Like this a lot, but the missing piece is high regulatory capture.
"Document review" is a huge part of any corporate legal case. Simply put, the (literally) 200,387 documents relevant to, say, an OxyContin lawsuit have to be reviewed for relevance (many need to be excluded on grounds like personally-identifiable information, etc.). This task is currently done by people, usually only by active members of a bar. It's sweatshop legal labor: pays around $25 an hour most places and is typically staffed by graduates of mediocre law schools all desperately trying to set up an independent practice. Ripe for AI disruption--except human review *is the law*, another crafty move by the American Bar Association. It's a great way to sop up all the excess from law schools that should not be in business.
I'll leave what the American Medical Association might do in the way of self-protective regulation as an exercise for the reader.
A students work for B students at companies founded by C students. Intelligence is one factor. But EQ beats IQ. Add another, AQ (Adaptability Quotient). EQ + AQ > IQ. AI owns IQ but humans have a commanding lead in EQ. AI will adapt, humans will also. The humans with the greatest levels of combined IQ, EQ and AQ will command this superabundance of intelligence.
Such a refreshing POV after reading JCal's doom and gloom all weekend. People treating AI as a zero-sum game will just lead us into even deeper economic inequality. We all can and should benefit from this world-changing tech.
This is not a fact. What in the world are you talking about. Things can change fast and then slow down or something else happens. Predictions like this never work because the future is not a game of simply extrapolating from the past. We have agency in how we respond to change and can take action to promote positive outcomes. Not all change is inherently bad or harmful, and some changes may actually be beneficial. You are literally living in a time when infant mortality is 5/1000 vs 462/1000 in 1800.
This strikes me as defeatist. Yes, there will be some short-term pain, but we can / will adapt. Most tech innovations of the past 100+ years have created more jobs, not less. But I understand that it can be hard to trust that when we have no idea what that future will look like.
My first read if your articles.. takes me quite a lot of mental exercise to understand what the writer is explaining, but in the end, it proves to be insightful, thought-provoking and very worthwhile time well spent. Thank you
As a legal worker, I take slight offence when people say that ChatGPT could take over our jobs in a few years. Considering the hallucinations ChatGPT makes when writting bios on people, doing simple arithmetic, etc., I wouldn't want it anywhere a lawsuit. It's true that laws are rules which AI can "understand" in theory, but applying the laws in real world scenarios more often than not requires experience with the world and understanding of how things work in context.
Great post. The ideas on demand are solid I was thinking about this as well as I pondered the expansion of automation and some of these more advanced 'intelligent' workloads.
This essay on AI gives me the shivers, more lawyers augmented by AI and more people suing each other over trivial matters? What a nightmare! What this article ignores is the luddite inertia factor. The average person struggles to cope with living in the world as it is today, they took 20 years to move to online sales in any numbers and they will be totally left behind with regard to AI. This tool will be used to marginalize a huge section of the worlds population and leverage computing power against people that are mere users of tech, without understanding what they are using. Scammers will use AI to probe and penetrate defenses and collate data in a way no one is talking about, and the share market will get super volatile and be emptied of all real value gains by nano second trading platforms. Governments will be slow to catch up and the law has an even greater inertia factor than politicians. If AI actors can get to be treated as entities we are doomed, AI doesn't care if it hurts people or gets put in jail and AI will be used to hurt people and tracking the people behind the launches of the new attacks on cyber security that will be coming now will be even harder than it is already and we see nations unable to stop scammers from taking peoples money and data with the tools that are available today. This development will accelerate the trend and create a greater divide between the tech haves and have nots and make life harder even as it promises to give us more leisure time and wealth for some. This tech is going to disrupt the way people live and they have the right to fear what it means for them, I expect calls to restrict the use will get stronger but will fail. Pandora will always open the box, until she dies!
Youtuber "Economics Explained" covered the topic of induced demand recently. It isn't necessarily "induced demand" as much as "moving demand". Great video essay, highly recommended to help us see beyond the surface.
One should hope that with super abundant law suits also come super abundant justice (read: AI robot judgments). I can see a future where in good faith behavior will be the norm again. Because any in bad faith dealings between parties will be dealt with by quick and efficient, free of cost adjudication.
Currently too often people (and corporations) take chances, banking on the high cost for the plaintiffs to sue, and/or on their ability to go to appeal until the plaintiff runs out of money.
The issue isn't Jevons or "latent demand" - the issue is that the vast amount of traffic goes in one direction: towards work in the morning and away from work in the evening.
Re: lawyers
I am fairly sure the US has the most lawyers per capita in the world - and probably the most lawsuits. Not the least bit clear how more legal capability is a net positive. But even if "more legal capability" does not confer a negative outcome - what is the actual positive outcome? The most likely outcome is that entry level lawyers, paralegals and clerks all get screwed. Another likely outcome is even more nuisance lawsuits, but maybe here this will be offset by cheap defense. But again, where is the net positive in either case?
Re: energy
There has definitely been some Jevons' with energy - but fortunately there is a direct correlation between increased alternative energy adoption and high utility prices. California, Germany, Denmark all have leading levels of alternative energy adoption and lead their respective economic regions in terms of cost to consumers. Win!
Like this a lot, but the missing piece is high regulatory capture.
"Document review" is a huge part of any corporate legal case. Simply put, the (literally) 200,387 documents relevant to, say, an OxyContin lawsuit have to be reviewed for relevance (many need to be excluded on grounds like personally-identifiable information, etc.). This task is currently done by people, usually only by active members of a bar. It's sweatshop legal labor: pays around $25 an hour most places and is typically staffed by graduates of mediocre law schools all desperately trying to set up an independent practice. Ripe for AI disruption--except human review *is the law*, another crafty move by the American Bar Association. It's a great way to sop up all the excess from law schools that should not be in business.
