A Million Kakapos
16 points by mempko
16 points by mempko
Because coding is no longer scarce, we are abandoning the commons for a million Kakapos. This will only stay possible as long as the tokens keep flowing.
And this is why we have companies and investment firms pouring 100's of billions of dollars into AI junk. Because it will partition the powerful open-source commons of the last 30 years into a million little boutique solutions, all paying rent to the AI models.
There is definitely a "rent seeking" angle from the big AI providers. It's their whole model. We need the government to step in and offer tokens as a utility.
But the broader issue is economic. We should let the government have a pool of money to fund open source projects so the commons stay viable even as private companies leave.
Just tax the companies 25% and accept payment in tokens.
If the government does that, they are turning tokens into money. Imagine if I can pay my taxes in tokens. hmmm
Am interesting experiment would be for a government to solve the copyright etc problem by just sending copyright and intellectual property void.
The fight that would ensue would be colossal.
Why would anyone think AI costs will get higher when we have a century long trend of compute getting cheaper?
Two reasons, overall AI costs are getting higher because per token is getting cheaper. Jevons Paradox means aggregate spend on LLMs will only go up.
Second and more depressing is Limits to Growth. Energy costs at some point will get much higher because they have to. We can't keep growing on a finite planet so eventually that growth will stop. Either we stop it through policy, or we see organized human life collapse.
What’s wrong if overall spending on AI goes up? That’s a sure way unit cost goes down and it becomes even more widely available.
The second statement assumes no technological advances. Given a world with rapid and widespread advances in AI we can assume the opposite: an acceleration in all fields of science and technology.
The Limits to Growth models accounted for that. Doesn't change the trajectory. Growth will end.
I'm going to use this as an opportunity to show off my new set of Kākāpō nesting bowls, by artist Karen James. They're absolutely delightful.
Oh wow, those are stunning. As a Kiwi, seeing more Kākāpō items would be super cool. Might be time to get a couple Christmas presents early, thanks for the post!
Loved this piece. IMO a lot of today’s infra just got lucky as much as it got selected. I’m not sure if the coming wave of private “Kakapo” software is worse-selected; some of it will get lucky too.