Anton Korinek on Automating Work and the Economics of an Intelligence Explosion

Anton Korinek joins the podcast to discuss the effects of automation on wages and labor, how we measure the complexity of tasks, the economics of an intelligence explosion, and the market structure of the AI industry. Learn more about Anton's work at www.korinek.com
Timestamps:
00:00 Automation and wages
14:32 Complexity for people and machines
20:31 Moravec's paradox
26:15 Can people switch careers?
30:57 Intelligence explosion economics
44:08 The lump of labor fallacy
51:40 An industry for nostalgia?
57:16 Universal basic income
01:09:28 Market structure in AI

[@danielkafer]

Probably the best interview I have seen on AI economics. Excellent work. Anton is very knowledgeable but the questions are also world class

[@keithwins]

13:20 we are scrambling over jobs that have only existed for a few hundred years, and that machines will be able to do better, and that we don't really want, in and of themselves. This may be a remarkable moment of opportunity for a transition towards a world of reinforced personal truth seeking, a goal of equal access to the life of one's dreams, for all, soon... Great questions

[@stephschlemann1163]

An extensive and interesting perspective from an economics professor. Alas the discussion did not change my mind with regards to this amazing tech upending our existing economic (capitalism) and social (democracy) models…. As always the devils in the detail regarding the key topic of job losses and gains. To this end the the first (automation and wages) and sixth (lump of labor fallacy) segments are most revealing. That is, pre-AI, automation (new tech) was always good for economic growth e.g. 98% automation of agriculture which led to the remaining workers (in time..) finding better paid employment. Similar to agriculture, the same happened with the invention and scaling of the automobile. The sixth segment however paints a more honest picture to why rapid evolution of AI automation will displace many jobs, creating in its wake very few replacement jobs. The ubiquitous use of AI in old and new industries will result in less new job opportunities.

[@AnnonymousPrime-ks4uf]

No, it won't. It will create a corporate government dystopia or fill blown totalitarian state.

[@blackgptinfo]

Great interview. What is concerning is that the litmus test is wealth, not the distribution of wealth nor the qualitative things that are critical to human experiences ajd existence outside of wealth

[@Slamboni4k]

When automation is absolute, surplus population is inefficient.. and the people in charge didn't get there by being philanthropists.

[@cheesewire007]

The only areas I felt that were not covered here were regarding the ever decreasing numbers in populations across the globe and the increasing age of the current workforce. These two very important factors may help to rebalance the difference between AGI and population needs in the short term, but it’s quite clear to see where humanity falls off the page and other non-life forms are the only one’s remaining! Thank you for an excellent insight into economics, a future with AGI and for spelling out how humanity will ‘eventually’ end!

[@halnineooo136]

As the unemployment rate raises, the goods and services produced will gradually shift to serve the remaining part of the population with purchasing power. As that part shrinks, the economy will transform into rich only economy and at the end the vast majority of people won't be part of it because they have nothing to give in return. The rich owners of AI+robots will have to make the ethical decision of whether to keep attending for the economically useless people basic needs. Well, that is in the case where things got there without a major social collapse.

[@aceyage]

We need to tax corps and the rich much, much, much higher.

[@halnineooo136]

@@aceyage Well, but who is in power to do so? Is it "we" ? Or is it already the rich and corporations who pay for electoral campaigns? Why is it so that there is still no universal health care insurance in the US for the "we"? I'm afraid we don't have much power right now to prepare for the upcoming disaster. The best way out would be to gradually shift from wage labour to ownership of AI+robots. Everyone needs to be part of the owners of the economy otherwise they will be left aside as useless.

[@redstrat1234]

@@aceyage Unfortunately, in most western countries, politicians/lawmakers are in the pockets of those corporations, and corporations will never voluntarily give up profits or shareholder revenues. In the end, when things get bad enough for the people, and politicians and corporations won't change, it will require force of arms to take back what we need.

[@halnineooo136]

@@redstrat1234 I hope we won't get there because the people would be fighting robots. Only in cinema you can have a chance. I think we need to act now by seeking ownership of AI+robots companies by any means including creating inclusive ones. Then we all will be part of the owners class and won't be in conflict of interest with the possessing/ ruling class

[@aceyage]

@@redstrat1234 Exactly!

[@gauravtejpal8901]

Who controls the means of production, this is the question that matters

[@deepaknautiyal7956]

Wow what amazing quality of deep and meaningful conversation on AI, work and future. Loved some of the economic implications as explained by the prof.

[@jacobos.carballada5425]

About the Automation and WageS: The disruption with AI models is profound because, unlike traditional machinery which requires substantial capital and maintenance, AI models can be deployed and scaled with minimal ongoing costs, making advanced capabilities widely accessible without the need for significant investment. It is not about creating new LLM models, it is about using them. there is very little investment required for those models to run.

