Tech Tycoons have Got the Economics of AI Wrong

Even as financial development was just removing, some economic experts were currently cynical. Coal, wrote William Stanley Jevons in 1865, is « the mainspring of modern-day product civilisation ». Yet it was finite and would soon run out. Although more might be discovered by digging deeper, it would be increasingly pricey to extract and these higher expenses would decrease the competitiveness of Britain’s manufacturers. After all, in other countries the black fuel was still in sight of daylight. Efficiency gains-using less coal to produce the exact same quantity of stuff-would not save the nation. Indeed, cleverer usage of limited resources would just offer a reward to burn much more coal, which would, paradoxically, cause an even faster use of British reserves. There was no escape, the Victorian economist thought. Coal would be exhausted and the country was most likely to « contract to her former littleness ».

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This post appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the heading « Rocked by DeepSeek »

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Tech tycoons have got the economics of AI wrong

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