• nexguy@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    When it’s cheaper to make the products because you don’t have to pay anyone, people will look at that manufacturer and think… wow I can start a business like that and make an easy profit? Competition will drive down prices.

    • hume_lemmy@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      I think their point is that when everyone’s income is $0/hr price becomes pretty much irrelevant (unless also $0)

    • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      If they gain decent market share, they will be bought by one of the two or three companies that owns the entirety of that manufacturing category. If they don’t, the incumbents will lower prices until the new thing is out of business. In either case, the prices bounce back, and even increase because of “inflation.”

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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          7 months ago

          Economics of scale. Doesn’t work like that.

          Lowering prices to kill competition is kinda illegal, but due to, again, economics of scale they have to lower those to illegal levels. One customer interaction in average brings more profit and less expense with larger scale.

          • nexguy@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Economics of scale exactly. An industry that is easy to get into(thanks to ai) that has high profit margins will attract competition just like always.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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              7 months ago

              An industry that is easy to get into(thanks to ai)

              I don’t know what you mean by that, it doesn’t make anything easier yet and there’s no reason to think it will.

              • nexguy@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                It absolutely makes it easier. It can answer you questions and present the same info large corporations used to have sole access to.

                Example would be starting an entertainment content provider. You no longer need artists or writers. It can be a one person show instead of a team of 6.

                Architecture firm…fewer designers. Fewer lawyers need hired.

                Advertising firm. Fewer employees for sure. More avenues explored than ever possible before.

                • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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                  7 months ago

                  It can answer you questions and present the same info large corporations used to have sole access to.

                  No, it’s a glorified googling and plagiarism machine.

                  You can’t trust its answers on what you don’t already know, so can’t check. Which makes it useless for that, because what you already know, you already do.

                  Architecture firm…fewer designers. Fewer lawyers need hired.

                  Firm “no” for both cases. Replacing expertise is something they don’t do.

                  You no longer need artists or writers.

                  The quality of that content, though, would be such that people are going to pay for tools to avoid seeing it. Not even talking about litigation for plagiarism (which I’m ideologically against, so).

                  It can be used to assist existing artists and people of other occupations, surely. Or to be used in classification or text and voice recognition. Or even in data compression.

                  But it’s not a revolutionary tool and it’s not going to become one. Same as blockchain, a wasteful frontal assault way at imitating something wonderful which it isn’t.

                  Advertising firm. Fewer employees for sure.

                  Yes, that’s possible. And other such trash.

                  You just don’t know what you are talking about. These are not quirks or bugs to be ironed out, these are inherent traits of such a machine.

                  There were “machine servants” in Antiquity which would pour wine. And there were analog toys which would recognize simple voice commands and react in 70s and 80s (you can find lots of wonders to make in journals for kids interested in radioelectronics from that time ; also if “inventions” from Heinlein’s “Door into Summer” seem naive to you when reading it now, I hope it’s interesting to know that they actually were very plausible even back then). This is just a very complex version of the same.

                  • nexguy@lemmy.world
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                    7 months ago

                    You have such a low opinion of a technology that, still in its embryonic stage, has already found its way into a large percentage of corporations that almost never adopt a tech this quickly. Already causing layoffs after so little time. Give it only a few more years.

                    Edit: not sure what you mean by machine servents. That tech has nothing to do with how ai is affecting the world right now.

    • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      There’s one missing piece here, and it’s startup capital. You don’t usually see new chemicals manufacturers for instance, because you need a lot of money to buy everything to start with.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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        7 months ago

        Not only that, also for paying royalties and money for legal protection when somebody sues you just to dig you in, or for consulting lawyers so that nobody would sue you.

        There are lots of problems with running a glamorous official business. Mom&pop shop - yeah, you can.

      • nexguy@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Large existing corporations will expand the industries they are involved in and take advantage of the ease of entry with AI. The have plenty of capital and won’t sit on their hands when golden opportunities are a few purchases away.