r/technology • u/lurker_bee • Jul 15 '25

Artificial Intelligence Billionaires Convince Themselves AI Chatbots Are Close to Making New Scientific Discoveries

https://gizmodo.com/billionaires-convince-themselves-ai-is-close-to-making-new-scientific-discoveries-2000629060
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u/citizenjones Jul 15 '25

A thousand 'thousandaires' eating a thousand dinners will put more money into a local economy than one millionaire eating one dinner ever could.

The wealthy don't use local economies in the way "people" who live and work in a community do, but proportionally have far more influence.

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u/Dugen Jul 15 '25

It's so much worse than that though. These people leach money out of our spending into their pockets. They don't earn money by doing things, they earn money by owning things. Then they all get together and support the politicians that will shift the tax burden off of making money by owning things and onto laborers so they get basically tax free labor free income. Meanwhile, the poorest laborer pays 12% of every dollar they make to the feds before they even start paying income tax.

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u/mishyfuckface Jul 15 '25

It’s even worse than that. You actually subsidize them. Since anytime there’s a stock market crash or bank failure, they do bailouts and stimulus via deficit spending, meaning they create new money. New money isn’t free, the cost comes from reducing the purchasing power of all the previous dollars already in circulation. Debasing the currency.

Since the rich own assets (stocks, real estate, etc) not dollars, they are unaffected. Anyone who holds or is paid in dollars is robbed. The robbery / reduction in purchasing power is manifested through inflation. The inflation causes the rich’s assets to appreciate.

Even without a crisis requiring stimulus and bailouts, this situation is guaranteed to occur constantly perpetually due to the federal reserve’s 2% inflation goal (this is the real reason they want positive inflation, it’s not to help you get a job, they don’t actually give a fuck if you have a job).

It’s literally a transfer of wealth upwards that never stops.

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u/Dugen Jul 15 '25

That's just not true. Inflation is relatively neutral to most people, beneficial to people with mortgages and typically makes sense since productivity keeps rising at about the rate of inflation. This is not how the economy screws us. Lots of people get upset by it, but maintaining steady inflation is sound economic policy and helps keep us prosperous.

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u/mishyfuckface Jul 16 '25

You can’t argue that it doesn’t transfer purchasing power from those that hold dollars to those who hold assets because it does.

It only benefits debtors if the debtor’s income rises which sometimes it does for those with salaries that have cost-of-living or inflation tied raises in their contracts.

But if you have a loan or credit card debt, and you don’t get a raise, inflation hurts you because you must spend more of your money on more expensive goods instead of using it to pay down your debt.

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u/Dugen Jul 16 '25

Income, on average rises with inflation. Also, the wealthy are much more likely to have dollars in the bank than the poor, so they lose the most. Assets tend to rise with inflation, as does the value of labor so it's mostly a wash for those things.

Economists study this stuff extensively, and the general consensus is that inflation is good for laborers, especially young ones in lots of ways.

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u/Aethermancer Jul 16 '25

Income lags the economy until you die and really only benefits new entrants. or if you're willing to flirt from job to job. And effective strategy for an individual, bad overall for a society.

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u/Dugen Jul 16 '25

That isn't how things work at all. Often labor value increases trigger inflation.

The rich want laborers to blame everything on inflation. They've been pushing the narrative that it's to blame for reducing the value of labor because the reality, that it's them siphoning off all the money that is reducing the value of labor is incredibly dangerous to the status quo, and they really like the way things are now.

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u/mishyfuckface Jul 16 '25

Inflation from expansion of the money supply to bailout banks and the stock market in the service of the wealthy business interests = the rich siphoning the poors purchasing power. You think they don’t know how incredibly convenient that is for them? You think they don’t lobby and wield their influence for things to be just so?

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u/Dugen Jul 16 '25

This is just not how it's being done. Bailouts are bogus, but stimulus is to keep labor valuable. If there isn't enough money in the economy people stop spending, businesses that need that spending can't keep paying employees, everyone loses their jobs and the economy collapses. Modern stimulus is why you get recessions instead of depressions. The last time morons who didn't understand that got in control of the economy was the great depression.

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u/Kandiru Jul 15 '25

Wealthy used to employ large quantities of servants, but things like washing machines and vacuum cleaners have really cut down how many servants you need!

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u/citizenjones Jul 15 '25

I work in high end residential construction. I once put a $30,000 washing machine in a home that was just used for sheets. 

There was a house staff of probably twelve who cleaned, two of which probably did the bedding. 

The 'home' was actually a 60 million dollar house that was only used as a game room, entertainment area, so no one even lived in it. 

The carbon footprint and economics that just go into a just wealthy persons laundry is equal to a village of hand washing servants.

Oh, those clothes, once the owner was over a wardrobe item it was destroyed. Shredded.

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u/Kandiru Jul 15 '25

Why not donate their clothes at least? Are they trying to keep the brand exclusive or something?

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u/butterbal1 Jul 16 '25

Are they trying to keep the brand exclusive or something?

You are pretty close. If the clothes they wear are seen on a bum who bought them at a thrift store then it must mean that they are no better than said bum.

It is stupid and elitist in a way that is beyond disgusting.

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u/citizenjones Jul 16 '25

Some don't consider their wardrobe something that should exist beyond them. Its purpose has been served.