and Japan built steel mills that used the basic oxygen furnace and US Steel couldn't keep up. I know everyone things that America is great again, but it's really not. It's now mired in a new war with Iran with no end in sight. This is how empires historically have died, whether Rome the British Empire or that other empire that nobody remembers.
Middle class aside, I’ll take on health care. Here’s the other side of the coin.
Take the NHS in Britain. They allocate a set amount for their health care services—that means rationing. That’s how they control costs.
In the U.S. for a comparison example, we now have a recommendation for colonoscopies at 45 yo. When I had colon cancer, the first journal article I read on such a malady was in the BJM where the authors decried the standards for colonoscopy screening in Britain. Not only was there no universal screening at 65 yo, but rather it required secondary indications to be scheduled. Posting after posting on the Internet from British residents reported delays in colonoscopy screening until the cancer had progressed to be untreatable. I scheduled my colonoscopy in two weeks and was in the hospital for further treatment a couple weeks later.
Another health incident. 18 months ago I had a massive coronary. We have a “Level I Trauma Center” close by (you can read what’s involved in that moniker—but ain’t cheap). Well, within an hour, perhaps a few minutes more, I was in the OR. 2 days later they cut me loose. And here I am today posting silly comments.
The bill arrived from the hospital, $279k as I remember. The folks at Medicare—the Fed’s—paid less than $20k (IIRC). In short, this is sort of a Kabuki dance. The real costs are not really known to the average Joe, and disingenuous governments—those that love to tout to their citizens their “free” health care—cite these ridiculously high numbers that no one pays—including the American uninsured.
I cite the anecdotes above because it is known to me, not hearsay. So when you say we have the most expensive health care in the world, that really means very little, but it’s good demagoguery.
You cite infant mortality, yet do not break down such by race. Look it up, if you can find such for the first world you speak highly of, then talk. You’ll find more than a bit of correlation there. Control for population differences. You cite life expectancy, control for crappy diet and drug addiction, and race. Get back with us. Same for education and gun violence.
Infant mortality is a definition issue. Most European countries don't count it until x days have passed but in the US the count starts with the first breath.
That China played a bit of “hopscotch” early on, I will not disagree. Don’t fail to rebuke our business people and our government for allowing such theft.
But that was then, this is now. Way back when, before retirement, faculty in my department were working with Chinese faculty on research papers. I posed such a question to one I knew well. He was very pleased with his collaboration with his Chinese colleagues. I remember this well because I was of your opinion then.
Here’s a ChatGPT table reproduction from another article I read recently:
Rank. Country. Research Share (2024)
1. China. 32,122
2. United States. 22,083
3. Germany. 5,001
4. United Kingdom 3,942
5. Japan. 3,185
That’s a crude rebuttal by the simple fact that quantity is not the same as quality in research, but it goes to show China’s not a stiff in the publishing game.
Publishing is an easy way to game the numbers. My profession is information security and China not only stole all their tech, they are still doing it just as deeply and as rapidly as ever. Why bother actually doing research when you can just rip it off? From their point of view, the West is populated by suckers.
You can’t have it both ways. You’ve assumed that China stole all their tech. I showed some evidence that they’ve caught up. I can show more wrt their current production of goods. You ask (implicit in your comment) that we simply write off China as thieves and know nothings. That is a dangerous and most likely a false assumption. In any event, the essence of your argument is one from authority. I’m not buying it. You simply don’t build and maintain an industrial economy such as China has today by continuing to copy/steal from other developed nations. If you want to criticize them, pick on the nature of their business practices as they attempt to make work a capitalistic system in a high, non-trust society. Their growth in the last 50 years makes our industrial rise look benign, environmentally and socially. They make “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair look mild.
So now the “modern world” boils down to one, and only one, competitor, China. And you have the audacity to begin your comment with LOL. Figures, most commenters in forums are pretty clueless when they think they’ve made a point.
The US is riding an AI bubble, and just like the previous bubbles the US will crash-land. And when we sold our soul to China for cheaper goods, we also sold out in technology and production. Remember the DotCom bubble? That will be a cakewalk to what's coming.
What about the “dot com” bubble. The technology that stemmed from that “bubble’ is all around us, never went away, it was real. So too will AI technology continue. The stock market has *zero* to do with technology and technological advance. That’s just people investing, or as they say “betting on the come”. Before the so called bubble, “dot.com” companies came and went. It was the norm. The bubble was just an investor adjustment as to the price and earnings of those companies that remained in the market.
