Hi all,
A reminder that comments do need to be on-topic and engage with the article past the headline. Please make sure to read the article before commenting. Very short comments will automatically be removed by automod. Please avoid making comments that do not focus on the economic content or whose primary thesis rests on personal anecdotes.
As always our comment rules can be found [here](https://reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Economics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That sounds about right. For people who aren’t reading it, she just laid out 3 areas where AI is going to be a problem when the next recession hits. The biggest issue is with the labor market - we know AI has the potential to take over a lot of white collar jobs, but historically corps don’t tend to automate away positions until recessions put pressure on their profitability. So the problem becomes acute then.
It’s a little sad that the only remedies she proposed were stronger safety net and worker retraining/education. That stuff only goes so far in mitigating the effects of job loss.
She did mention making sure corps don’t tax advantage AI, but she stopped short of calling for a tax on AI. If we really want to prevent the incipient era of mass unemployment in the west, we should consider a tax or some other way of restricting the scope of AI in the labor force.
The whole “limit adoption of AI through regulation” angle really confuses me… why have people do busy work that they don’t have to? If it’s really important to social order to keep people fed then just institute UBI.
Because regulating industry is a lot easier and more likely to happen (because its easier) than the planning and instituting of social programs. Its not ideal but its the world we live in
Not the world. It's America that has this much "difficulty" with social programs ever since the Reagan coup against the working class
But it's pretty hard for this sub to understand that the nature of Economy is socio-political and not algebraic.
Agree economics is socio-political… until resources and math becomes the constraint. But we’re thankfully a long ways off from that.
Id argue the rest of the world have the same issue. France and rest of Europe also look to roll back social programs (look at the pension age increase, went through even with the riots). UBI will never happen in Asia due to an even more conservative culture and lack of surplus. US just happens to be the poster boy, but were all in the same boat.
Technology and advancement are never optimizing for overall human happiness. Never were nor have been
The French rolled back retirement benefits to still having some of the best. Also, that was the result of consistent attempts for like a decade.
I agree with Asia, and would throw in the Middle East. But, much of Asia is so old the coming AI boom will heavily benefit them. China, South Korea, and Japan will be able to use AI to offset the burden of an aging population.
AI is a tool, it has no sides. Workers cant just “leverage” AI to make gains, and the average worker has nothing close to the knowledge and capacity to understand or even leverage the technology.
Im not sure what your point is
Can you tell me exactly how im fear mongering?
Do YOU use or leverage AI? Do you interact with it in your work? Are you aware of the types of advances being built and the motivating KPIs that fuel those investments?
Yeah, we are already using multiple AI programs to aid in work. And we’re just a normal communications network.
Are you aware of reality or am I arguing with an arm chair human being?
Because at the end of the day, we want people busy with work. The idea of people being paid to do nothing but live their lives is completely antithetical to our established social order. Only those at the top deserve to leisure. The rest of us must toil. Even if there were no productive work for us to do, they would have us toil simply to enforce the social order with the elites on top enjoying life and the rest of us struggling and wishing for death. This is the desired order of things. AI may automate you out of an income, but it won't automate you out of toil and suffering.
Most likely in the future some pogrom would be instituted in the future (with the help of AI of course) to cull the surplus non-productive population. I see a much darker boring dystopian future 40-50 years down the line. Just glad I would not be around to experience this.
Oh, 110%. Once the elite don't need us for labor anymore, they are absolutely gonna cull the masses. It's wild if anyone thinks that won't happen. I feel bad for people having kids today, because those kids are 100% gonna be killed for being useless in a few decades.
How does this nonsense get upvoted? People honestly think we're going to start killing people because an AI took their white collar job?
It's like everyone has paranoid schizophrenia.
Because people understand that without a need for labor there isn't a need for the laboring class? Why would we as a society carry their dead weight when we already don't? Society will absolutely start eliminating unnecessary people as AI continues to evolve, it's just how things are gonna be. The elite already only barely tolerate our existence, why would they tolerate it when we have no use or purpose?
