Thanks for the archived link... This is some scary shit here.

Earlier this year, Warren Buffett disclosed that he closed out Berkshire Hathaway's position in the S&P 500. Looking at this, it looks like it was a sound business practice.

Worth your time to read. It goes through many of the issues I have with AI, and points out that it is a failure. What I wasn't aware of is the way that the tech bros have falsely created their own stock value lie and stolen billions from our portfolios.

Could Crypto be done legitimately and have an inherent use, yes. Is it, NO! Right now the most value to be gained from both by the financial class is not in what good they could do, it's what can they grift off them for the fastest, biggest bang for their buck.

Bookmarking. Thank you, for posting it.

Intelligent automation will reduce demand for human workers dramatically over the next decade. The problem is manifold.
1) A lot less people will have the necessary income to support themselves and their families.
2) Demand for goods and services will shrink as available dollars for non-essential items also shrinks, further reducing the job market.
3) The government will need to shift it's priorities to compensate for a different kind of population; one even more seriously divided between the haves and the have nots.
4) Elections will be seen as a serious obstacle to maintaining government in the hands of those who are seen as worthy to lead.
5) The government will need to be more authoritarian to protect itself and those whom it deems as worthy citizens from those who have little value, and might look to violence to recoup what they are expected to lose.

This does appear to be driving the long range planning by the republicans. They see the need to drastically reduce the number of people in the country who they perceive as not being able to contribute to this changing employment picture.
They are redesigning the government to phase out any program that supports certain types of people. Elimination of retired people who they see as a burden (useless eaters) along with people with serious illnesses and/or disabilities is part of how they plan to do this.
They also don't see the need for an educated workforce, since a lot of the jobs that will still be there will be semi-skilled. Also, they will want to tailor higher education to only be available to the select few.

So, we're looking forward to republican culture wars on a grand scale...if they get their way.
This is what project 2025 is really about; the redesigning of the United States into a authoritarian state that puts the "right" people on top of the heap, while insuring that the rest of the people are in survival mode, and aren't able to do anything about it.
AI is an integral part of this, since it automates the complete, total, utter control of the masses.

AI is not going to become SkyNet. It is going to become something that does mildly shitty work for a host of white collar jobs. The pointy-haired bosses are going to deem “mildly-shitty” is acceptable for as cheap it is. Lots of lost jobs, especially lower skilled and entry level. Magazines and websites are already using AI this way.

Meanwhile, under the radar, robotics is getting better. It used to be relegated to doing heavy work in factories. Now it’s being tooled for lighter industries. My grocery store is already nudging me to curbside pickup. Once robotic inventory control becomes “good enough” how long will it be before outside pickup is mandatory because the store is completely automated? Amazon is trying to get there now.

Right now I’m training myself out of a job. I currently am making valve assemblies for electronic component manufacturing. Sometimes I work setting up parts for a prototype robotic platform that picks up the part, placed it, and bolts it in place to the correct tightness. There goes the 800 jobs in this factory. It still makes many mistakes, but my current job days are numbered. I’ll be out of the workforce before that, but I worry about my granddaughter’s future.

Maybe you should have posted this before I found it on Medium

I'm just suggesting that when we find something on RawStory (as an example) we look to see if we can find the original material (RawStory isn't very good at making their references visible), and if possible posting additional original source links.

I guess I've spent too much time looking through scientific/medical citations trying to find origins.

telling Americans how fucked they are by Big Tech is quite another.
Sure, he's worked for Big Think and climate start-ups like Ocean Bird. His approach of explaining complex, state-of-the-art technology simply, combined with storytelling gets him north of 100,000 followers.

So in a global numbers context, his story here is insignificant to most of the 6.04 billion internet users worldwide, who represent 73.2% of the global population.


My take on this? Don't believe his hype. Facts are facts. His opinion of what they mean for America is a story that prioritizes precision over general accuracy -- because labor, labor markets, and other economic and political dynamics can change his story. So no one can predict whether advanced capitalism has won yet.

Just my opinion, too, of course.

If he is correct, Theil et al are about to have some very bad days.

...I'm not he's the most credible prognosticator.
I'd love him to be right, but it seems more like wishful thinking.

That feels like more than just wishful thinking, but time will tell.

But, he's got several billion.
He's gambling some of it, and if he whiffs again, no big deal. He's still got 4 or 5 billion.
This isn't like you and me betting 20% of our retirement portfolio. He can afford to guess wrongly.

But bubbles gotta burst, it's what they do.

And, we agree that it's a bubble.
It seems rooted in a belief that it will be winner-take-all, which seems utterly ridiculous.
All these companies can't achieve the "potential" if one winner takes all, and none of them will if the wins are distributed.

ChatGPT is not eliminating many jobs so far. It probably will in the future.

What is eliminating jobs is the fear of a severe recession by the 493 companies in the S&P500 that aren't sucking up the oxygen like crazy.

Apple (AAPL)
Microsoft (MSFT)
Nvidia (NVDA)
Alphabet (GOOGL/GOOG) (Google's parent company)
Amazon (AMZN)
Meta Platforms (META) (Facebook's parent company)
Tesla (TSLA)

These 7 companies are over-valued like crazy, and THAT is the present AI effect. These companies have such insane valuations now that they have completely distorted the SP500 index. If you have some money in an index fund, I urge you to consider moving some of that to cash.

(your last paragraph)

when I read the article.

I think the article makes important points. I just think it is important to make the distinction between:

* The big money interests have extracted trillions of dollars of wealth from the middle class and are now dumping practically unlimited amounts of money into "AI" with the expectation of big returns in the future, and in so doing have greatly distorted the markets, at least the SP500. Those 7 grossly overvalued companies now represent nearly 40% of the S&P 500 index, but the combined revenues of those companies is less than 8% of US GDP (and that includes lots of revenue earned globally that was never part of the US GDP.

- and -

* AI, and specifically CHATGPT is responsible for job losses.

I'm not saying that no jobs anywhere have been eliminated because some AI process does that job instead. I'm sure there must be such cases. And I am not saying we should be unconcerned over future job losses resulting from AI. That likely will be a real thing. But what we are really seeing TODAY is a faltering economy NOT being reflected in the major stock market indices because of the gross overweight of the Mag-7 companies.

This quote pretty much sums it up:

It is going to be a 1929 style Depression. The suffering will be extreme and no one will escape it.

And it is going to happen on Trump's watch. We already know these buffoons have no idea how to deal with a real crisis. On the plus side (if there is such a thing in this situation) it is probably going to happen before the mid-term elections. That will mark the end of the MAGA/Republican party for all times. I just hope we have an FDR type to lead the progressives, We the People, back into the light. I do have one in mind.

...the increasing severity of natural disasters; climate change drowning countries and propelling mass migration; increasing authoritarianism assisting a few at the top to take put as much profit as they can in the short term.

As if venture capitalists are buying up the US and selling it off for a quick buck.

Natural disasters are just going to be the icing on the cake.

In reality, the only surprising thing about the post is that it didn't contain a You Tube link.

Don't know why you aren't seeing it, or snarking on the OP. If there's a YouTube link, so be it.

Not anyone's place to censor what people want to share or view on DU.

BRDS put in their link down thread … you could have seen it there ..

Ps … am not a big YouTube poster … so not sure why that comment was necessary

You added the graph so the post actually matched the subject line. Thank you.

Seemed more important than the graph (imho) and made the article worth reading in its entirety, where the graph would be seen

invest our trust funds in AI stocks we'll be ok, right?