Very good article. Ironically, one that makes me glad that I’m old and won’t be around to see the process unfold much longer. The world belongs to the young and those who can adjust accordingly.
BS! The real reason for Ai is to destroy humanity and the environment to completely track, trace, surveil and control humanity for the supposed, Insane Psychopathic Amoral Demented Terrorist Drug Addict, 'Masters"!
the stock market is not the economy. Jordan, you are a world- class journalist, but you need to learn finance. The vast majority of the AI “value” is debt financed; paper IOUs. It’s a massive circular financing scheme. Google reported negative FCF (free cash flow) for first time in history. META cannot sustain its Capex. ORCL is close to bankruptcy. Bond holders and banks are walking away. Like when the animals run to high ground long before a Tsunmai hits land, pay attention. https://georgenoble.substack.com/p/openai-is-going-to-take-this-entire?r=4mo4y&utm_medium=ios
Well said. If the majority of earnings in the stock market were from AI companies, then this article's statements could be taken seriously. My fear is that some journalists are being paid to prop up a narrative. I have no idea if that's true in this case but why else would someone as smart as JS say stuff like this.
AI is NOT ready to do most of the jobs the pro-=AI pushers are marketing it to do. I routinely work with AI and with as often as its wrong it still shocks me how many are willing to embrace it. If you replace an employee with AI then you deserve the destruction that will bring you.
Let's say thru some miracle they actually get AI working so it can do the jobs humans do. In that case AI will destroy the economy. not save it., How so?
Once AI can actually work no CEO will be able to resist replacing every single human being with AI so as to reduce their labor costs to as low as possible. Even if they don't want to they'll be forced to b/c other companies will.
Once unemployment is in the high 90% range b/c everything is being done by AI, where are humans to get currency from to buy the products and services these companies make? The government will then introduce UBI; Universal Basic Income. The government does not create wealth it can only steal wealth from others either directly via taxes or indirectly via inflation; money printing. Initially they will print money to cover the cost but it won't take long to realize that is not a viable solution so then they 'll pass new taxes on AI usage and the rate will be very high as it will take that high a taxation to steal enough wealth to pay for UBI.
Once the companies are paying these abusive AI taxes they no longer will be as profitable and likely will be right back where they were before they replaced all humans with AI except that now that have a far less reliable work force. Unlike human employees the existing AI can't learn/exp[and. The employer will have to routinely upgrade or replace the existing AI with newer better versions to stay competitive.
So in the end we'll have most humans unemployed, totally dependent on government for everything. This will be a huge win for the politicians who are power mad but everyone else will be a loser in this new prison. None of this takes into account what having so many people with soo much and nothing to do will lead too. A small percentage will seek hobbies and other activities but the overwhelming majority will burn thru all existing entertainment within a year or 2 and then will demand more and the industry will be unable to keep up b/c just as with the Romans, the days of bread & circus will continually demand more extreme forms of entertainment.
The ONLY way to integrate AI successful is if it is a tool used by humans and not a replacement for humans.
“The ONLY way to integrate AI successful is if it is a tool used by humans and not a replacement for humans.”
I appreciate the sentiment, but the application eludes me. As the adage goes (I paraphrase): “AI (Like fire) is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” As I said in many a missive, AI is dangerous—not because it (could) replace(s) humans in the job force, but because it will make incompetent people appear competent. Imagine how many in the workforce, who are already known to be incompetent, will scoot by with the aid of their favorite AI—to rise and make even bigger and more costly mistakes.
Yes indeed, AI should be used as a tool—but by competent users. Duplicitous charlatans need not apply.
Absolutely. When hiring if you're going to have any tests or questions be certain the interviewee can not use any tool at all other than their head. I'd be the same way 50 years ago hiring a cashier for the bank. Even though calculators would be allowed and used I'd still insist on seeing the potential hire do basic math in their head. You fear is already proving out as college professors are reporting students trying to use AI to do their work for them and I guarantee you we've already had graduates who should not have graduated but did b/c no one caught them using AIO simply b/c they were smart enough to know to double-check the work AI creates and not just copy and paste it.