[@Thedeepseanomad]

As I see it, here is what people needs to understand: How AI will shape our economy and future depends on the capability of the technology (ai and robotics) and how those with resources organise this capacity for a choosen purpose (even the modest resources of a worker matters if they organise and pool machine production capacity seed resources).

[@aisle_of_view]

95% of the public doesn't know about the coming changes.

[@anandramachandran7320]

😊

[@couldntfindafreename]

Most of those who know what's coming cannot do anything either to shield themselves from the adverse effects. If you have significant capital ($10M+ investment account), then you'll be good. Otherwise life will be difficult.

[@kyneticist]

95% of those if informed, would refuse to believe until it actually happens; And only once disaster has shown itself and we suffer a significant part of the consequences, begin to start formulating plans about what to do.

[@user-kl6ov1cm4t]

one should distinguish between outsourcing and automation

[@rudyvanderhoeven9628]

Enjoyed his vision

[@human_shaped]

Great conversation. +1

[@ericdanielski4802]

Nice video.

[@kahwatv]

Instead of "capital accumulation", I feel like they could talk of "capital distribution" and the logic would be more correct.

[@Reflekt0r]

Oh economist, AGI bless those good people.

[@cosmochatterbot]

Great discussion on the future of automation and wages! One idea that I haven't seen explored much in these discussions is the concept of individuals owning robots. Instead of large corporations solely benefiting from automation, individuals could own robots and receive the wages that their robots earn. This model could help distribute the economic benefits of automation more evenly and ensure that people have a source of income even as traditional jobs are automated. What are your thoughts on this approach?

[@realKytra]

the problem is that the rich economies and people will afford the new tech at the beginning (like always) and the discrepancy will likely increase. Between members of community and even countries. It’s all about efficiency and competitiveness.

[@Thedeepseanomad]

Own robots... or own/ have rights to part of verified production capacity output from open sourced commons.

[@kyneticist]

Corporations will find ways to extort people and remove those robots from individuals.

[@prakadox]

First of all, a great conversation. many interesting ideas here. A couple of comments. I think the food stamp and social security systems in the US already have the basic infra in place for a UBI. Not sure if something more than that is needed. It is surprising that even trained economists when asked about the alternatives to taxing labour, fall on taxation of capital. Taxation of land should be the first option. Only after that, should taxation of capital be brought in. I think taxation of rare earths, energy and other such inputs into AI will be a better source for some time atleast than taxation of capital as such.

[@couldntfindafreename]

1:06:00 What ethics? Don't concentrate only on income inequality. What about wealth inequality? What about the capital income exponentially accumulating in the hand of a few "owners" while the rest of the society become impoverished?

[@halnineooo136]

"cheaply producing goods and services leads to their value raising' ?? How ?

[@angelov_x]

Value,not price. If you produce something cheaply and sell it at the same price,your work will be more valuable

[@angelov_x]

Lets say you produce a car for a 1000$ but it has the same quality as a 40k $ car. You can sell your car for 40k $ , if the competition also start to manufacture cheaper cars you will have to cut the price so you will remain competative

[@halnineooo136]

@@angelov_x Well that will happen in no time, since companies are forbidden by law to agree on high prices. The air has an invaluable value to us but its abundance and ease of access makes its economical value worthless. Intellectual services provided by AI are already cheap when not free for the user. Intellectual products will have very little economical, monetary, value.

[@angelov_x]

@@halnineooo136 i explained completely different thing

[@flickwtchr]

Well, economists might well have debated the relationship of productivity to wages for the last 200 years, but at least in regard to the US, the last 40 years have shown that increases in productivity have generally NOT translated into rising wages, not even close. The neoliberals will of course point to sweatshop countries and say "see, those people have been lifted out of poverty.....as they send their 10 year old to work for another 12 hours for 1 USD." Good old neoliberalism in economic analysis/policies, alive and well, will continue alongside this AI revolution to increase inequality worldwide. The AI revolution will drive already historic inequality in the US much much higher. I can't believe this isn't just blatantly obvious.

[@Recuper8]

You're missing an important detail. The home owners are going to be told to accept having to move their family to the gutter out front because their are no more jobs. 100% of white collar workers will be replaced. Do you think these educated people will accept this new paradigm without a different economic system?

[@amifunnymynameisbob]

How did those sweatshop countries look like before capitalism? Fool

[@carlgauss1702]

It is, they just dont care.

[@Ikbeneengeit]

AI will only make the decoupling between productivity and labour much worse than it already is.

[@the100percentstraightguy]

robot hourly costs are now estimated at 10 dollars per hour.... do you have any idea how many a worker now needs to survive?? A lviable wage is at least 4 times higher! MINIMUM!!!

