Bifurcation

LLMs and AI agents are useful. It seems like if you're not perma-burning tokens, you are gonna fall behind, and there's just no question about it. The advantage in saving time that these models can provide is just too great for many domains.

So those who can afford to just burn the most premium model all the time just have such an advantage.

It is true that if capital can replace labour, then labour has almost no negotiating power, and it just becomes the dog-eat-dog world of who has the most capital.

My prediction is that this is going to cause a lot of AI unpopularity among the masses and a lot of social unrest because of this. We have not thought deeply enough about how to distribute the abundance gains from this technology right now, or in a way that feels credible to people.

With the current capitalistic system as it stands, it seems like all the money's going to get funnelled straight into Silicon Valley and these giant labs. You could argue maybe it's up to the government, but if AGI is really around the corner, we should probably think about how to distribute its gains well.

One argument might be that if everyone gets a $20 ChatGPT subscription, and it's really the most intelligent thing in the world that's fine, that IS democratizing the technology and its benefits.

I don't know if people are going to buy that.

I think we've got to think about these things sooner rather than later.