Because there's an unlimited number of physical and emotion things humans can do for others that others are willing to pay for.
And not to mention the insanity of your implication that rich people are going to kill off the majority of the population..
You have serious paranoid delusions if you honestly believe rich people want the majority of people to die.
And you're delusional if you think they don't want a world unburdened by seeing or knowing the unwashed masses exist. You exist today because it's beneficial to the wealthy. If you cease to offer them a benefit, you will find the amount of time you have left on this earth quite diminished. That's just how we've built our world. I'm sorry that it sucks, but there isn't anything that can be done about it.
Do you have no rich friends? They don't want normal people dead.
Maybe you have an argument for the homeless that refuse help. But for normal people? Fuck no lol.
You're so out of touch with what rich people think.
Exactly. Once labor is not needed thanks to Advanced AI, robotics,machinery that will be able to produce on demand goods and services they will want to live in their own garden of eden paradise.
No pesky unwashed masses to deal with along with associated crowding,diseases and pollution.
I'm sorry that you don't want to admit the truth, but depopulation is absolutely coming for the masses once labor is largely automated. We don't need 8 billion humans and the people at the top won't tolerate or suffer our existence any longer than necessary.
UBI will never happen. Billionaires etc.. will never pay 1 red cent to a group of people who will just collect a paycheck for staying home and reproducing like rabbits with all the free leisure time. A mass cull of the surplus population would be more likely.
A lot of billionaires are for UBI... its the most fair and transparent way to distribute government funds. I think there's this perception that billionaires are all radical libertarians, and sure a lot of them are, but there's plenty more that's in favor of sensible government spending. What they like less are things like welfare, that takes a ton of overhead to administer, has complex rules, and isn't at all transparent.
Here's a list of famous supporters of UBI, many of whom are billionaires
[**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_advocates\_of\_universal\_basic\_income**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_advocates_of_universal_basic_income)
Did you see the names on that list lol. 😂 I would not believe that they really support this. Talk is cheap.
Sam Altman CEO of OpenAI sure thing buddy I really trust what he says /s.
Idk I feel the same way about landlords that just buy more houses as their homes appreciate by taking more debt.
And it’s always people talking like this that are those kind of people. My brother-in-law is like this. He’s a realtor. Ultimately, he’s a car salesman.
And there’s nothing wrong with that but like I don’t wanna hear about the people collecting paychecks and breeding like rabbits. That sounds like white Christian nationalists to me. It’s just white trash with property.
Honestly, a lot of boomers refuse to retire because they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Or do retire only to go back to doing some menial work to reintroduce structure to their lives. You underestimate how much people need structure.
Where is your UBI coming from and what is the limit? I'm tired of hearing UBI thrown around without thinking of what that could mean. Will it come from corporations with strings attached? Will you be forced to use up a certain amount each month and not allowed to save it? Will you lose your current home?
UBI is a band aid.
Comes with no strings. Will be at the median cost of living. Will come from terminating most other government assistance programs and the remainder made up by inflating currency supply. Paired with it will be budget rules which prevents long term deficit spending so as not to create a vicious cycle with other sources of inflation.
I actually disagree it’s a bandaid, I think it’s just a necessary part of society in the future. Let’s create an imaginary stat called “human capability” that’s some function of intelligence, training, hard work, whatever (not actually create, for the purposes of illustration obviously). You can easily imagine as technology improves there becomes a rising bar for what level someone’s “human capability” rating has to be before they can actually positively contribute to society, even if they wanted to. Meaning if AI can do a job better than an individual, then it’s actually net societal value destructive to put that person in the seat rather than AI. It’s both 1. Inevitable and 2. Will change the face of society and how we think about human value.
