You know my strong feeling is that productivity statistics have been flawed for a long time. We undercounted the benefit of internet, then of cloud, and now of AI. I think even if it doesn't show up in the headline "productivity" statistics, it will show up in lower long-term interest rates...
Modern Rehabilitation Camps: A Vision for Humane and Constructive Incarceration
Introduction
The modern prison system has long struggled to balance punishment with rehabilitation. In a society increasingly recognizing the value of human dignity and social integration, a new model of incarceration must emerge. This model, which we shall call "Rehabilitation Camps," draws inspiration from principles of order, discipline, and the promotion of virtue. Its purpose is not merely to confine but to reform and elevate the men within its walls, preparing them to rejoin society as honorable and productive citizens.
Principles of the Rehabilitation Camp
The core principle of the Rehabilitation Camp is to instill a deep sense of discipline, purpose, and moral virtue in its inmates. By emphasizing skill-building, social integration, and humane treatment, these camps aim to transform individuals who have fallen into criminality into dignified members of society. This system is not designed to humiliate or degrade but to uplift and inspire.
Moral and Social Education: Every inmate will be provided with a structured education in virtues such as honesty, self-discipline, accountability, and charity. Daily routines will involve lectures, readings, and discussions on moral philosophy, social order, and the responsibilities of citizenship.
Work and Trade Training: Inmates will be assigned meaningful and productive work according to their physical and intellectual capacities. This work will range from agricultural labor to skilled craftsmanship, preparing men for productive employment upon release. Employment training shall include apprenticeships, technical skills, and creative trades.
Physical Discipline and Health: Physical health will be seen as an essential aspect of moral clarity and personal strength. Inmates will engage in daily physical training to promote self-discipline and bodily health. Balanced, nutritious meals will be provided, and medical care will be readily available.
Guard as Mentor and Model: One of the most critical features of the Rehabilitation Camp is the role of the guards. The guards are not merely enforcers of rules but are to act as mentors and exemplars of moral virtue. Guards will be selected from among the finest citizens — men who embody self-restraint, honor, and compassion. Their conduct must reflect the highest standard of virtue so that they inspire respect and emulation from the inmates.
Gradual Reintegration and Parole: The ultimate goal of the camp is not indefinite detention but gradual reintegration. Inmates who demonstrate genuine reform will be granted increasing privileges and responsibilities, eventually transitioning to supervised parole and employment placements. The emphasis is always on reform and uplift, not punishment for its own sake.
Management of Violent and Impulse-Control Prisoners
A key challenge of any correctional facility is managing individuals prone to violence or severe impulsive behavior. The Rehabilitation Camp will approach this issue with particular care, ensuring the dignity and safety of all inmates while guiding the violent man toward self-mastery.
Controlled, Isolated Environments: Individuals with serious impulse-control problems will initially be housed in separate, highly monitored sections of the camp. These facilities will be designed not for punishment but for intensive correction. The goal is to protect these individuals from themselves and protect others from their aggression, allowing space for gradual reform.
Intensive Counseling and Discipline: Specialized counselors and chaplains will work closely with these inmates, using a combination of religious instruction, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and moral reasoning to assist the inmate in gaining self-mastery. Guards will be particularly chosen for their patience and virtue when working in these wings.
Physical Labor and Discipline: Labor has a transformative effect on unruly men. Those prone to violence will be given the most physically demanding but meaningful tasks, such as agricultural work, stone cutting, or timber work. The structure of hard physical labor coupled with moral instruction has proven historically effective in fostering discipline.
Strict Accountability with Dignity: Violent outbursts or breaches of discipline will be met with swift but humane consequences. Isolation or suspension of privileges will reinforce the importance of self-control. However, physical mistreatment or dehumanization will never be permitted. Dignity is paramount.
Pairing and Team Integration: Once a violent prisoner demonstrates a measurable level of self-control and discipline, he will be paired with another prisoner of similar progress to form a working team. These teams will engage in collaborative physical labor requiring cooperation, communication, and mutual reliance. This method serves to increase social aptitude and reduce isolationist tendencies.
