The Off Topic Topic

[Sheilbh]

What worries me with AI is less AI doing my job better than me, and more it's sales people convincing enough idiots in senior positions that it's at least good enough.
As afterall, sales is their specialism, it's something I hate and have no interest in, they're always going to be better at that than me.

I can say this is an issue.

I've worked on looking at various AI proposals and the reality is there's generally not enough of a product there for our type of business. We're trialing a few things but they're basically all extensions of existing SaaS which leads to questions from more senior people of why we're not doing more given what they hear at conferences and there's a bit of explaining back our experience looking at these products (luckily we have a specialist who is very good at this).

But I also feel that's not what Sam Altman and the hype have suggested: that at this stage basically they've built a SaaS bolt-on (it's possibly why I also think the Apple products the only one I've seen that feels like something that could get widely adopted).

There is a good piece in the NYTimes today about the problem developers of AI are having training AI - are more content on the internet is created by AI, there is a feedback loop in which AI gets less and less reliable.

Maybe developers should start paying people who actually produce content on the internet

[crazy canuck]

What worries me with AI is less AI doing my job better than me, and more it's sales people convincing enough idiots in senior positions that it's at least good enough.
As afterall, sales is their specialism, it's something I hate and have no interest in, they're always going to be better at that than me.

I can say this is an issue.

I've worked on looking at various AI proposals and the reality is there's generally not enough of a product there for our type of business. We're trialing a few things but they're basically all extensions of existing SaaS which leads to questions from more senior people of why we're not doing more given what they hear at conferences and there's a bit of explaining back our experience looking at these products (luckily we have a specialist who is very good at this).

But I also feel that's not what Sam Altman and the hype have suggested: that at this stage basically they've built a SaaS bolt-on (it's possibly why I also think the Apple products the only one I've seen that feels like something that could get widely adopted).

There is a good piece in the NYTimes today about the problem developers of AI are having training AI - are more content on the internet is created by AI, there is a feedback loop in which AI gets less and less reliable.

Maybe developers should start paying people who actually produce content on the internet

Yeah, is has become a tragedy of the commons scenario.  Their economic models are built on free access to information.  But as they themselves enter the field, they force out the real content providers and the commons is degraded to the point it is much less beneficial for all, and may one day become entirely bereft of value.

[Sheilbh]

Amazing - and he's right!

madeline odent
@oldenoughtosay
The National Gallery in London is renovating its Sainsbury Wing and they've just found a secret letter from one of the original donors, sunk into a concrete column, saying that he hates the columns and is glad they're being demolished.
10/10 unhinged rich man behaviour, no notes

[Josquius]

A funny quote I stumbled on today.

"The English language is just three languages stacked on top of each other wearing a trench coat. "

[Jacob]

I think the letter is perfect. Registering his discontent without making a big fuss, while providing a bit of amusement for later generations.

Not unhinged at all.

[Jacob]

So there's a difference between rent control and anti-gouging measures, no?

Gouging (aka profiteering) is attempting to take extraordinary profit during short term spikes in demand for necessities (like we saw with toilet paper and sanitary wipes during early covid). At least that's my understanding.

And IMO it's absolutely worthwhile to have policy instruments in place to address gouging when ot occurs; while IMO it's also fraught to attempt to distort the market with long term price controls (and thus it should generally be avoided).

[Tamas]

So there's a difference between rent control and anti-gouging measures, no?

Gouging (aka profiteering) is attempting to take extraordinary profit during short term spikes in demand for necessities (like we saw with toilet paper and sanitary wipes during early covid). At least that's my understanding.

And IMO it's absolutely worthwhile to have policy instruments in place to address gouging when ot occurs; while IMO it's also fraught to attempt to distort the market with long term price controls (and thus it should generally be avoided).

Yeah. In a British context, focus should be on strengthening the rights of renters, making it a less exposed, humiliating, and peasant-like proposition. That may not immediately (or perhaps ever) bring down prices but it would stabilise them and reduce extortion-level asshatery.

[The Brain]

Amazing - and he's right!

madeline odent
@oldenoughtosay
The National Gallery in London is renovating its Sainsbury Wing and they've just found a secret letter from one of the original donors, sunk into a concrete column, saying that he hates the columns and is glad they're being demolished.
10/10 unhinged rich man behaviour, no notes

The Backrooms?

[Admiral Yi]

So there's a difference between rent control and anti-gouging measures, no?

Gouging (aka profiteering) is attempting to take extraordinary profit during short term spikes in demand for necessities (like we saw with toilet paper and sanitary wipes during early covid). At least that's my understanding.

And IMO it's absolutely worthwhile to have policy instruments in place to address gouging when ot occurs; while IMO it's also fraught to attempt to distort the market with long term price controls (and thus it should generally be avoided).

Why is it the storeowners responsibility to stock supplies for your emergency?  We're not doing anything in return.

[Sheilbh]

Question for the ACW-knowers - to what extent is the "lost cause" mythology shaped by Sir Walter Scott?

I was thinking about the way his work (both literary and as impressario of royal visits) and the way he constructs a British identity that actually incorporates lots of symbols of the Jacobite risings who were defeated in order to make Britain. But also his narrative of the Jacobites as romantic chivalrous heroes with lots of dash and nobility, but almost from a different age in their devotion to those values - and so, doomed. They are inheritors of chivalric, knightly, honour-bound traditions and culture but ultimately cannot stop the onward sweep of progress. It seemed very "lost cause"-y and I wondered if Scott's work had an impact on the creation of that mythology?