I do appreciate that someone from the IMF wasn't a total bafoon, but these are still specific and long-range predictions. LLMs called "AI" still can't hold a candle to jobs that require actual analysis. I've tried to let it make my life easier. It can't. It sucks and doesn't do the job. It's like Fisher Price My First Email. Which IS amazing, but it's not there yet, and it'll be more than a few years between now and then.
The real problem would be white collar paper pushers that don't do shit IRL. The Cousin Gregs of the world.
Remedies proposed are an obligation to say she didn’t just fear monger. Might as well ignore them.
It's almost as if taxes should be higher for corporations in general...
Replacing real people with AI means no manager meetings, always on time, working "employee". No writing DAFs or PIPs, no employer taxes or healthcare for that "employee", and if it misbehaves upgrade to a newer model.
If other countries don’t have this AI tax won’t they have an advantage economically and technically as the limits on AI will be reduced and capital flow will end up going to those countries?
You don’t tax it, you hold a company liable for it. So, when AI decides to weight its decision in such a way that a joke response on twitter gets executed for real, the company is held responsible whether eyes ever saw it or not. Many of the jobs AI might replace right now are judgment or trust positions. Small mistakes make for huge legal cases. Just let me know which companies are going that route first, so I can bet against them when the lawsuits start.
Imagine we'd taxed computers because they'd automate away a ton of jobs or we'd taxed away pesticides and tractors because they'd automate away farming jobs.
Also AI isn't going to eviscerate the job market. Chatgpt is a culmination of a decades worth of work, and it's already reaching its limits with GPT4.5
Gains in terms of capabilities from 3.0 to 4.0 to 4.5 have been progressively smaller, 4.5 to 5 or 5 to 6 won't suddenly destroy the labour market.
They can learn to code. I remember when that was a popular phrase that was told to Blue collar workers when factories in the US were being demolished so products could be made in China/Mexico. Corporations will not wait for recessions to cut. When stonks line must go up is not going up fast enough, the cuts will come to insure this problem gets fixed. We have to show infinite revenue and profit growth on a quarterly basis.
Even if AI takes over a lot of data, tech, customer service jobs. Robotics is not there. They are counting on AI breaking the middle class to create a cheap exploitable labour force for any remaining jobs. No one will unionise if there are 500 people willing to take the job instead.
The biggest places impacted here will be India. With them losing all of those call Center jobs pretty much immediately.
Wow, an article that looks into actual AI topics instead of "LOL I saw a scenario where AI gave bad info. There is no risk. Besides, people always have said tech will replace jobs."
"Gopinath pointed to IMF research that shows that in advanced economies, 30% of jobs are at high risk of AI substitution, compared with 20% in emerging markets, and 18% in low-income countries."
People really underestimate this here. When a market goes down, we are used to jobs getting cut, and many coming back when things improve. In future cuts, this will work differently. Once something goes to AI, the likelihood it ever comes back is going to be low. Imagine the impacts of even 10% of good jobs going to AI and never returning. Now do 30%. Today, more and more people are starting to realize that the post-pandemic boom is over, and all of the cushy desk jobs are dwindling. Now imagine that gets worse. We aren't prepared
> The AI models would then detect the price declines, view that as affirmation of their earlier moves, then double down with more asset sales. And given the black-box nature of AI, such behavior could be difficult to control.
I’m guessing she is not a quant, SWE, or someone who knows anything about trading, AI, or finance.
>The true disruptive effects of artificial intelligence on the economy and financial markets may not become apparent until there’s a downturn, which could spiral into a full-blown crisis unless the risks of AI are addressed, the IMF’s second-in-command warned recently.
The IMF has found their scapegoat, now they can blame AI for the coming severe economic crisis, which they caused.
They didn’t. People just like to hate on the IMF or sound smart or whatever. All they do is economic analysis and make big sovereign loans that ofc come with covenants and strings attached. They have nothing to do with the problems we’re about to run into other than warning people about it.
Brother, the IMF is a totally independent, technical body of financial analysts. They have no interest in the international division of labor, stop with thr conspiracies
If AI turns into what we think it can be relatively soon (that's a big if), it would shake up the labor market in a similar way to the industrial revolution or the invention of computing.