Expedition and Autonomous Projects: As teams of two begin working efficiently together, they will be further integrated into larger teams of four. Once these four-man units demonstrate reliability, they will be assigned independent projects outside the main camp. One such project will involve leaving the camp for two to three days to construct their own sub-camp using provided tools and materials. The men will design and build their own cabin, utilizing creativity and teamwork. While largely free from guard oversight during these tasks, the men must adhere to clear task completion deadlines, dedicating three-quarters of their daily work hours to construction, farming, or resource gathering. This autonomous period fosters self-reliance and continued social skill development, preparing men for eventual reintegration into society.
Gradual Trust and Supervision Reduction: Successful completion of sub-camp projects will result in increased trust and privileges. Ultimately, men who demonstrate consistent reliability, moral reform, and teamwork aptitude will be eligible for early parole, transfer to open-labor programs, and eventual reintegration into society.
Case Study: Hypothetical Criminal in Two Systems
To demonstrate the potential benefits and drawbacks of Rehabilitation Camps compared to standard prisons, consider the case of John, a 32-year-old man convicted of armed bank robbery. John, a divorced father of a four-year-old son, faces a maximum sentence of four years.
Standard Prison Experience:
Social Isolation: In a standard prison, John would experience severe social disconnection. The limited family visitation and lack of community engagement would likely distance him further from his son.
Minimal Skill Acquisition: With limited access to meaningful labor or skill-building, John would likely leave prison without marketable skills, reducing his employability.
Psychological Deterioration: The punitive environment, lack of positive role models, and inherent exposure to criminal subculture could worsen John's behavior or mental state.
Limited Rehabilitation: Upon release, John would face immense difficulty reintegrating into society, struggling with stigma, lack of skills, and damaged familial bonds.
Rehabilitation Camp Experience:
Social Reintegration: John would work in teams, engage with mentors, and gradually restore his social aptitude, maintaining a sense of community.
Skill and Trade Development: Through labor assignments, John would learn practical skills in construction, farming, or other trades, improving his employment prospects post-release.
Positive Role Models: Guards and staff act as mentors, demonstrating discipline and virtue, which would inspire John to reform his own behavior.
Family Reconnection: Gradual reintegration processes, increased communication privileges, and visitation rights would help John maintain a relationship with his son.
Higher Rehabilitation Success: The structured, dignified environment of the camp increases the likelihood of John becoming a productive citizen post-release.
In conclusion, while standard prisons rely heavily on punishment and isolation, Rehabilitation Camps emphasize moral restoration, social reintegration, and skill acquisition. This model offers a clear path to societal contribution, reducing recidivism and restoring the dignity of incarcerated men. John’s case demonstrates how an approach grounded in virtue and productivity can transform not only individuals but also the communities they return to.
In this way, the modern prison system may evolve from a mere instrument of containment to a powerful engine of social and moral uplift, truly embodying justice and mercy in equal measure.
If nothing else, your one suggestion - "Think of a spam filter for everything, not just email. Filter your social media feed, your text messages, and your news sources." - will save me a lot of time.
"A Large Language Model’s main value is as an interface, not an encyclopedia"
That's a bad way to frame the question; it's forcing a false choice as in reality the value is a combination of both. Just like the value of human expert contractors is a combination of both. We just take the "try to understand me / break it down for me in layman's terms" interface part of human-layman-to-human-expert interaction for granted, though, note, many human experts are -despite the benefit of being born and raised human- *still very bad* at doing these interactions well.
An encyclopedia that can only be quickly used by pre-trained human experts will have value, but it's not the *huge* value that can be unlocked in a genuinely low-learning-curve mass-user scenario. Likewise, what's the point of an interface unless it allows you to specify instructions to direct one particular outcome or instance out of the huge number of possibilities in any category or medium or even large sets thereof, as might constitute an "encyclopedia" of those possibilities?
So, the big value of LLM's in in having comprehensive encyclopedic reference mapped to a "laymen's terms" specification and interaction language. Which is just another way of saying that the big value is "replacing expert service-providers at scale at negligible marginal cost."
