Unfortunately in the world I live in, the same people who would accept “This is obviously a Ponzi scheme” (but who don’t understand AI x-risk well) have to also contend with the fact that most people they hear talking about AI are indistinguishable (to them) from people talking about crypto as an investment, or about how transformative AI will lead to GDP doubling times dropping to years, months, or weeks. So, the same argument could be used to get (some of) them to dismiss the notion that AI could become that powerful at all with even less seeming-weirdness.
Arguments that something has the form of a Ponzi scheme are, fortunately and unfortunately, not always correct. Some changes really do enable permanently (at least on the timescales the person thinks of as permanent) faster growth.
I don’t say that you’re wrong, necessarily, but what would you say is an example of something that “has the form of a Ponzi scheme”, but is actually a change that enables permanently faster growth?
From the outside, depending on your level of detail of understanding, any franchise could look that way. Avon and Tupperware look a bit that way. Some MLM companies are more legitimate than others.
From a more abstract point of view, I could argue that “cities” are an example. “Hey, send your kids to live here, let some king and his warriors be in charge, and give up your independence, and you’ll all get richer!” It wasn’t at all clear in the beginning how “Pay taxes and die of diseases!” was going to be good for anyone but the rulers, but the societies that did it more and better thrived and won.
Yeah, you’re right, but for most of history they were net population sinks that generated outsized investment returns. Today they’re not population sinks because of sanitation etc. etc.
I know I’m being imprecise and handwavy, so feel free to ignore me, but really my thought was just that lots of things look vaguely like ponzi schemes without getting into more details than most people are going to pay attention to.
Unfortunately in the world I live in, the same people who would accept “This is obviously a Ponzi scheme” (but who don’t understand AI x-risk well) have to also contend with the fact that most people they hear talking about AI are indistinguishable (to them) from people talking about crypto as an investment, or about how transformative AI will lead to GDP doubling times dropping to years, months, or weeks. So, the same argument could be used to get (some of) them to dismiss the notion that AI could become that powerful at all with even less seeming-weirdness.
Arguments that something has the form of a Ponzi scheme are, fortunately and unfortunately, not always correct. Some changes really do enable permanently (at least on the timescales the person thinks of as permanent) faster growth.
I don’t say that you’re wrong, necessarily, but what would you say is an example of something that “has the form of a Ponzi scheme”, but is actually a change that enables permanently faster growth?
From the outside, depending on your level of detail of understanding, any franchise could look that way. Avon and Tupperware look a bit that way. Some MLM companies are more legitimate than others.
From a more abstract point of view, I could argue that “cities” are an example. “Hey, send your kids to live here, let some king and his warriors be in charge, and give up your independence, and you’ll all get richer!” It wasn’t at all clear in the beginning how “Pay taxes and die of diseases!” was going to be good for anyone but the rulers, but the societies that did it more and better thrived and won.
That… does not seem like a historically accurate account of the formation and growth of cities.
Yeah, you’re right, but for most of history they were net population sinks that generated outsized investment returns. Today they’re not population sinks because of sanitation etc. etc.
I know I’m being imprecise and handwavy, so feel free to ignore me, but really my thought was just that lots of things look vaguely like ponzi schemes without getting into more details than most people are going to pay attention to.