I however fear we'll see more incompetent people in the next 5-10 years from that DEI non-sense and not b/c of AI. There are college students who somehow graduated high school and got into an actual college (vs a trade school or community college) and yet could not read this paragraph I just composed mas some of the words would be to tricky for them to even sound out correctly.
We likely have thousands in college who should not be there and could not get in the college had they been required to meet all the normal requirements without any help or tools and no special accommodation for ethnicity, sex, or anything else that colleges have been giving out to get as many students as they can. Once the Fed Gov got heavily into the Student Loan business the colleges, the system itself, got heavily into expansion and student enrollment increases so as to get as many with federal backed student loans enrolled and paying. They no longer care about the best and brightest, just hitting max enrollment.
“We likely have thousands in college who should not be there…”
There is no “likely”—we do! Unless of course you wish to redefine college/university to something along the lines of remedial H.S. studies. Last I read, the current most degreed cohort (from ChatGPT):
“Millennials (1981–1996) ~43–45% bachelor’s or higher”
Generation Z’ers are tied, but they are not yet through their educational attainment years.
So what does this mean? Depends on your definition of tertiary eduction. Mine is that we take the best and brightest minds the country produces and refine and perfect them. Last I heard—check it out for yourself—the average IQ of a college/university attendee was 104! Well, that’s not the “best and the brightest” in my book. That’s like the average “Joe” off of the street. Years ago, they’d have to settle for a H.S. Diploma and perhaps trade school or apprenticeship.
How can there be so many in University? Easy, lower standards and create faux degree areas. Real studies—those benefiting from university such as the STEM fields, say Engineering, have a much higher average IQ. From ChatGPT:
The average of STEM students a bit lower at 115-120. The distribution of IQ scores would indicate that in order to major in a real discipline like STEM you need to be in the top 10-14% or so of the population. However as pointed out above, we have an average IQ of attendees at close to the 50% IQ level. Juggle the numbers as you will, but I’d say we easily have twice as many students in college/university as we need or should have. A vast waste of societal resources.
Now image those low level graduates all with AI access, using such to construct their resumes, write application letters, and whatever it takes to get into a position…. I find that a scary thought. Although others will consider it a win. We shall see.
If the millions of bureaucrats stop the strangle, they have no way to get rich. This is the problem with letting your government get really big. It needs to get really small.
"We have only bits and pieces of information. But what we know for certain is at some point in the early 21st century all of mankind was united in celebration. We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to A.I.
A.I., you mean artificial intelligence?
A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines. We don't know who struck first, us or them, but we know that it was us that scorched the sky."
" The study is a stark reminder that AI has reached ubiquity not necessarily because users around the globe are demanding AI products, but for reasons often closer to the opposite. "
"AI is being imposed on billions of users, rather than eagerly adopted."
Jordon the stock market is 100% manipulated by the powers to be. The AI boom will mostly go the same way of the Dot com boom.
That 401K statement isn't real - get used to seeing it at 10% of today's value - that is how we get to welcome to 2030 you own nothing. AI will make sure you have no privacy.
The US Federal government is technically financially bankrupt. It has been required by law to have audited GAAP based financial statements starting in FY97. It is almost 30 years of annual "disclaimers" by the auditors. The books and controls are so bad, the statements can't be audited. The Great Reset will fix that problem.
"AI Will Save the US Economy" -- I was looking forward to reading this, because I truly want to see how it will happen. Because I don't yet.
All of the investment and construction? It happened in the 2000s. The only healthy part of the economy was home building. That is downstream of wealth building; you need to have wealth from somewhere to buy a new house. We were borrowing from the future, which of course, stopped. All of the AI investment is the same thing, unless AI actually creates wealth.
You give two use cases -- drug trials and solopreneurs. I definitely see it for solopreneurs. Sure, drug trials as well.
Solopreneuring can spark a great new age in small businesses. Any guesses as to what it will look like? Our kids are 20 and 17. I would definitely support them in joining in. I get that we're essentially in a time of basic research where you mess around and find something useful. But what are some directions that it may take? I am genuinely curious.
Drug trials, I can definitely see the value for them. What else is like that, where you throw stuff against the wall a few thousand times to see what sticks? What other applications can AI do this for?
Besides these two areas, where else can AI create value? We need more than these two in order to save the US economy.