Productivity - In response to another comment, AK mentioned gdp as a measure of progress. As best I can tell, gdp is used as the output for calculating productivity. If the number of widgets per input doubles but the price goes down, the gdp doesn't double. One could try to account for the increased number of widgets but this runs into multiple problems including products that aren't widgets and, as mentioned in AK's substack post, accounting for product improvement and new products. Are TVs today, of the same size, 10% better than the vacuum tube tech of 50 years ago or a million times better? I think one could easily make either argument. What about vs black and white TVs? Broadcast vs video tape rentals vs streaming? I would add that all of this makes it impossible to accurately measure inflation too.
Maybe none of this truly matters. Maybe what we are currently measuring tells us what we need to know. Maybe the constant racheting up of standards via what I believe to be over-estimation of inflation is the right outcome. IDK. But I still think understanding what these measures tells us, and don't tell us, is a a useful pursuit.
I worked in r&d. I got funded for projects. I'd ask for a certain amount I might get it it I might get less. If I got less I'd doy best for that funding level. But does that mean my productivity increased because I did it for less? Other times the funding would be for an ongoing project. How does one determine the productivity on that? (My brother worked on the same Navy contract for 30 years, until it was canceled. What's the productivity on that?)
To complicate matters more, I might not have enough of my time or other planned resources available for the project. Now I go to secondary resources that probably aren't as good. Maybe the result degrades, maybe it doesn't even get completed. What's the productivity.
Not to say these complications are unimportant to productivity but they almost totally miss all the way that technology has made it easier to create presentation "slides," write print, and submit documentation and all kinds of other productivity improvement. it also hides the cost of increased bureaucracy in the process.
I got excited when I saw the title for #2 – i.e., an LLM’s value is as an interface, not an encyclopedia. But the focus was narrowly on the ‘personality’ of the LLM as a human-to-machine interface. I think the point is much bigger than that, and more profound.
LLMs are going to be able to take data and information in whatever form they happen to exist in, and translate them into a form that is useful in another domain.
That might be instantaneous translation, or allowing one system to access a database of information that it wasn’t programmed to interact with, or taking information of a kind that isn’t easily parsed into a traditional database and making it something you can sort and query. A company that wants to upgrade an old, archaic system would be able to relatively easily re-factor information captured in that system into something new. (I saw something on twitter about a guy taking code from a very old video game, feeding it into an LLM, and having the LLM rewrite the code to make it playable on a modern computer.) It might be useful in a company to understand what information needs to be disseminated to which people, at what time, without needing people to spend time distilling and communicating.
LLMs will reduce a tremendous amount of friction all over the place, again, in allowing information to flow from one domain and context to another. That will be hard to measure, I suppose, but it will unlock incredible efficiencies.
Arnold, your perspective of Ai is compelling and sensible. As for measuring GDP, the notion that a political economy is little more than an accounting ledger is spot on. The circular flow model of the aggregate economy that matches up well with the notion of GDP seems worse than naive these days. The CFM seemed misleading to me 45 years ago in graduate school; it seems worse now.
Ai as a replacement for GUI, (which was a huge advance over command-line) and other means of interacting with a computer is absolutely HUGE. I cannot wait for the full-blown embodiment of LLM technology for device input-output. Is it just me, or has remembering user interfaces with devices become ridiculously complicated; e.g., "press this button while holding the other button down (while winking)."
Science fiction "terminator" perspectives of Ai are baseless, in my opinion. But I also think that LLM is but the leading edge of a much bigger, future Ai tent.
It seems to me like AI assistants could be a huge help to disabled people. A family member is autistic, very forgetful, and diabetic. Not an easy combination. I could imagine an AI assistant extending her lifespan significantly.
Even for people with average cognitive abilities, I'd expect diabetes management AI could be a big help. Hopefully the FDA will not be too totalitarian about restricting such software.
Coincidentally I've been thinking about how GDP (and related measures) is failing to capture perceived wealth. A lot of things seems to fail to be properly captured, but technological improvements seem to be particularly poorly caught.
If I can use an AI to write half a dozen emails that would normally take me 10minutes each that's an hour of my life I've got back (less time taken to read the emails before hitting send). That number totally fails to show up in GDP
Worse, if your case 7 applies and we can use AI to program our lawnmowers, roombas etc. we'll see a diminution in the amount of human provided services in those areas and thus, for those people who pay for gardeners etc. rather than do it themselves, a reduction in calculated GDP because they no longer need to pay Jose, Maria and their friends to do it for them. (Although some of those services are already missed by GDP since they are paid in cash and undeclared by the recipient). But that dimunution is in fact false because the people who used to hire gardeners and cleaners and now have a robot to do it are saving time and money thanks to the new technology. That ought to make them, and the nation, richer not poorer
I agree that time seems to be a more relevant measure for much in life. The question is whether it can be measured adequately. A poor correlate that can be measured might be better than a perfect correlate that can only be poorly estimated.
