Source: Persuasion
by Emily Chamlee-Wright
“[T]he fear beneath the fear is that human potential has hit its outer bounds, and that from here on out, technology will always surpass human effort in both quality and cost. From that vantage point, sweeping, top-down remedies seem like the obvious course. … To my economist’s ear, some aspects of this narrative ring true. Basic economic theory predicts that, for a given level of quality, producers will replace high-cost inputs and processes, including those that involve human effort, with lower-cost alternatives. Such substitution effects are part of the entrepreneurial function. But the other part of the entrepreneurial function is to search for complementarities: new configurations of resources, human and otherwise, that generate new streams of value. It’s this part of the story that, more often than not, goes missing in democracy-focused conversations about AI.” (01/13/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/ai-will-create-work-not-decimate