This is probably the dumbest idea I've seen put forward. Replacing humans with machines is going to put lots of people out of work. The question is not whether AI is beneficial. It's whether or not it should be the driver of the economy at all.
Do you actually believe the nonsense idea that somehow AI is saving the economy? You claim you want people to be self-sufficient, but you don't want people to have jobs and be functional members of society. You want AI to replace them as workers.
It's not just the doomers. The industry has to accommodate locals concerned about water and power. There are answers but trying to bulldoze opposition is going to backfire and hand the issue to the Left.
I do see what Joran is saying but why do these huge infrastructure have to ruin farm land and spoil beautiful countryside?
I live in GB in South West England, we are currently engaged in a fight against a huge data centre and massive battery storage being built on 850 acres of excellent farm land which will be a massive blight on our landscape. Surely they should be built on old or existing industrial sites.
When our daughter lived in Texas I remember her saying GB would fit in to Texas twice. The USA is a massive country with plenty of room for such infrastructures so go ahead but we are furious at the imposition with no consultation until the very last minute......so....we're up for the fight.
AI is not so impressive as all of that. The best and brightest business leaders are using government funding and public resources to enrich themselves. I think that most people don't understand that most innovation is government funded. And that markets are cooked, too. You see, if you have a 401K, pension, or mutual fund, your retirement is riding on the stock market increasing forever. Most of us need that to happen if we want to retire, but this is not a fix for the economy or the fact that the US is lagging the modern world.
Like every empire, the US will fall from its military ambitions and forever wars, like the current entanglement in Iran that has no exit in sight.
AI as it exists is trained by humans and prompted by humans. It's not as though it's just out there thinking and innovating. It's more like a search engine on steroids. The drugs mentioned in this piece weren't developed by AI alone. Also, the total mentioned is from 2019. None of them are in use yet. AI was used as a tool. Indeed for years computers have been able to do some tasks faster than humans. A pocket calculator from 1982 can multiply two larger numbers faster than I can do it in my head.
“…this is not a fix for the economy or the fact that the US is lagging the modern world.”
Last I looked, the U.S. was the cleanest dirty shirt in the hamper. We lag who? In what?
for example, health care. The US spends more on health care than other first world countries but has higher infant mortality and lower life expectancy. The idea of the middle class is kinda mythology. After WWII, the US was not destroyed in the way that Europe was. So the US had a period of greatness by virtue of being the last man standing. But it couldn't keep up. Germany and Japan built steel mills that used the basic oxygen furnace and US Steel couldn't keep up. I know everyone things that America is great again, but it's really not. It's now mired in a new war with Iran with no end in sight. This is how empires historically have died, whether Rome the British Empire or that other empire that nobody remembers.
Middle class aside, I’ll take on health care. Here’s the other side of the coin.
Take the NHS in Britain. They allocate a set amount for their health care services—that means rationing. That’s how they control costs.
In the U.S. for a comparison example, we now have a recommendation for colonoscopies at 45 yo. When I had colon cancer, the first journal article I read on such a malady was in the BJM where the authors decried the standards for colonoscopy screening in Britain. Not only was there no universal screening at 65 yo, but rather it required secondary indications to be scheduled. Posting after posting on the Internet from British residents reported delays in colonoscopy screening until the cancer had progressed to be untreatable. I scheduled my colonoscopy in two weeks and was in the hospital for further treatment a couple weeks later.
Another health incident. 18 months ago I had a massive coronary. We have a “Level I Trauma Center” close by (you can read what’s involved in that moniker—but ain’t cheap). Well, within an hour, perhaps a few minutes more, I was in the OR. 2 days later they cut me loose. And here I am today posting silly comments.
The bill arrived from the hospital, $279k as I remember. The folks at Medicare—the Fed’s—paid less than $20k (IIRC). In short, this is sort of a Kabuki dance. The real costs are not really known to the average Joe, and disingenuous governments—those that love to tout to their citizens their “free” health care—cite these ridiculously high numbers that no one pays—including the American uninsured.
I cite the anecdotes above because it is known to me, not hearsay. So when you say we have the most expensive health care in the world, that really means very little, but it’s good demagoguery.
You cite infant mortality, yet do not break down such by race. Look it up, if you can find such for the first world you speak highly of, then talk. You’ll find more than a bit of correlation there. Control for population differences. You cite life expectancy, control for crappy diet and drug addiction, and race. Get back with us. Same for education and gun violence.
