Let's imagine that Anthropic/OpenAI fail to manufacture scarcity by villainizing Open Weight models (a sincere probability). What is left for these corporations to prop up their prices, or any margin at all? I expect scaffolding around tool use, supporting bespoke implementation and driving risk down for institutional adoption. (They might even build an insurance tool to protect accountants/lawyers from errors in compounded probabilism!)
A question for economists... It seems plainly clear to me that information and information processing is commodifying (for the first time in human history?). Without the age-old bottlenecks at the top of the value chain, capital will surely flow downwards, right?
> It seems plainly clear to me that information and information processing is commodifying (for the first time in human history?). Without the age-old bottlenecks at the top of the value chain, capital will surely flow downwards, right?
Isn't this the thing people have said about every new technology since the printing press? And it has been mostly true, but it has also been the case that the incumbents have fought hard to lock things back up again. Newspapers and radio stations buy each other up, the open web gets locked inside Facebook (which, 30 years ago, people were already worried about with AOL), people have computers in their pockets they can't run their own programs on anymore.
Interests are going to want to lock the new information thing behind a gate so they can charge a toll and censor what they don't like, same as it ever was. You don't win by default, you have to fight to stop them.
I don’t think that comparing LLM’s to the printing press (and radio, film, TV, etc) is an apt analogy, and I don’t think that people have said the same things about the two technologies; the prior technological changes in information dealt with distribution, while this one deals with processing and production.
Recall the notion of a bottleneck, and this distinction will become clear. Those prior technological changes never inverted a bottleneck, and this one does.
> the prior technological changes in information dealt with distribution, while this one deals with processing and production.
Computers and the internet did a lot to make production easier in addition to distribution. Anyone today can use a photo editor to superimpose text over an image in any font in seconds like it's child's play. That used to require knowledge of calligraphy. Film production used to require very expensive equipment that everyone now has built into their phone.
> Those prior technological changes never inverted a bottleneck, and this one does.
Before the printing press, copying books had to be done by hand. If you wanted a million copies of something made you had to be the church or a government. Today there are independent pundits who get a million impressions on their shitposts, and that's with consolidated platforms being largely against them.
We still have an entire edifice (copyright) which is structured around copying requiring a sufficiently centralized apparatus to serve as a useful chokepoint for imposing restrictions and collecting royalties, which is correspondingly under increasing distress as
OpenAI, though they seem to backtrack it lately, have been slowly pushing forward of their launch of ads which would be a supplemental way to support cheaper use of their models. This is currently not as great a fit as the modern day banner ads, but it will be interesting to see where they go with that.
Author here. I chose the biology references for two reasons. 1) I love nature 2) It seemed to provide the most distant examples of IR from what most of us are familiar with.
Of course compilers are probably the most obvious example of Intermediate Representation and form the basis for much of the computer science we draw on any time we compose an IR in code. That, to me, made it less compelling for a feature in this brief essay. I like that my example of an IR in Swift was designed, while the biology examples of IR are not deliberately designed but rather landed upon during extremely chaotic evolution. That contrast compelled me to reference biology, instead of the more immediately adjacent body of work around compilers. Of course I’m not the best author… maybe I chose poorly.
Regarding Notion and blocks — I suspect Notion chose the block architecture because it is maximally agnostic (it is kind of an IR in its own right), allowing for rapid development of anything upstream or downstream of those blocks. Maybe one of their early team members was inspired in some way by the field of IR, or otherwise intuited this design.
It was incredibly refreshing to read an honest story, warts and all, written by a human. And equally infuriating to read a comment about it written by AI.
That's a really great point, and shows a deep understanding of how consistently humorless HN users are! If you want, I can show several more examples of people knee-jerk downvoting things that are actually pretty funny.
There's always been a general pushback on HN against turning threads into a series of quippy oneliners. It tends toward having a serious discussion about a topic, rather than farming low-effort humour for upvotes. I consider this a good thing, as there are plenty of other places where that is rewarded.