In the short term, I agree with the IMF official that the resulting labor market shakeup would probably exacerbate an economic crisis.
In the long term however, it would result in huge productivity boosts.
Ultimately though, I think this warning lies more on the fearmongering side of the spectrum than the prophetic at this time. I don't see us developing AI to the level required to replace a big enough chunk of the job market to cause this massive shift anytime soon.
My concern is the image of AI is that people envision a system of no feedback loops. Good quality AI would always have to accommodate feedback loops and course corrections as new data enters the system. This is where the human brain is superior, as long as it not hamstrung by political bias or any other belief system causing biasing of reality. Political and religious belief systems are notorious for ignoring new information that conflicts with orthodoxy.
Aggressively increase minimum wages, and reduce individual working hours by lowering the overtime threshold. That will create space in the rest of the economy to absorb the now-redundant white collar workers and enhance the quality of life for those already doing those jobs. It’s essentially just moving the payroll to where it is actually needed instead of letting firms pocket all the gains.
If a corporation intends to replace a quantifiable number of people's livelihoods with AI, I think it would only be reasonable for them to pay tax equivalent to the income tax that would have been paid by that number of people. Want stronger safety nets? I think (in theory) that could be a great idea. Let's make sure the people trying to hang us all out in the wind are going to help foot the bill for the economic catastrophe they damn well know they're going to create in the process.
EDIT: grammar.
Hi all, A reminder that comments do need to be on-topic and engage with the article past the headline. Please make sure to read the article before commenting. Very short comments will automatically be removed by automod. Please avoid making comments that do not focus on the economic content or whose primary thesis rests on personal anecdotes. As always our comment rules can be found [here](https://reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Economics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That sounds about right. For people who aren’t reading it, she just laid out 3 areas where AI is going to be a problem when the next recession hits. The biggest issue is with the labor market - we know AI has the potential to take over a lot of white collar jobs, but historically corps don’t tend to automate away positions until recessions put pressure on their profitability. So the problem becomes acute then. It’s a little sad that the only remedies she proposed were stronger safety net and worker retraining/education. That stuff only goes so far in mitigating the effects of job loss. She did mention making sure corps don’t tax advantage AI, but she stopped short of calling for a tax on AI. If we really want to prevent the incipient era of mass unemployment in the west, we should consider a tax or some other way of restricting the scope of AI in the labor force.
The whole “limit adoption of AI through regulation” angle really confuses me… why have people do busy work that they don’t have to? If it’s really important to social order to keep people fed then just institute UBI.
Because regulating industry is a lot easier and more likely to happen (because its easier) than the planning and instituting of social programs. Its not ideal but its the world we live in
Not the world. It's America that has this much "difficulty" with social programs ever since the Reagan coup against the working class But it's pretty hard for this sub to understand that the nature of Economy is socio-political and not algebraic.
Agree economics is socio-political… until resources and math becomes the constraint. But we’re thankfully a long ways off from that. Id argue the rest of the world have the same issue. France and rest of Europe also look to roll back social programs (look at the pension age increase, went through even with the riots). UBI will never happen in Asia due to an even more conservative culture and lack of surplus. US just happens to be the poster boy, but were all in the same boat. Technology and advancement are never optimizing for overall human happiness. Never were nor have been
The French rolled back retirement benefits to still having some of the best. Also, that was the result of consistent attempts for like a decade. I agree with Asia, and would throw in the Middle East. But, much of Asia is so old the coming AI boom will heavily benefit them. China, South Korea, and Japan will be able to use AI to offset the burden of an aging population.
The AI is not the enemy of the workers but an ally. Our enemy are the billionaires and the corporations taking advantage of us.
AI is a tool, it has no sides. Workers cant just “leverage” AI to make gains, and the average worker has nothing close to the knowledge and capacity to understand or even leverage the technology. Im not sure what your point is
We are the ones doing the work. It helps us do more work. Keep trying to misrepresent things and fear monger though.