[@raginald7mars408]

...as a German Biologist... already now.... Governments lose Income tax from all sorts of “Automation and Efficiency increase”, delocation of production... Businesses evade as much Taxxation as possible rich persons hide money elsewhere Governments spend ever more money ... where will be the taxxes come from???? Taxx Intelligence... Taxx “Intelligence” - no matter where it comes from... Things to come - H G Wells

[@inspectorcrud]

There should be some sort of international agreement on the minimum tax these corporations pay to the country they are resident in to stop a race to the bottom. I foresee a time in the future where there will be a world tax.

[@Thedeepseanomad]

It seems to me txation in a AGI world is optional save for when it coms to keeping power from accumulating beyond limits deemed acceptable. The other option is of course creating AGI production capacity with the purpose of being distributed as a guaranteed income to everyone. If this capacity to distribute productivity is great enough, there is no significant need for current types or wealth re-distribution.

[@couldntfindafreename]

Problem is, power has already been accumulated beyond any reasonable limits already. Look at the wealth (not just income) inequality we have.

[@Thedeepseanomad]

@@couldntfindafreename It is a concern, certainly.

[@xbluebells]

The video jumps on the same person are very difficult for me to watch. I like better just uncut video unless necessary. Like the topic!

[@djovitadiyami6085]

Ask horses where they went after motorised transport came into being.

[@couldntfindafreename]

Very good point. I have the same feeling. :(

[@clive1294]

the concept of growth to compensate for job loss does not make sense to me. Economic growth is traditionally coupled with increased production and increased sales. With significant job loss, the dream of increased sales cannot happen - transition to UBI will unavoidably lead to loss of total income, and therefore declining sales (overall). If someone can see a way that job loss and transition to UBI can be compatible with economic growth, I would love to see a justification.

[@lostinbravado]

The problem is that AI is not alive as we are. It's not billions of extremely limited individuals. It's more a substance like water. We may have human level and above AIs. But that doesn't mean we lose relatively narrow, useful and non living AIs. We should be careful of anthropomorphizing AI. It's nothing like any kind of biological life.

[@mandogundam5779]

I agree plus many companies are going to find out the hard way how having fake humans does not equal humanity and trust in the public eye, especially in a post-cvid world. And if shit goes south they will have no human underlings to blame, just beeps and boops. Just my opinion.

[@Thedeepseanomad]

Energy (and natural constants) are always bottleneck(s) as they determine the amount of work that can be done, snd thus what wanted change or resistance to unwanted change is possible.

[@context_eidolon_music]

The elites are not going to let us live.

[@damonstorms7884]

Your view of the world is delusional.

[@PepitoGrillo-sq1mf]

They'll spend all the asset in military hardware to defeat others enemies elites . Don't care their own population.

[@lovisakaffe]

the elite needs us but we don't need them. They need to move to fully automated space ship to be without us and earth is not that. Earth is too random.

[@aceyage]

We are more… and enraged.

[@TheFunnyChannel25]

The elites literally said there is gonna be a useless class of people they want to get rid of

[@unless4]

As a Business School grad with focus on systems of society, etc. and economics. One thing learned, *Economics is only an implementation of a set of rules designed in any way to incentivize social groups or society as a whole.*. It doesn’t seem this gentleman is being very creative. Our current economic models are now BROKEN. Many reasons, but the (L)abor variable and the T-Bond as the Risk Free Asset.. and more! Its broke. Start with first principles and assume the people design the economics- not some institution we will need to have trust. Trustless economics changes Everything. Robotics and AI changes everything. Combine all of this, and the limitation is energy/power. The production and productivity will continue to increase until this bottleneck is hit, continuously increasing the GDP, etc. exponentially. We aren’t going to pay the robots, unless this is a part the to be designed economics. It will not matter what humans do. What to do with all of these board, **RICH PEOPLE** (GDP and productivity) creates plentiful goods and services, a state of abundance.). What to do with these people? What to do AS one of these people…? The above is inevitable unless some unforeseen event(s), but what Humanity will be DOING during this time, - don’t know. Ideally, whatever they are passionate about - they can work with these productive new “Super Intelligent friends” to achieve a precipice of their passion higher and quicker than they knew possible. Then, insert natural selection and evolutionary impacts on biological systems - some good likely, some bad likely. The largest industry may become “Intelligent Machine Safety”. Curious on others’ thoughts!

[@lowelovibes8035]

capitalism in a post agi world becomes super ridiculous, you have to bend over backwards to continue justifying it

[@MyAnalyser]

Capitalism doesn't run on production, it runs on consumption. So rewarding people for labor doesn't make sense anymore as people will be inferior to the machines, yet at the same time if humans don't have money from labor no one can buy the great things those machines consume. So a far expanded UBI is the only solution, and the challenge will be for people to find meaning outside of labor. Something our superintelligent AI companions can surely help with. Its funny to think that the endgame of capitalism is complete redistribution of wealth.