[Syt]

I was reading a bit of "the culture of defeat" about three cases where an "identity" or grudge fed from a loss in war, looking at three examples: American South after 1865, France after 1871, Germany after 1918. (The author is German.)

The author mentioned Scott a fair bit as a source that inspired many in the antebellum South with its chivalric romantic ideals.

[DGuller]

So there's a difference between rent control and anti-gouging measures, no?

Gouging (aka profiteering) is attempting to take extraordinary profit during short term spikes in demand for necessities (like we saw with toilet paper and sanitary wipes during early covid). At least that's my understanding.

And IMO it's absolutely worthwhile to have policy instruments in place to address gouging when ot occurs; while IMO it's also fraught to attempt to distort the market with long term price controls (and thus it should generally be avoided).

I don't think it's even a given that laws against price gouging are sensible.  Yes, it leaves a bitter taste when a disaster happens and someone spikes up the prices 5x or 10x for some products.  However, pragmatically speaking, the effect of such spikes is that people are less likely to hoard something that momentarily becomes a lot more valuable, and owners of such products might go the extra mile to be open for business if they can make a killing.

At the start of the Covid epidemic, it seems like price gouging at least in my area was tolerated.  The result of that was that you could buy face masks if you really wanted to long before the shortages were alleviated, but obviously at $1+ per mask you wouldn't be stocking up 20 boxes.  At the old prices, the lucky few would snap them up, because why not?  Your life and your family's life is more important to you than socially efficient allocation of face masks during the shortage.

[Sheilbh]

I think it depends. A lot of the recent focus has been driven by Isabella Weber's work, such as How China Escaped Shock Therapy, and her work on seller's inflation. I think she's written on how, for example, price controls can play an important role in establishing a functioning market when you're moving from fixed prices to a market economy without accidentally setting off hyper-inflation etc- looking at the transitions to market economies in Eastern Europe and China. But also, I think, probably quite relevant to the long standing IMF injunction to all developing economies to remove subsidies/price controls on basic foodstuffs, fuel etc.

But more generally I think focusing on it from a purely economic framework slightly misses the point at times. For example rationing in the UK in WW2 (and until the 50s) was not because of food shortages. It was because of the experience of WW1 when there wasn't rationing but there also weren't food shortages but the visible inequality had undermining effect on morale. The argument was not about gouging, or economics but fairness and the perception of fairness when you're asking people to make a great national effort and their homes are being bombed.

I think those two can link together - for example, covid. In the UK, this was delivered largely through the private sector but during the first lockdown there were runs on items and the government basically suspended competition law for retailers and backed them in a form of soft rationing. People weren't allowed to stockpile and, on the other side, the supermarkets were told to actively make sure everyone in their area was able to access what they need (obviously with furlough money etc to pay for it). Similarly free rapid testing, free PPE for lots of workers etc. I think that is because the reason for covid measures wasn't purely economic so the purely economic argument doesn't matter and the fairness (and being seen to be fair) really does. I think there probably is something similar in Weber's specialty of transitioning to a market where you need to bring people with you and if it visibly results in a few oligarchs getting rich or stockpiling and shortage it will have wider inflationary impacts but also diminish trust - but to return to the purely economics, trust is really good for an economy and drives down costs and difficult to foster so there is, perhaps, a benefit there.

[grumbler]

Question for the ACW-knowers - to what extent is the "lost cause" mythology shaped by Sir Walter Scott?

I was thinking about the way his work (both literary and as impressario of royal visits) and the way he constructs a British identity that actually incorporates lots of symbols of the Jacobite risings who were defeated in order to make Britain. But also his narrative of the Jacobites as romantic chivalrous heroes with lots of dash and nobility, but almost from a different age in their devotion to those values - and so, doomed. They are inheritors of chivalric, knightly, honour-bound traditions and culture but ultimately cannot stop the onward sweep of progress. It seemed very "lost cause"-y and I wondered if Scott's work had an impact on the creation of that mythology?

I'm not sure whether Scott was just a symptom of the widespread popularity of Romanticism or a major innovator of Romantic ideas, but he surely contributed to its popularity, and the US Southern aristocracy was particularly susceptible.

But the secession of the South was not a particularly unique example of powerful elites engaging in violence to prevent the arrival of the future. 

[Barrister]

So there's a difference between rent control and anti-gouging measures, no?

Gouging (aka profiteering) is attempting to take extraordinary profit during short term spikes in demand for necessities (like we saw with toilet paper and sanitary wipes during early covid). At least that's my understanding.

And IMO it's absolutely worthwhile to have policy instruments in place to address gouging when ot occurs; while IMO it's also fraught to attempt to distort the market with long term price controls (and thus it should generally be avoided).

I don't think it's even a given that laws against price gouging are sensible.  Yes, it leaves a bitter taste when a disaster happens and someone spikes up the prices 5x or 10x for some products.  However, pragmatically speaking, the effect of such spikes is that people are less likely to hoard something that momentarily becomes a lot more valuable, and owners of such products might go the extra mile to be open for business if they can make a killing.

At the start of the Covid epidemic, it seems like price gouging at least in my area was tolerated.  The result of that was that you could buy face masks if you really wanted to long before the shortages were alleviated, but obviously at $1+ per mask you wouldn't be stocking up 20 boxes.  At the old prices, the lucky few would snap them up, because why not?  Your life and your family's life is more important to you than socially efficient allocation of face masks during the shortage.

I agree with DGuller.