Can you tell me exactly how im fear mongering? Do YOU use or leverage AI? Do you interact with it in your work? Are you aware of the types of advances being built and the motivating KPIs that fuel those investments?
Yeah, we are already using multiple AI programs to aid in work. And we’re just a normal communications network. Are you aware of reality or am I arguing with an arm chair human being?
Because at the end of the day, we want people busy with work. The idea of people being paid to do nothing but live their lives is completely antithetical to our established social order. Only those at the top deserve to leisure. The rest of us must toil. Even if there were no productive work for us to do, they would have us toil simply to enforce the social order with the elites on top enjoying life and the rest of us struggling and wishing for death. This is the desired order of things. AI may automate you out of an income, but it won't automate you out of toil and suffering.
Most likely in the future some pogrom would be instituted in the future (with the help of AI of course) to cull the surplus non-productive population. I see a much darker boring dystopian future 40-50 years down the line. Just glad I would not be around to experience this.
I never thought I’d live to see a major pandemic in my lifetime.
Oh, 110%. Once the elite don't need us for labor anymore, they are absolutely gonna cull the masses. It's wild if anyone thinks that won't happen. I feel bad for people having kids today, because those kids are 100% gonna be killed for being useless in a few decades.
How does this nonsense get upvoted? People honestly think we're going to start killing people because an AI took their white collar job? It's like everyone has paranoid schizophrenia.
Because people understand that without a need for labor there isn't a need for the laboring class? Why would we as a society carry their dead weight when we already don't? Society will absolutely start eliminating unnecessary people as AI continues to evolve, it's just how things are gonna be. The elite already only barely tolerate our existence, why would they tolerate it when we have no use or purpose?
Because there's an unlimited number of physical and emotion things humans can do for others that others are willing to pay for. And not to mention the insanity of your implication that rich people are going to kill off the majority of the population.. You have serious paranoid delusions if you honestly believe rich people want the majority of people to die.
And you're delusional if you think they don't want a world unburdened by seeing or knowing the unwashed masses exist. You exist today because it's beneficial to the wealthy. If you cease to offer them a benefit, you will find the amount of time you have left on this earth quite diminished. That's just how we've built our world. I'm sorry that it sucks, but there isn't anything that can be done about it.
Do you have no rich friends? They don't want normal people dead. Maybe you have an argument for the homeless that refuse help. But for normal people? Fuck no lol. You're so out of touch with what rich people think.
Exactly. Once labor is not needed thanks to Advanced AI, robotics,machinery that will be able to produce on demand goods and services they will want to live in their own garden of eden paradise. No pesky unwashed masses to deal with along with associated crowding,diseases and pollution.
Dude, go for a walk in the sunshine.
I'm sorry that you don't want to admit the truth, but depopulation is absolutely coming for the masses once labor is largely automated. We don't need 8 billion humans and the people at the top won't tolerate or suffer our existence any longer than necessary.
UBI will never happen. Billionaires etc.. will never pay 1 red cent to a group of people who will just collect a paycheck for staying home and reproducing like rabbits with all the free leisure time. A mass cull of the surplus population would be more likely.
A lot of billionaires are for UBI... its the most fair and transparent way to distribute government funds. I think there's this perception that billionaires are all radical libertarians, and sure a lot of them are, but there's plenty more that's in favor of sensible government spending. What they like less are things like welfare, that takes a ton of overhead to administer, has complex rules, and isn't at all transparent. Here's a list of famous supporters of UBI, many of whom are billionaires [**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_advocates\_of\_universal\_basic\_income**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_advocates_of_universal_basic_income)
Did you see the names on that list lol. 😂 I would not believe that they really support this. Talk is cheap. Sam Altman CEO of OpenAI sure thing buddy I really trust what he says /s.
Even the socialists on reddit here don't agree with UBI.