Infant mortality is a definition issue. Most European countries don't count it until x days have passed but in the US the count starts with the first breath.
LOL. TECHNOLOGY. China is superior in virtually every field. The ONLY thing the US does is build weapons, and we suck at that as well.
China has no innovative technology that they did not steal from the West, 95% of the time the U.S. We lag no one.
True but they are trying to catch up: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-87-ww3?
That China played a bit of “hopscotch” early on, I will not disagree. Don’t fail to rebuke our business people and our government for allowing such theft.
But that was then, this is now. Way back when, before retirement, faculty in my department were working with Chinese faculty on research papers. I posed such a question to one I knew well. He was very pleased with his collaboration with his Chinese colleagues. I remember this well because I was of your opinion then.
Here’s a ChatGPT table reproduction from another article I read recently:
Rank. Country. Research Share (2024)
1. China. 32,122
2. United States. 22,083
3. Germany. 5,001
4. United Kingdom 3,942
5. Japan. 3,185
That’s a crude rebuttal by the simple fact that quantity is not the same as quality in research, but it goes to show China’s not a stiff in the publishing game.
Publishing is an easy way to game the numbers. My profession is information security and China not only stole all their tech, they are still doing it just as deeply and as rapidly as ever. Why bother actually doing research when you can just rip it off? From their point of view, the West is populated by suckers.
You can’t have it both ways. You’ve assumed that China stole all their tech. I showed some evidence that they’ve caught up. I can show more wrt their current production of goods. You ask (implicit in your comment) that we simply write off China as thieves and know nothings. That is a dangerous and most likely a false assumption. In any event, the essence of your argument is one from authority. I’m not buying it. You simply don’t build and maintain an industrial economy such as China has today by continuing to copy/steal from other developed nations. If you want to criticize them, pick on the nature of their business practices as they attempt to make work a capitalistic system in a high, non-trust society. Their growth in the last 50 years makes our industrial rise look benign, environmentally and socially. They make “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair look mild.
“…US is lagging the modern world.”
So now the “modern world” boils down to one, and only one, competitor, China. And you have the audacity to begin your comment with LOL. Figures, most commenters in forums are pretty clueless when they think they’ve made a point.
The US is riding an AI bubble, and just like the previous bubbles the US will crash-land. And when we sold our soul to China for cheaper goods, we also sold out in technology and production. Remember the DotCom bubble? That will be a cakewalk to what's coming.
What about the “dot com” bubble. The technology that stemmed from that “bubble’ is all around us, never went away, it was real. So too will AI technology continue. The stock market has *zero* to do with technology and technological advance. That’s just people investing, or as they say “betting on the come”. Before the so called bubble, “dot.com” companies came and went. It was the norm. The bubble was just an investor adjustment as to the price and earnings of those companies that remained in the market.
Very good article. Ironically, one that makes me glad that I’m old and won’t be around to see the process unfold much longer. The world belongs to the young and those who can adjust accordingly.
BS! The real reason for Ai is to destroy humanity and the environment to completely track, trace, surveil and control humanity for the supposed, Insane Psychopathic Amoral Demented Terrorist Drug Addict, 'Masters"!
the stock market is not the economy. Jordan, you are a world- class journalist, but you need to learn finance. The vast majority of the AI “value” is debt financed; paper IOUs. It’s a massive circular financing scheme. Google reported negative FCF (free cash flow) for first time in history. META cannot sustain its Capex. ORCL is close to bankruptcy. Bond holders and banks are walking away. Like when the animals run to high ground long before a Tsunmai hits land, pay attention. https://georgenoble.substack.com/p/openai-is-going-to-take-this-entire?r=4mo4y&utm_medium=ios
Well said. If the majority of earnings in the stock market were from AI companies, then this article's statements could be taken seriously. My fear is that some journalists are being paid to prop up a narrative. I have no idea if that's true in this case but why else would someone as smart as JS say stuff like this.
AI is NOT ready to do most of the jobs the pro-=AI pushers are marketing it to do. I routinely work with AI and with as often as its wrong it still shocks me how many are willing to embrace it. If you replace an employee with AI then you deserve the destruction that will bring you.
Let's say thru some miracle they actually get AI working so it can do the jobs humans do. In that case AI will destroy the economy. not save it., How so?