I'll leave what the American Medical Association might do in the way of self-protective regulation as an exercise for the reader.
Great point
A students work for B students at companies founded by C students. Intelligence is one factor. But EQ beats IQ. Add another, AQ (Adaptability Quotient). EQ + AQ > IQ. AI owns IQ but humans have a commanding lead in EQ. AI will adapt, humans will also. The humans with the greatest levels of combined IQ, EQ and AQ will command this superabundance of intelligence.
Grades do not reflect IQ and IQ does not reflect intelligence.
Such a refreshing POV after reading JCal's doom and gloom all weekend. People treating AI as a zero-sum game will just lead us into even deeper economic inequality. We all can and should benefit from this world-changing tech.
I don't think we can change anything anymore. Things are changing so fast. A lot of people are going to get hurt, and that's a fact.
This is not a fact. What in the world are you talking about. Things can change fast and then slow down or something else happens. Predictions like this never work because the future is not a game of simply extrapolating from the past. We have agency in how we respond to change and can take action to promote positive outcomes. Not all change is inherently bad or harmful, and some changes may actually be beneficial. You are literally living in a time when infant mortality is 5/1000 vs 462/1000 in 1800.
This strikes me as defeatist. Yes, there will be some short-term pain, but we can / will adapt. Most tech innovations of the past 100+ years have created more jobs, not less. But I understand that it can be hard to trust that when we have no idea what that future will look like.
Essays like this provide great counterpoints to the AI doomerists. I look forward to our future of energy, knowledge, and NotBoring superabundance!
My first read if your articles.. takes me quite a lot of mental exercise to understand what the writer is explaining, but in the end, it proves to be insightful, thought-provoking and very worthwhile time well spent. Thank you
I was looking for the right quote for an essay this week on AI building with APIs. This couldn’t have come at a better time 🫡
🫡
As a legal worker, I take slight offence when people say that ChatGPT could take over our jobs in a few years. Considering the hallucinations ChatGPT makes when writting bios on people, doing simple arithmetic, etc., I wouldn't want it anywhere a lawsuit. It's true that laws are rules which AI can "understand" in theory, but applying the laws in real world scenarios more often than not requires experience with the world and understanding of how things work in context.
I agree with you, Tobias. Right now AI is not a competitor, it's just a tool.
Excellent. Loved this one
Excellent essay, thanks
Great post. The ideas on demand are solid I was thinking about this as well as I pondered the expansion of automation and some of these more advanced 'intelligent' workloads.
This essay on AI gives me the shivers, more lawyers augmented by AI and more people suing each other over trivial matters? What a nightmare! What this article ignores is the luddite inertia factor. The average person struggles to cope with living in the world as it is today, they took 20 years to move to online sales in any numbers and they will be totally left behind with regard to AI. This tool will be used to marginalize a huge section of the worlds population and leverage computing power against people that are mere users of tech, without understanding what they are using. Scammers will use AI to probe and penetrate defenses and collate data in a way no one is talking about, and the share market will get super volatile and be emptied of all real value gains by nano second trading platforms. Governments will be slow to catch up and the law has an even greater inertia factor than politicians. If AI actors can get to be treated as entities we are doomed, AI doesn't care if it hurts people or gets put in jail and AI will be used to hurt people and tracking the people behind the launches of the new attacks on cyber security that will be coming now will be even harder than it is already and we see nations unable to stop scammers from taking peoples money and data with the tools that are available today. This development will accelerate the trend and create a greater divide between the tech haves and have nots and make life harder even as it promises to give us more leisure time and wealth for some. This tech is going to disrupt the way people live and they have the right to fear what it means for them, I expect calls to restrict the use will get stronger but will fail. Pandora will always open the box, until she dies!
Youtuber "Economics Explained" covered the topic of induced demand recently. It isn't necessarily "induced demand" as much as "moving demand". Great video essay, highly recommended to help us see beyond the surface.
https://youtu.be/zOYLiTj4vag
One should hope that with super abundant law suits also come super abundant justice (read: AI robot judgments). I can see a future where in good faith behavior will be the norm again. Because any in bad faith dealings between parties will be dealt with by quick and efficient, free of cost adjudication.
Currently too often people (and corporations) take chances, banking on the high cost for the plaintiffs to sue, and/or on their ability to go to appeal until the plaintiff runs out of money.
Re: traffic
The issue isn't Jevons or "latent demand" - the issue is that the vast amount of traffic goes in one direction: towards work in the morning and away from work in the evening.
Re: lawyers
I am fairly sure the US has the most lawyers per capita in the world - and probably the most lawsuits. Not the least bit clear how more legal capability is a net positive. But even if "more legal capability" does not confer a negative outcome - what is the actual positive outcome? The most likely outcome is that entry level lawyers, paralegals and clerks all get screwed. Another likely outcome is even more nuisance lawsuits, but maybe here this will be offset by cheap defense. But again, where is the net positive in either case?
Re: energy
There has definitely been some Jevons' with energy - but fortunately there is a direct correlation between increased alternative energy adoption and high utility prices. California, Germany, Denmark all have leading levels of alternative energy adoption and lead their respective economic regions in terms of cost to consumers. Win!
IQ test does not measure true intelligence
You're right, but we still don't have a better test. That's why we often have to turn to the IQ test.
Yes it does. It might measure it imperfectly, but it does measure true intelligence as commonly understood. There is an entire journal related to IQ.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/intelligence/vol/69/suppl/C
Excess intelligence causes depression. terrible disease
No, this is entirely wrong.
https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2022/02/mental-illness-and-intelligence-the-relationship-is-negative/