We could then back out what a rational firm should be willing to invest.
This makes sense, altho I note that I expect the funding here to quite plausibly be ‘irrational.’ For example, some substantial fraction of Microsoft’s value captured is going to global development in a way that seems unlikely to make sense from Microsoft’s bottom line (because Microsoft enriched one of its owners, who then decided to deploy those riches for global development). If building TAI comes out of the ‘altruism’ or ‘exploration’ budget instead of the ‘we expect this to pay back on schedule’ budget, you could see more investment than that last category would justify.
Yeah, I agree there is room for spending to be “irrational”, though I would guess this is more likely in the direction of spending less than the “rational” amount rather than more, because developing TAI could be unprecedentedly profitable and companies’ spending may be limited by capital constraints.
This makes sense, altho I note that I expect the funding here to quite plausibly be ‘irrational.’ For example, some substantial fraction of Microsoft’s value captured is going to global development in a way that seems unlikely to make sense from Microsoft’s bottom line (because Microsoft enriched one of its owners, who then decided to deploy those riches for global development). If building TAI comes out of the ‘altruism’ or ‘exploration’ budget instead of the ‘we expect this to pay back on schedule’ budget, you could see more investment than that last category would justify.
Yeah, I agree there is room for spending to be “irrational”, though I would guess this is more likely in the direction of spending less than the “rational” amount rather than more, because developing TAI could be unprecedentedly profitable and companies’ spending may be limited by capital constraints.