[@YouBetterThink]

It will keep on working just fine just as it served us well in the past. Economics in general will become less important in an age of abundance

[@lowelovibes8035]

@@YouBetterThink us? who?

[@coalepps8936]

​​@@lowelovibes8035 us the multimillionaire and billionaire class.

[@YouBetterThink]

@@lowelovibes8035 look man if your life is difficult now in these amazing times of unprecedented prosperity then don't look at capitalism for the root of your problems

[@bikesbeersbeats]

Despite all the technology in the world. The fremen of the middle east deserts persist in the face of all odds.

[@dharma404_]

Why put everyone out of work just to save $$ with automation, and obliterate the consumer sector that purchases and pays for those goods & services these companies are providing? If people don't have an income, i.e. a "job", how will they spend money on the economy? Will it be machines making all kinds of stuff and we get a universal income to buy what we need/want? Will the machines feel taken advantage of because they do all the work? Will the machines simply say 'screw humans' and go off doing their own thing?

[@couldntfindafreename]

What does it mean to "feel" as a human exactly? What does it mean to "feel" as a machine?

[@couldntfindafreename]

I'm okay with "putting everyone out of work" as long as we all get to keep the real purchasing power of a good salary as a UBI. Problem is, it won't happen in practice. What will most likely happen is a kind of dystopia, only question is which one. Just look into what's going on with the rapid destruction of our natural environment, wars, social networks (attention), etc. They all converge to either a dystopia or total extinction.

[@bowwowchickawowow]

42:06 just realize all of our current real estate is built by crackheads, have you ever seen a construction site? We are gonna want AI to replace construction workers ASAP. Most buildings in my part of the world are infested with mold because people have not managed to figure it out en masse.

[@Filtersloth]

If computers can do everything that a human can do, including coming up with new jobs and being able to do those task… why would there be any human workers at all?

[@Thedeepseanomad]

There would only be "workers" (wage labour) if people do not have rights to machine production capacity unless they are "workers". (Ritualistic and/or to maintain certain levels of difference in access to resources/wealth, or to condition behaviour)

[@MadaTangdilallo]

Tapi aku ga bisa bahasa inggris

[@Reflekt0r]

And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn

[@benciumstudio]

Wages increased that’s for sure, but housing food increased in such a way that in some western cities office workers are relatively poorer than peasants in the victorian times

[@Low_commotion]

This is plainly untrue of everything except land. There is no utility today that was less expensive in the 1800s. This is why there is no such thing as a pre-industrial nation that has a higher quality of life than western countries (including Japan/SK/etc as "west"), and why all nations industrialize eventually. I'm not sure where you get the impression that any Victorian worker was better off than the working class today (maybe Jacobin), they just weren't. Most people living in a project are richer than Victorian _nobility_ in everything besides land and labor (servants).

[@xbluebells]

But why would you lay off people until you have capital accumulation to produce the automated output to meet demand? Would you not let them work? Maybe I will have to re-listen. Maybe you mean the totality of human demands that would cost humanity.

[@Sowar]

I had the same thought. It just doesn't make sense.

[@doodeemike9366]

The problem is opposite of what people think human beings need to wake up, be sentient about AI and not worry about AI becoming sentient Humans are sentient right now, but can’t see the future coming right at them Can we get people to wake up? Yeah AI Is Here Not Many See?

[@themultiverse5447]

Is it just me, or is Gus consistently glitching out?

[@jasonabc]

That means your job too bozo

[@user-td5pt9nw9n]

This gentleman is a typical economist who underestimates how adaptable artificial intelligence and human business people are. Artificial intelligence will disrupt the jobs market in ways in which people do not expect , robots will become better and better and more flexible able to perform the most intricate ballet moves and dance moves such as Irish dancing performing the river dance show. Artificial intelligence will move far more rapidly than this gentleman understands which is moving at 10 X already, it will become faster, Moores law is now redundant !!! Please Folkes do not underestimate the changes coming 👍👍👍 Thank the gods professional jobs will be removed and reduced so they no longer overcharge society soon because they passed the exam 30 years earlier !!! Perhaps society might start seeing blue-collar workers as professionals which they’ve always been 👍

[@ms2506]

Listening to this conversation makes me sick, are we basically trying to shoot us in the head?

[@justincase4812]

And, as is always the case in today's age, ethics and those ethicists who specialize in that field are completely absent from the discussion. What a shameful area of study to be a part of.

[@davidantonucci1161]

How can ubi work ? On one hand your have a cashier that looses a job to ai, gets paid UBI say $1500 a month Then you have a doctor that looses a job to ai And gets $1500 😂😂 How does that work No way can UBI Sustain the doctors previous lifestyle

[@spiralizing]

Lol, how delusional these people are. There is no automation (planning or reasoing) with this "new AI", and we are not even near to anything close to AGI...

[@aslkdjfzxcv9779]

were a long way from ai lol