I got a $1500 quote to replace a stuck thermostat in my car from my local mechanic. After some Youtubing I was able to replace the part myself with $150 in parts.

I got a $5000 quote to fix my AC 2 summers ago and no amount of Youtube was able to help me DIY a fix.

Maybe in the long term there will be more HVAC techs than auto mechanics. Somehow I don't think that's likely.

Private Equity is the main driver of price increases in this type of stuff.

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/10/24/private-equity-...

> “Baumol-type effects” means that everything that didn’t get more productive got more expensive anyway, but we consume more of it all the same because society as a whole got richer.

It depends how you measure. The cost in goods or purchasing power goes up, but the cost in hours stays the same.

There is probably an equivalent of Amdahl's law for GDP - overall productivity will be bottlenecked by the least productive sectors.

Until AI becomes physically embodied, that would mean all high-mix, low-volume physical labor is likely going to become a lot more valuable in the mid-term.

Seems like most uses for hallucinating bullshitters that steal intellectual property are going to require significant human oversight, likely often multiple levels of human review, with almost everything they do that has value.

Classic Paradox of Automation - As automation gets better, two things happen:

Cost of goods goes down - think factory automation improving line rate.

There is less human intervention, but that intervention requires more expertise.

> We are at the point in the technology curve with AI where every day someone figures out something new to do with them, meaning users will take any chip they can get, and use it productively.

Sure, that's an assertion.

But (with just as many citations), mine would be:

This boom is absolutely, 100%, fueled by the combined factors of: 1) employees outsourcing the cognitive load of their jobs to models that are, impressively "close", but not quite _as_ good as a well-trained human.

ie, we're replacing google with a fun, but terribly energy-wasteful (and _very often_ factually wrong) "make up an answer" tech.

and 2), AI "app developers" who are having fun with the previously "impossible" (*cf. https://xkcd.com/1425/) APIs of multi-modal natural language, and "didn't sci-fi warn us about this?" simulations.

Neither of which are good for productivity, if we measure productivity as "improving circumstances for the mutual commonwealth of all life". Which is the goal.

* oh, I _did_ use a citation after all.

It is an interesting article, but _far_ too sure of itself in all the wrong areas.

How are ‘new cars’ and ‘cell phone services’ considered ‘unregulated’?

> HVAC wage

This is mostly down to people being afraid of anything even remotely trades-like. Learn to do some basic home repair, it will save you thousands.

> This graph can mean different things to different people: it can mean “what’s regulated versus what isn’t” to some, “where technology makes a difference”

Cars are pretty heavily regulated...

What I see is what is necessary to live and what isn't. Elastic vs inelastic demand.

> the average American middle-class household can comfortably manage a new car lease every two years

Huh, no, the average American middle-class household cannot do this.

> If one sector becomes hugely productive, and creates tons of well-paying jobs, then every other sector’s wages eventually have to rise, in order for their jobs to remain attractive for anyone.

I'm sorry, but anyone who has lived in the lower income brackets knows this just isn't true.

This is hard to read. Whoever wrote this is extremely out of touch and thinks they're eminently intelligent. It reminds me of the "smug San Francisco" South Park episode. The world is going down a road of hurt and you've got elites who are so busy "winning" over the past 50 years running around sniffing their own farts.

Be warned, this is actually an article about LLMs :p