Then again, maybe time isn't a great measure of progress. How would one factor in that we spend an increasing amount of our time looking at our phone?
First, note that I said might be. Second, I don't see why it is backwards. Both the poor correlate and the poor measurement have real possibilities of becoming the goal and neither would be especially good. The situation of interest and how each flawed approach might be used makes all the difference in which is more useful, if at all.
Do we spend the time looking at the phone because we want to? or because we have to? If we aren't paid to do so and aren't forced to do so then I think that counts as a voluntary leisure activity and therefore in economic terms a benefit of our freedom from needing to do something else to survive
The best way for AI to raise GDP would not necessarily improve human welfare.
In my industry AI is used for up-coding, that is finding ways to increase the number of Hierarchical Condition Category codes that a person has. It does this precisely by prompting the doctor during the visit to write up the codes. This increases revenue from MAPD (thus, increases government spending) which "increases" GDP.
A similar dynamic seems to play out in sports gambling (AI attuned to figure out how to manipulate people into betting).
Like a lot of technology I can imagine good or ill uses. But GDP only measures whether a purchase was made or not.
Good thing everybody knows what MAPD means. But if you're too young, "MAPD stands for Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug plans, which are Medicare-approved health plans from private companies that offer all-in-one coverage for Medicare Parts A and B, and often include prescription drug coverage (Part D)."
You know my strong feeling is that productivity statistics have been flawed for a long time. We undercounted the benefit of internet, then of cloud, and now of AI. I think even if it doesn't show up in the headline "productivity" statistics, it will show up in lower long-term interest rates...
Today I used ChatGPT to use the description of a Nazi reEducation Camp
https://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/ccfacts.html
https://archive.ph/hM8oG
as a template to replace standard prisons.
--
Modern Rehabilitation Camps: A Vision for Humane and Constructive Incarceration
Introduction
The modern prison system has long struggled to balance punishment with rehabilitation. In a society increasingly recognizing the value of human dignity and social integration, a new model of incarceration must emerge. This model, which we shall call "Rehabilitation Camps," draws inspiration from principles of order, discipline, and the promotion of virtue. Its purpose is not merely to confine but to reform and elevate the men within its walls, preparing them to rejoin society as honorable and productive citizens.
Principles of the Rehabilitation Camp
The core principle of the Rehabilitation Camp is to instill a deep sense of discipline, purpose, and moral virtue in its inmates. By emphasizing skill-building, social integration, and humane treatment, these camps aim to transform individuals who have fallen into criminality into dignified members of society. This system is not designed to humiliate or degrade but to uplift and inspire.
Moral and Social Education: Every inmate will be provided with a structured education in virtues such as honesty, self-discipline, accountability, and charity. Daily routines will involve lectures, readings, and discussions on moral philosophy, social order, and the responsibilities of citizenship.
Work and Trade Training: Inmates will be assigned meaningful and productive work according to their physical and intellectual capacities. This work will range from agricultural labor to skilled craftsmanship, preparing men for productive employment upon release. Employment training shall include apprenticeships, technical skills, and creative trades.
Physical Discipline and Health: Physical health will be seen as an essential aspect of moral clarity and personal strength. Inmates will engage in daily physical training to promote self-discipline and bodily health. Balanced, nutritious meals will be provided, and medical care will be readily available.
Guard as Mentor and Model: One of the most critical features of the Rehabilitation Camp is the role of the guards. The guards are not merely enforcers of rules but are to act as mentors and exemplars of moral virtue. Guards will be selected from among the finest citizens — men who embody self-restraint, honor, and compassion. Their conduct must reflect the highest standard of virtue so that they inspire respect and emulation from the inmates.