Yeah it seems harmless in isolation, but I'm pretty sure that lacking a norm against it it is one of the ways you end up with Reddit. And because HN doesn't have an actual anti-humour rule, in the best case it lets the funnier and more creative stuff through while punishing the obvious one-liners and boilerplate jokes that everyone would be clamouring to make first on a Reddit thread. (I don't want to be rude, but the thing where someone writes stereotypical AI speak in an ironic context has been done a billion times and doesn't need to be done again, unless it comes with an interesting twist or unusually sharp execution.)
> I don't want to be rude, but the thing where someone writes stereotypical AI speak in an ironic context has been done a billion times and doesn't need to be done again
Yeah. As the person who triggered this subthread by not detecting the attempt at "humor", the last thing we need is a version of Poe's Law for AI slop.
I agree though from my experience on HN people tend to upvote these funny quips instead of abstaining. Yet generally when I write something meaningful I get meaningful replies in return sans upvotes and I treasure those much more.
I still cling on to the quaint idea that "upvote" means "adds meaningfully and coherently to the discussion", while "downvote" means the opposite. So not "I agree with this" or "that made me chuckle" but rather "this enhances the conversation" - and especially if it's a well written argument I disagree with because that might make me learn or rethink my position. Humour in a well argued point is very welcome, of course.
Wish and reality aren't in alignment here but some places like HN or /r/AskHistorians are my refuges.
That's not how it works at all. In general I've noticed that many of the things I say might remain neutral or get some upvotes, and then get flagged and downvoted as soon as the USA wakes up. So I think here it is very very much based on agreement.
While I am ideologically aligned with the author (ie, humans matter) and agree with their proposed interventions (progressive taxation, spread the base of capital across society, aggressive antitrust enforcement) and appreciate the thrust of the essay, I’m doubtful of the underlying predicate that human labor will be replaced with AI.
I don’t believe we have seen AI-driven layoffs yet (despite the CEO’s prognostications and suspect justifications). I personally have more to do than ever despite “AI being able to do everything I can do” (‡). I still want to speak to a human at the company I am a client of. And how many AI bloggers even know what a nurse at a hospital does?
I agree with the author’s repeated statement and implication that it is all about the human. The human is the lynchpin. Imagine for a moment this “dead economy,” or instead imagine a virtualized economy that is just incredible with trillions of this and trillions of that, absolute abundance, perfect chemical processing, impeccable design, unlimited resources. How much is that worth without humans?
Further, in many societies humans became irrelevant to labor in its simplest definition decades ago, without becoming economically irrelevant. If the US lost 10% of its able-bodied workforce economists would be primarily concerned with lost consumption, and not production. Apparently this “human labor” is a lot more than its superficial and material interpretation.
What I don’t agree with is the fickleness assigned to the human role. The human role is not a light or arbitrary one. It is the defining characteristic of our societal system that all subsequent characteristics rely upon and are derived from.
(‡ – Despite “AI being able to do everything I can do,” it cannot tie it together, because there is no such thing as agency in LLM’s. Probabilistic processes as n approaches infinity become gobbledygook at best. Deterministic interruptions are a necessity of agency.)
If we can work on the solution for when 90% of “human labor” is replaced by machines and intelligent machines, we’ll have a roadmap for how society should be structured.
Ever since we moved a step above subsistence farming we’ve been heading this way, and continually developing new ways to waste effort and work isn’t sustainable.
I would argue that we almost are in that exact position, except rather than “low employment” per se it is more like “low compensation” or unequal distribution.
Consider for a moment our incredible material wealth. We have a surplus of nearly everything, albeit poor distribution. This is balance (keep in mind every system is intrinsically in a state of balance or temporal equilibrium).
Relatedly, I'm convinced that humans cannot achieve any form of peak performance in any domain (athletics, art, business, community organizing) without consistently going for walks. We're all aware of the programmer working at a problem for hours, going for a walk, sitting down, and then elegantly solving the problem in a few lines of thoughtful code (haven't we all experienced this?), and here is an example in another domain...
I have never been at my best rock climbing performance without a substantial amount of walking; even if I am training well, eating well, sleeping well, climbing with others, and super enthusiastic, the element of walking is for some reason critical.
