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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

> turns out to be false upon close scrutiny

Care to share that scrutiny?

Computers, internet, cell phones, smartphones, cameras, long distance communication, GPS, televisions, radios, refrigerators, cars, air travel, light bulbs, guns, books. Go back as far as you want and this still holds true. You think the the majority of the planet could afford any of these on day 1?

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the point is not that AI services will be affordable "eventually" it's that the advantage is so crazy that people who don't have access to them will NEVER be able to catch up. First AI wrappers disrupt industries ->developing nations can't compete coz the services are priced prohibitively -> AI wrappers take over even more -> automation disrupts the need for anyone -> developing nations never develop further. this seems more and more likely not less. cutting edge GPUs for eg - already are going into the stratosphere pricing wise and are additionally being sanctioned off.

How is this different from literally all of human history

It seems you're suggesting that once you start this process of building tech on top of tech, then you get far ahead of everyone because they all have to independently figure out all the intermediate steps. But in reality, don't they get to skip to the end?

e.g. Nations who developed internet infrastructure later got to skip copper cables and go straight to optical tech while US is still left with old first-mover infrastructure.

AI doesn't seem unique.

> e.g. Nations who developed internet infrastructure later got to skip copper cables and go straight to optical tech

Actually, they skipped cables entirely. Africa is mostly served by wireless phone providers.

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