Gradual Reintegration and Parole: The ultimate goal of the camp is not indefinite detention but gradual reintegration. Inmates who demonstrate genuine reform will be granted increasing privileges and responsibilities, eventually transitioning to supervised parole and employment placements. The emphasis is always on reform and uplift, not punishment for its own sake.
Management of Violent and Impulse-Control Prisoners
A key challenge of any correctional facility is managing individuals prone to violence or severe impulsive behavior. The Rehabilitation Camp will approach this issue with particular care, ensuring the dignity and safety of all inmates while guiding the violent man toward self-mastery.
Controlled, Isolated Environments: Individuals with serious impulse-control problems will initially be housed in separate, highly monitored sections of the camp. These facilities will be designed not for punishment but for intensive correction. The goal is to protect these individuals from themselves and protect others from their aggression, allowing space for gradual reform.
Intensive Counseling and Discipline: Specialized counselors and chaplains will work closely with these inmates, using a combination of religious instruction, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and moral reasoning to assist the inmate in gaining self-mastery. Guards will be particularly chosen for their patience and virtue when working in these wings.
Physical Labor and Discipline: Labor has a transformative effect on unruly men. Those prone to violence will be given the most physically demanding but meaningful tasks, such as agricultural work, stone cutting, or timber work. The structure of hard physical labor coupled with moral instruction has proven historically effective in fostering discipline.
Strict Accountability with Dignity: Violent outbursts or breaches of discipline will be met with swift but humane consequences. Isolation or suspension of privileges will reinforce the importance of self-control. However, physical mistreatment or dehumanization will never be permitted. Dignity is paramount.
Pairing and Team Integration: Once a violent prisoner demonstrates a measurable level of self-control and discipline, he will be paired with another prisoner of similar progress to form a working team. These teams will engage in collaborative physical labor requiring cooperation, communication, and mutual reliance. This method serves to increase social aptitude and reduce isolationist tendencies.
Expedition and Autonomous Projects: As teams of two begin working efficiently together, they will be further integrated into larger teams of four. Once these four-man units demonstrate reliability, they will be assigned independent projects outside the main camp. One such project will involve leaving the camp for two to three days to construct their own sub-camp using provided tools and materials. The men will design and build their own cabin, utilizing creativity and teamwork. While largely free from guard oversight during these tasks, the men must adhere to clear task completion deadlines, dedicating three-quarters of their daily work hours to construction, farming, or resource gathering. This autonomous period fosters self-reliance and continued social skill development, preparing men for eventual reintegration into society.
Gradual Trust and Supervision Reduction: Successful completion of sub-camp projects will result in increased trust and privileges. Ultimately, men who demonstrate consistent reliability, moral reform, and teamwork aptitude will be eligible for early parole, transfer to open-labor programs, and eventual reintegration into society.
Case Study: Hypothetical Criminal in Two Systems
To demonstrate the potential benefits and drawbacks of Rehabilitation Camps compared to standard prisons, consider the case of John, a 32-year-old man convicted of armed bank robbery. John, a divorced father of a four-year-old son, faces a maximum sentence of four years.
Standard Prison Experience:
Social Isolation: In a standard prison, John would experience severe social disconnection. The limited family visitation and lack of community engagement would likely distance him further from his son.
Minimal Skill Acquisition: With limited access to meaningful labor or skill-building, John would likely leave prison without marketable skills, reducing his employability.
Psychological Deterioration: The punitive environment, lack of positive role models, and inherent exposure to criminal subculture could worsen John's behavior or mental state.
Limited Rehabilitation: Upon release, John would face immense difficulty reintegrating into society, struggling with stigma, lack of skills, and damaged familial bonds.
Rehabilitation Camp Experience:
Social Reintegration: John would work in teams, engage with mentors, and gradually restore his social aptitude, maintaining a sense of community.
Skill and Trade Development: Through labor assignments, John would learn practical skills in construction, farming, or other trades, improving his employment prospects post-release.
Positive Role Models: Guards and staff act as mentors, demonstrating discipline and virtue, which would inspire John to reform his own behavior.
Family Reconnection: Gradual reintegration processes, increased communication privileges, and visitation rights would help John maintain a relationship with his son.
Higher Rehabilitation Success: The structured, dignified environment of the camp increases the likelihood of John becoming a productive citizen post-release.
