doctorwho42

How exactly is capturing 75% of white collar work not collapse western capitalism?

An investment that needs to return 7x, alone, on hundreds of billions to trillions of investments... While not destroying the entire economy, or replacing it?

The physical investment that devalues in <7 years in the absolute best case, <5yr in the standard case.

So are they showing a profit that can pay off these data centers before the turn of the decade? If not, they aren't profitable enough to succeed.

Ok, then why are these mega corps not producing a net zero or net positive book?

At the debt levels they have, they need to start shoreing up their books or else the ramifications for the entire market will be apocalyptic

Honestly I think that is more of a symptom of how slapped together the AI software stacks feel to an outsider.

All my dev friends swear this is the future, all my scientist coworkers just say it's a useful tool.

I have heard the pitch and have people explained how it works... But I have yet been handed a guide on how to set myself up properly to get the most out of AI. Like I have both a corporate openai gui agent as well as cli setup with a monthly allotment of tokens. But there is no clear standard guide on how I should be setting things up, like we do for python in books "here are the building blocks for python"/aka learn python the hard way

Modern gaming companies can be considered rent seekers not because they charge money for their products, but because many increasingly rely on extracting additional revenue from consumers by exploiting market power, consumer lock-in, and artificial scarcity rather than creating proportionately greater value. In economics, rent seeking is the pursuit of economic gains through the exploitation of existing advantages rather than through productive activity. Developing a great game is productive; leveraging an established franchise or player community to extract additional money without providing equivalent value is rent seeking.

Consider the use of microtransactions, battle passes, paid progression, and downloadable content. These systems often exploit the time, money, and emotional investment players have already made in a game. By deliberately slowing progression, withholding content, or introducing artificial scarcity, companies can encourage consumers to spend more money not because they are receiving a better product, but because they want to avoid frustration or access something they already value. The company is monetizing the player's existing commitment rather than necessarily creating new value.

This does not mean every gaming company or microtransaction is inherently rent seeking. Selling meaningful new content is a legitimate business activity. The criticism is that parts of the modern gaming industry increasingly prioritize extracting revenue from an existing player base over developing better games. When companies use their control over popular franchises and digital ecosystems to extract additional money from consumers who have few alternatives, they exhibit the very characteristics of rent seeking that economists criticize in other industries.

> Your argument is only solid if we are headed to the singularity.

Perfect encapsulation of the problem. I may steal the wording you used for future conversations.

> Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating public policy or economic conditions without creating new wealth.

Game industry has first manipulated the economic conditions by restricting access to game content (skins, modding capabilities, always online drm, etc.) that previously was included in the price (buy game, you own that game outright).

Manipulation of public policy was a more recent thing with the laws surrounding underage gambling via 'loot-boxes'.

So I think the onus is on you to show us why these behaviors, which increase the wealth the companies are able to extract per game, are not rent seeking behavior.

Are they subject to our IP laws? For over a 100 years if you drew anything like a cartoon mouse you got sued by Disney... AI companies ingested all their IP and can now reproduce it in new ways.

Because the modern Democrats are primarily a corporate dominated party. They haven't really had any hard hitting legislation nor legal regulation/rulings on corporations in easily the last 30 years.

I doubt that is going to change anytime soon. They are a private entity, so they can manage and change their primary system any way they want.

Being easily detectable is a feature, not a bug, in this scenario. Being discovered is a positive because it brings with it eyes and possible recognition of the advanced state of their AI

We do have lower emission alternatives, but not at the cost point... Remember these are corporations trying to make the largest profit possible

I dunno, concentrating the environmental impact of 20GW of gas based power generation would be the equivalent of 6-9 Million cars running... All in the space of a corner of a small city

Citation needed,

Just one 20 GW AI data center which is being built with gas powered turbine generator power plant, will be the largest fossil fuel power plant in the world... How exactly is that the same as one coal mine

All at the cost of ... {List of negatives regarding the construction and powering of AI data centers }