LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Applying traditional economic thinking to AGI: a trilemma” by Steven Byrnes


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Traditional economics thinking has two strong principles, each based on abundant historical data:

  • Principle (A): No “lump of labor”: If human population goes up, there might be some wage drop in the very short term, because the demand curve for labor slopes down. But in the longer term, people will find new productive things to do, such that human labor will retain high value. Indeed, if anything, the value of labor will go up, not down—for example, dense cities are engines of economic growth!
  • Principle (B): “Experience curves”: If the demand for some product goes up, there might be some price increase in the very short term, because the supply curve slopes up. But in the longer term, people will ramp up manufacturing of that product to catch up with the demand. Indeed, if anything, the cost per unit will go down, not up, because of economies of [...]

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:

January 13th, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TkWCKzWjcbfGzdNK5/applying-traditional-economic-thinking-to-agi-a-trilemma

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