In conclusion, while standard prisons rely heavily on punishment and isolation, Rehabilitation Camps emphasize moral restoration, social reintegration, and skill acquisition. This model offers a clear path to societal contribution, reducing recidivism and restoring the dignity of incarcerated men. John’s case demonstrates how an approach grounded in virtue and productivity can transform not only individuals but also the communities they return to.
In this way, the modern prison system may evolve from a mere instrument of containment to a powerful engine of social and moral uplift, truly embodying justice and mercy in equal measure.
If nothing else, your one suggestion - "Think of a spam filter for everything, not just email. Filter your social media feed, your text messages, and your news sources." - will save me a lot of time.
"A Large Language Model’s main value is as an interface, not an encyclopedia"
That's a bad way to frame the question; it's forcing a false choice as in reality the value is a combination of both. Just like the value of human expert contractors is a combination of both. We just take the "try to understand me / break it down for me in layman's terms" interface part of human-layman-to-human-expert interaction for granted, though, note, many human experts are -despite the benefit of being born and raised human- *still very bad* at doing these interactions well.
An encyclopedia that can only be quickly used by pre-trained human experts will have value, but it's not the *huge* value that can be unlocked in a genuinely low-learning-curve mass-user scenario. Likewise, what's the point of an interface unless it allows you to specify instructions to direct one particular outcome or instance out of the huge number of possibilities in any category or medium or even large sets thereof, as might constitute an "encyclopedia" of those possibilities?
So, the big value of LLM's in in having comprehensive encyclopedic reference mapped to a "laymen's terms" specification and interaction language. Which is just another way of saying that the big value is "replacing expert service-providers at scale at negligible marginal cost."
Productivity - In response to another comment, AK mentioned gdp as a measure of progress. As best I can tell, gdp is used as the output for calculating productivity. If the number of widgets per input doubles but the price goes down, the gdp doesn't double. One could try to account for the increased number of widgets but this runs into multiple problems including products that aren't widgets and, as mentioned in AK's substack post, accounting for product improvement and new products. Are TVs today, of the same size, 10% better than the vacuum tube tech of 50 years ago or a million times better? I think one could easily make either argument. What about vs black and white TVs? Broadcast vs video tape rentals vs streaming? I would add that all of this makes it impossible to accurately measure inflation too.
Maybe none of this truly matters. Maybe what we are currently measuring tells us what we need to know. Maybe the constant racheting up of standards via what I believe to be over-estimation of inflation is the right outcome. IDK. But I still think understanding what these measures tells us, and don't tell us, is a a useful pursuit.
I worked in r&d. I got funded for projects. I'd ask for a certain amount I might get it it I might get less. If I got less I'd doy best for that funding level. But does that mean my productivity increased because I did it for less? Other times the funding would be for an ongoing project. How does one determine the productivity on that? (My brother worked on the same Navy contract for 30 years, until it was canceled. What's the productivity on that?)
To complicate matters more, I might not have enough of my time or other planned resources available for the project. Now I go to secondary resources that probably aren't as good. Maybe the result degrades, maybe it doesn't even get completed. What's the productivity.
Not to say these complications are unimportant to productivity but they almost totally miss all the way that technology has made it easier to create presentation "slides," write print, and submit documentation and all kinds of other productivity improvement. it also hides the cost of increased bureaucracy in the process.
I got excited when I saw the title for #2 – i.e., an LLM’s value is as an interface, not an encyclopedia. But the focus was narrowly on the ‘personality’ of the LLM as a human-to-machine interface. I think the point is much bigger than that, and more profound.
LLMs are going to be able to take data and information in whatever form they happen to exist in, and translate them into a form that is useful in another domain.
That might be instantaneous translation, or allowing one system to access a database of information that it wasn’t programmed to interact with, or taking information of a kind that isn’t easily parsed into a traditional database and making it something you can sort and query. A company that wants to upgrade an old, archaic system would be able to relatively easily re-factor information captured in that system into something new. (I saw something on twitter about a guy taking code from a very old video game, feeding it into an LLM, and having the LLM rewrite the code to make it playable on a modern computer.) It might be useful in a company to understand what information needs to be disseminated to which people, at what time, without needing people to spend time distilling and communicating.