Once AI can actually work no CEO will be able to resist replacing every single human being with AI so as to reduce their labor costs to as low as possible. Even if they don't want to they'll be forced to b/c other companies will.
Once unemployment is in the high 90% range b/c everything is being done by AI, where are humans to get currency from to buy the products and services these companies make? The government will then introduce UBI; Universal Basic Income. The government does not create wealth it can only steal wealth from others either directly via taxes or indirectly via inflation; money printing. Initially they will print money to cover the cost but it won't take long to realize that is not a viable solution so then they 'll pass new taxes on AI usage and the rate will be very high as it will take that high a taxation to steal enough wealth to pay for UBI.
Once the companies are paying these abusive AI taxes they no longer will be as profitable and likely will be right back where they were before they replaced all humans with AI except that now that have a far less reliable work force. Unlike human employees the existing AI can't learn/exp[and. The employer will have to routinely upgrade or replace the existing AI with newer better versions to stay competitive.
So in the end we'll have most humans unemployed, totally dependent on government for everything. This will be a huge win for the politicians who are power mad but everyone else will be a loser in this new prison. None of this takes into account what having so many people with soo much and nothing to do will lead too. A small percentage will seek hobbies and other activities but the overwhelming majority will burn thru all existing entertainment within a year or 2 and then will demand more and the industry will be unable to keep up b/c just as with the Romans, the days of bread & circus will continually demand more extreme forms of entertainment.
The ONLY way to integrate AI successful is if it is a tool used by humans and not a replacement for humans.
“The ONLY way to integrate AI successful is if it is a tool used by humans and not a replacement for humans.”
I appreciate the sentiment, but the application eludes me. As the adage goes (I paraphrase): “AI (Like fire) is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” As I said in many a missive, AI is dangerous—not because it (could) replace(s) humans in the job force, but because it will make incompetent people appear competent. Imagine how many in the workforce, who are already known to be incompetent, will scoot by with the aid of their favorite AI—to rise and make even bigger and more costly mistakes.
Yes indeed, AI should be used as a tool—but by competent users. Duplicitous charlatans need not apply.
Absolutely. When hiring if you're going to have any tests or questions be certain the interviewee can not use any tool at all other than their head. I'd be the same way 50 years ago hiring a cashier for the bank. Even though calculators would be allowed and used I'd still insist on seeing the potential hire do basic math in their head. You fear is already proving out as college professors are reporting students trying to use AI to do their work for them and I guarantee you we've already had graduates who should not have graduated but did b/c no one caught them using AIO simply b/c they were smart enough to know to double-check the work AI creates and not just copy and paste it.
I however fear we'll see more incompetent people in the next 5-10 years from that DEI non-sense and not b/c of AI. There are college students who somehow graduated high school and got into an actual college (vs a trade school or community college) and yet could not read this paragraph I just composed mas some of the words would be to tricky for them to even sound out correctly.
We likely have thousands in college who should not be there and could not get in the college had they been required to meet all the normal requirements without any help or tools and no special accommodation for ethnicity, sex, or anything else that colleges have been giving out to get as many students as they can. Once the Fed Gov got heavily into the Student Loan business the colleges, the system itself, got heavily into expansion and student enrollment increases so as to get as many with federal backed student loans enrolled and paying. They no longer care about the best and brightest, just hitting max enrollment.
“We likely have thousands in college who should not be there…”
There is no “likely”—we do! Unless of course you wish to redefine college/university to something along the lines of remedial H.S. studies. Last I read, the current most degreed cohort (from ChatGPT):
“Millennials (1981–1996) ~43–45% bachelor’s or higher”
Generation Z’ers are tied, but they are not yet through their educational attainment years.
So what does this mean? Depends on your definition of tertiary eduction. Mine is that we take the best and brightest minds the country produces and refine and perfect them. Last I heard—check it out for yourself—the average IQ of a college/university attendee was 104! Well, that’s not the “best and the brightest” in my book. That’s like the average “Joe” off of the street. Years ago, they’d have to settle for a H.S. Diploma and perhaps trade school or apprenticeship.