My suspicion is that the human body is designed for walking (eg, we are upright, our shoulders adapted to swing the arm) and that myriad processes simply will not occur or will not occur optimally without walking. I believe restoration on a cellular level is enhanced by walking, that various cognitive and sub-cognitive processes are aided by walking, and that many of these processes sync up with a sort of supermodular (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermodular_function) effect when walking.
The article details costs and leaves two big ones out. First, opportunity cost: lot of folks rent instead of own on the basis of keeping assets in higher-performing market sectors. Second (and perhaps actually an expression of the first), anything that prevents a working professional from changing cities can exert downward pressure on future economic opportunity.
Even easier than moving apartments if you just sell your house "as is". Depending on your rental contract you might have to do paint it etc before returning it.
The hiring brand is Ferrari. Its entire business is predicated on a Paris-Hilton-style effect, whereby it is famous for being famous. Tactics like hiring Jony Ive are a common way to keep this virtuous cycle afloat. It's not really about design, it's about PR/hype/reputation/branding.
It’s surprising just how low the revenue is for SpaceX. There are some 700+ companies with larger revenue figures, and yet just a small handful exceed SpaceX’s proposed valuation.
In 2026 one gets the impression that SpaceX is a huge company, among the largest in the world. It’s wild to see that its business volume is smaller than Northrop, smaller than Apple’s peripherals alone, smaller than Avnet (heard of ‘em?).
Plus Uber's only increased their revenue 11->14B in the last 5yrs. SpaceX has added +$4B since 2024 and have fanciful plans in multiple markets that only a gambler like Musk would risk proposing.
you're right, looks I mixed up some numbers while googling. their revenue went from 11->53b in 6yrs which was very off from my original comment
Which honestly surprises me, Uber was called a VC pump and dump scheme for years on HN before their IPO. Maybe that's the better lesson here (dont take financial advice from HN comments)
Uber WAS a pump and dump. Insiders used the public for exit liquidity and any public shareholders got stuck with a pretty crap stock. Uber went up 100% from IPO to mid 2025, Google went up 400% in that time period (and I picked 2025 to avoid the huge AI runup we have seen).
It was hemorrhaging in many cities using extremely profitable cities like London and NYC to keep their global competitiveness.
Uber was able to pivot and become financially sound with two moves:
- Uber Eats becoming first party delivery to restaurants (it started as a limited selection of items from some restaurants and quickly evolved into a Doordash-esque competitor)
- Uber launching a 1B+ RR Ads business - margins on this are obviously incredible
Both of those combined with discipline in their ridesharing business (exiting the China market with a sale + stake, dumping their self-driving business when it became a money sink) have led to a recovery in their stock price, but it is FAR from the crazy expectations set up for VCs. I expect those in the last round didn't get a great return, but obviously folk like Benchmark exited like kings.
I'm guessing COVID also played a major role. The other narrative around Uber's IPO was gig-work was evil and should be banned, then pandemic hit and everyone started using uber eats constantly. Looking at their revenue growth it started doubling after 2020
Personally, I always underestimate how much exploitation consumers are willing to experience before leaving a brand. I thought Facebook was reaching the peak of its ability to shove ads into its products in like 2011, boy was I wrong.
Uber successfully displaced most of the alternatives, slowly raised rates, and maintained operating margin while their fixed costs didn't have to scale as much. Post Travis they've, financially, nailed it.
Revenue is not the right metric when you compare space trips to trips inside a city. The more relevant numbers are EBITDA, Operating cash flow, Profits.
> It’s surprising just how low the revenue is for SpaceX. There are some 700+ companies with larger revenue figures, and yet just a small handful exceed SpaceX’s proposed valuation.
As Patrick Boyle points out in this video "SpaceX IPO: Nice Try Though" (6m40s):
A question for economists... It seems plainly clear to me that information and information processing is commodifying (for the first time in human history?). Without the age-old bottlenecks at the top of the value chain, capital will surely flow downwards, right?
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