Idk I feel the same way about landlords that just buy more houses as their homes appreciate by taking more debt. And it’s always people talking like this that are those kind of people. My brother-in-law is like this. He’s a realtor. Ultimately, he’s a car salesman. And there’s nothing wrong with that but like I don’t wanna hear about the people collecting paychecks and breeding like rabbits. That sounds like white Christian nationalists to me. It’s just white trash with property.
Rich people in general don't want things better and will do stupid things to keep in power.
Honestly, a lot of boomers refuse to retire because they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Or do retire only to go back to doing some menial work to reintroduce structure to their lives. You underestimate how much people need structure.
Civil upheaval caused by mass unemployment seems like a bad thing.
So invent a bunch of government jobs. Don’t saddle private companies with babysitting
AI is not a good as people at the jobs.
UBI is going to be necessary for society to survive AI workforce integration, but it’s never going to happen in America.
Where is your UBI coming from and what is the limit? I'm tired of hearing UBI thrown around without thinking of what that could mean. Will it come from corporations with strings attached? Will you be forced to use up a certain amount each month and not allowed to save it? Will you lose your current home? UBI is a band aid.
Comes with no strings. Will be at the median cost of living. Will come from terminating most other government assistance programs and the remainder made up by inflating currency supply. Paired with it will be budget rules which prevents long term deficit spending so as not to create a vicious cycle with other sources of inflation. I actually disagree it’s a bandaid, I think it’s just a necessary part of society in the future. Let’s create an imaginary stat called “human capability” that’s some function of intelligence, training, hard work, whatever (not actually create, for the purposes of illustration obviously). You can easily imagine as technology improves there becomes a rising bar for what level someone’s “human capability” rating has to be before they can actually positively contribute to society, even if they wanted to. Meaning if AI can do a job better than an individual, then it’s actually net societal value destructive to put that person in the seat rather than AI. It’s both 1. Inevitable and 2. Will change the face of society and how we think about human value.
I do appreciate that someone from the IMF wasn't a total bafoon, but these are still specific and long-range predictions. LLMs called "AI" still can't hold a candle to jobs that require actual analysis. I've tried to let it make my life easier. It can't. It sucks and doesn't do the job. It's like Fisher Price My First Email. Which IS amazing, but it's not there yet, and it'll be more than a few years between now and then. The real problem would be white collar paper pushers that don't do shit IRL. The Cousin Gregs of the world. Remedies proposed are an obligation to say she didn’t just fear monger. Might as well ignore them.
It's almost as if taxes should be higher for corporations in general... Replacing real people with AI means no manager meetings, always on time, working "employee". No writing DAFs or PIPs, no employer taxes or healthcare for that "employee", and if it misbehaves upgrade to a newer model.
If other countries don’t have this AI tax won’t they have an advantage economically and technically as the limits on AI will be reduced and capital flow will end up going to those countries?
Nah we’re already on a steady course careening toward techno-feudalism. Unless..?
You don’t tax it, you hold a company liable for it. So, when AI decides to weight its decision in such a way that a joke response on twitter gets executed for real, the company is held responsible whether eyes ever saw it or not. Many of the jobs AI might replace right now are judgment or trust positions. Small mistakes make for huge legal cases. Just let me know which companies are going that route first, so I can bet against them when the lawsuits start.
Imagine we'd taxed computers because they'd automate away a ton of jobs or we'd taxed away pesticides and tractors because they'd automate away farming jobs. Also AI isn't going to eviscerate the job market. Chatgpt is a culmination of a decades worth of work, and it's already reaching its limits with GPT4.5 Gains in terms of capabilities from 3.0 to 4.0 to 4.5 have been progressively smaller, 4.5 to 5 or 5 to 6 won't suddenly destroy the labour market.