How can there be so many in University? Easy, lower standards and create faux degree areas. Real studies—those benefiting from university such as the STEM fields, say Engineering, have a much higher average IQ. From ChatGPT:
“Engineering students/graduates. 120–125 (rough estimate)”
The average of STEM students a bit lower at 115-120. The distribution of IQ scores would indicate that in order to major in a real discipline like STEM you need to be in the top 10-14% or so of the population. However as pointed out above, we have an average IQ of attendees at close to the 50% IQ level. Juggle the numbers as you will, but I’d say we easily have twice as many students in college/university as we need or should have. A vast waste of societal resources.
Now image those low level graduates all with AI access, using such to construct their resumes, write application letters, and whatever it takes to get into a position…. I find that a scary thought. Although others will consider it a win. We shall see.
Amen.
If the millions of bureaucrats stop the strangle, they have no way to get rich. This is the problem with letting your government get really big. It needs to get really small.
"We have only bits and pieces of information. But what we know for certain is at some point in the early 21st century all of mankind was united in celebration. We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to A.I.
A.I., you mean artificial intelligence?
A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines. We don't know who struck first, us or them, but we know that it was us that scorched the sky."
https://youtu.be/O5b0ZxUWNf0?si=X9AKeNrBzEphIdvA
" The study is a stark reminder that AI has reached ubiquity not necessarily because users around the globe are demanding AI products, but for reasons often closer to the opposite. "
"AI is being imposed on billions of users, rather than eagerly adopted."
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/how-big-tech-is-force-feeding-us
Jordon the stock market is 100% manipulated by the powers to be. The AI boom will mostly go the same way of the Dot com boom.
That 401K statement isn't real - get used to seeing it at 10% of today's value - that is how we get to welcome to 2030 you own nothing. AI will make sure you have no privacy.
The US Federal government is technically financially bankrupt. It has been required by law to have audited GAAP based financial statements starting in FY97. It is almost 30 years of annual "disclaimers" by the auditors. The books and controls are so bad, the statements can't be audited. The Great Reset will fix that problem.
"AI Will Save the US Economy" -- I was looking forward to reading this, because I truly want to see how it will happen. Because I don't yet.
All of the investment and construction? It happened in the 2000s. The only healthy part of the economy was home building. That is downstream of wealth building; you need to have wealth from somewhere to buy a new house. We were borrowing from the future, which of course, stopped. All of the AI investment is the same thing, unless AI actually creates wealth.
You give two use cases -- drug trials and solopreneurs. I definitely see it for solopreneurs. Sure, drug trials as well.
Solopreneuring can spark a great new age in small businesses. Any guesses as to what it will look like? Our kids are 20 and 17. I would definitely support them in joining in. I get that we're essentially in a time of basic research where you mess around and find something useful. But what are some directions that it may take? I am genuinely curious.
Drug trials, I can definitely see the value for them. What else is like that, where you throw stuff against the wall a few thousand times to see what sticks? What other applications can AI do this for?
Besides these two areas, where else can AI create value? We need more than these two in order to save the US economy.
Your logic is spot on ... especially re China, how it would love to see political spanners thrown into the American AI flywheel ...
AI is going to kill most of us
This is probably the dumbest idea I've seen put forward. Replacing humans with machines is going to put lots of people out of work. The question is not whether AI is beneficial. It's whether or not it should be the driver of the economy at all.
Do you actually believe the nonsense idea that somehow AI is saving the economy? You claim you want people to be self-sufficient, but you don't want people to have jobs and be functional members of society. You want AI to replace them as workers.
It's not just the doomers. The industry has to accommodate locals concerned about water and power. There are answers but trying to bulldoze opposition is going to backfire and hand the issue to the Left.
“A Tour de Force essay on capital allocation. Simply brilliant and applicable to AI.” It’s long but if you have ANY interest or money invested, you cannot afford to ignore: https://x.com/lawrencelepard/status/2083909885679243398?s=46
I do see what Joran is saying but why do these huge infrastructure have to ruin farm land and spoil beautiful countryside?
I live in GB in South West England, we are currently engaged in a fight against a huge data centre and massive battery storage being built on 850 acres of excellent farm land which will be a massive blight on our landscape. Surely they should be built on old or existing industrial sites.
When our daughter lived in Texas I remember her saying GB would fit in to Texas twice. The USA is a massive country with plenty of room for such infrastructures so go ahead but we are furious at the imposition with no consultation until the very last minute......so....we're up for the fight.
Carol
This is indeed an epic battle - the outcome is a bet I wouldn't take at any price:
https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-87-ww3?