LLMs will reduce a tremendous amount of friction all over the place, again, in allowing information to flow from one domain and context to another. That will be hard to measure, I suppose, but it will unlock incredible efficiencies.
Arnold, your perspective of Ai is compelling and sensible. As for measuring GDP, the notion that a political economy is little more than an accounting ledger is spot on. The circular flow model of the aggregate economy that matches up well with the notion of GDP seems worse than naive these days. The CFM seemed misleading to me 45 years ago in graduate school; it seems worse now.
Ai as a replacement for GUI, (which was a huge advance over command-line) and other means of interacting with a computer is absolutely HUGE. I cannot wait for the full-blown embodiment of LLM technology for device input-output. Is it just me, or has remembering user interfaces with devices become ridiculously complicated; e.g., "press this button while holding the other button down (while winking)."
Science fiction "terminator" perspectives of Ai are baseless, in my opinion. But I also think that LLM is but the leading edge of a much bigger, future Ai tent.
It seems to me like AI assistants could be a huge help to disabled people. A family member is autistic, very forgetful, and diabetic. Not an easy combination. I could imagine an AI assistant extending her lifespan significantly.
Even for people with average cognitive abilities, I'd expect diabetes management AI could be a big help. Hopefully the FDA will not be too totalitarian about restricting such software.
Coincidentally I've been thinking about how GDP (and related measures) is failing to capture perceived wealth. A lot of things seems to fail to be properly captured, but technological improvements seem to be particularly poorly caught.
If I can use an AI to write half a dozen emails that would normally take me 10minutes each that's an hour of my life I've got back (less time taken to read the emails before hitting send). That number totally fails to show up in GDP
Worse, if your case 7 applies and we can use AI to program our lawnmowers, roombas etc. we'll see a diminution in the amount of human provided services in those areas and thus, for those people who pay for gardeners etc. rather than do it themselves, a reduction in calculated GDP because they no longer need to pay Jose, Maria and their friends to do it for them. (Although some of those services are already missed by GDP since they are paid in cash and undeclared by the recipient). But that dimunution is in fact false because the people who used to hire gardeners and cleaners and now have a robot to do it are saving time and money thanks to the new technology. That ought to make them, and the nation, richer not poorer
Coyle talks about focusing on the use of time rather than GDP as a measure of progress
I agree that time seems to be a more relevant measure for much in life. The question is whether it can be measured adequately. A poor correlate that can be measured might be better than a perfect correlate that can only be poorly estimated.
Then again, maybe time isn't a great measure of progress. How would one factor in that we spend an increasing amount of our time looking at our phone?
> A poor correlate that can be measured
> might be better than a perfect correlate
> that can only be poorly estimated.
That seems entirely backwards to me: the chance of that "poor correlate that gets measured" becoming the goal is far to high.
First, note that I said might be. Second, I don't see why it is backwards. Both the poor correlate and the poor measurement have real possibilities of becoming the goal and neither would be especially good. The situation of interest and how each flawed approach might be used makes all the difference in which is more useful, if at all.
Do we spend the time looking at the phone because we want to? or because we have to? If we aren't paid to do so and aren't forced to do so then I think that counts as a voluntary leisure activity and therefore in economic terms a benefit of our freedom from needing to do something else to survive
It was a comment meant more for the heart than the brain.
The best way for AI to raise GDP would not necessarily improve human welfare.
In my industry AI is used for up-coding, that is finding ways to increase the number of Hierarchical Condition Category codes that a person has. It does this precisely by prompting the doctor during the visit to write up the codes. This increases revenue from MAPD (thus, increases government spending) which "increases" GDP.
A similar dynamic seems to play out in sports gambling (AI attuned to figure out how to manipulate people into betting).
Like a lot of technology I can imagine good or ill uses. But GDP only measures whether a purchase was made or not.
For me, the interesting question is whether it increases productivity and whether it changes .measured productivity.
Good thing everybody knows what MAPD means. But if you're too young, "MAPD stands for Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug plans, which are Medicare-approved health plans from private companies that offer all-in-one coverage for Medicare Parts A and B, and often include prescription drug coverage (Part D)."
33 million people, 54% of people enrolled in Medicare, are on mapd.
Yup, and I'll bet those old people know what MAPD means.