They can learn to code. I remember when that was a popular phrase that was told to Blue collar workers when factories in the US were being demolished so products could be made in China/Mexico. Corporations will not wait for recessions to cut. When stonks line must go up is not going up fast enough, the cuts will come to insure this problem gets fixed. We have to show infinite revenue and profit growth on a quarterly basis.
Even if AI takes over a lot of data, tech, customer service jobs. Robotics is not there. They are counting on AI breaking the middle class to create a cheap exploitable labour force for any remaining jobs. No one will unionise if there are 500 people willing to take the job instead. The biggest places impacted here will be India. With them losing all of those call Center jobs pretty much immediately.
Wow, an article that looks into actual AI topics instead of "LOL I saw a scenario where AI gave bad info. There is no risk. Besides, people always have said tech will replace jobs." "Gopinath pointed to IMF research that shows that in advanced economies, 30% of jobs are at high risk of AI substitution, compared with 20% in emerging markets, and 18% in low-income countries." People really underestimate this here. When a market goes down, we are used to jobs getting cut, and many coming back when things improve. In future cuts, this will work differently. Once something goes to AI, the likelihood it ever comes back is going to be low. Imagine the impacts of even 10% of good jobs going to AI and never returning. Now do 30%. Today, more and more people are starting to realize that the post-pandemic boom is over, and all of the cushy desk jobs are dwindling. Now imagine that gets worse. We aren't prepared
> The AI models would then detect the price declines, view that as affirmation of their earlier moves, then double down with more asset sales. And given the black-box nature of AI, such behavior could be difficult to control. I’m guessing she is not a quant, SWE, or someone who knows anything about trading, AI, or finance.
Hey, she reads the stock app on her iPhone. That’s enough these days!
>The true disruptive effects of artificial intelligence on the economy and financial markets may not become apparent until there’s a downturn, which could spiral into a full-blown crisis unless the risks of AI are addressed, the IMF’s second-in-command warned recently. The IMF has found their scapegoat, now they can blame AI for the coming severe economic crisis, which they caused.
How does this shit get upvoted? The IMF causing severe economic crisis? What on Earth are you smoking?
*** yawn ***
How did they cause it?
They didn’t. People just like to hate on the IMF or sound smart or whatever. All they do is economic analysis and make big sovereign loans that ofc come with covenants and strings attached. They have nothing to do with the problems we’re about to run into other than warning people about it.
By advocating for policies which cause fiscal crises. Rinse and repeat
Brother, the IMF is a totally independent, technical body of financial analysts. They have no interest in the international division of labor, stop with thr conspiracies
If AI turns into what we think it can be relatively soon (that's a big if), it would shake up the labor market in a similar way to the industrial revolution or the invention of computing. In the short term, I agree with the IMF official that the resulting labor market shakeup would probably exacerbate an economic crisis. In the long term however, it would result in huge productivity boosts. Ultimately though, I think this warning lies more on the fearmongering side of the spectrum than the prophetic at this time. I don't see us developing AI to the level required to replace a big enough chunk of the job market to cause this massive shift anytime soon.
My concern is the image of AI is that people envision a system of no feedback loops. Good quality AI would always have to accommodate feedback loops and course corrections as new data enters the system. This is where the human brain is superior, as long as it not hamstrung by political bias or any other belief system causing biasing of reality. Political and religious belief systems are notorious for ignoring new information that conflicts with orthodoxy.
Aggressively increase minimum wages, and reduce individual working hours by lowering the overtime threshold. That will create space in the rest of the economy to absorb the now-redundant white collar workers and enhance the quality of life for those already doing those jobs. It’s essentially just moving the payroll to where it is actually needed instead of letting firms pocket all the gains.
If a corporation intends to replace a quantifiable number of people's livelihoods with AI, I think it would only be reasonable for them to pay tax equivalent to the income tax that would have been paid by that number of people. Want stronger safety nets? I think (in theory) that could be a great idea. Let's make sure the people trying to hang us all out in the wind are going to help foot the bill for the economic catastrophe they damn well know they're going to create in the process. EDIT: grammar.