The guy from SemiAnalysis said this too. If he buys Anthropic now at $2T and they go to zero, he's fucked, but if they go to $20T, we're all fucked.
People need to go to jail this time.
We put Capone away on tax evasion. Get creative.
And tell that to the people whose retirement index funds are about to drop xx% in order to facilitate an exit for ANT and SPCX insiders.
If you think something is bad for society but it's not legal, you make it illegal. You don't make up false crimes and arrest people for those. That's what tyrants and sociopaths do. It's disgusting.
Further, because the complexity and opacity of markets and firms makes finding and proving specific securities fraud instances difficult and expensive, makes pinning those instances on the actual decision-makers difficult and expensive, and makes securing consequences that actually stop the fraud functionally or as a deterrent difficult and expensive, it is prudent and pragmatic to identify those decision-makers and to go after them for anything and everything you can find. If you're a high-powered banker and hedge fund manager who uses sophisticated strategies to fleece millions of Americans out of their investments, you shouldn't get off because investigators can't get at the smoking gun documents that you burned or hid from discovery. I want them to ignore the small-fry and go after you with everything they've got.
We did not do this after 2008, which is why we are where we are.
So again, the correct question is not a skeptical, "What crime has been committed?", but a willful," What crimes can we find among the people involved here, whatever they are?". I have no moral qualms or compunction about this, and no one who remembers the ravages of the GFC or the last few years will have an issue, either.
At the risk of feeding the trolls...
> If you're a high-powered banker and hedge fund manager who uses sophisticated strategies to fleece millions of Americans out of their investments
How exactly do you tell the difference between the trader who fleeces millions and the trader who is simply good at their job and makes an equivalent amount of money?
I expect investigators to follow up on reasonable suspicion, which is what unusual market events or behavior should arouse. The crime and the perpetrator are found at the same time, because one can't exist without the other, legally speaking; to start with a definitive crime is to assume guilt, which, as you say, is incorrect. You triangulate on the crime-perpetrator (think space-time); this, of course, means that you must investigate people who are merely suspected of committing a crime. Some will be wholly innocent. Some will present evidence of crime other than the one you initially suspected; you should pursue that, too, in the interests of justice.
Speak only for yourself, please.
>How exactly do you tell the difference between the trader who fleeces millions and the trader who is simply good at their job and makes an equivalent amount of money?
Most tyrants don't believe they're actually tyrants.
The point of an efficient market is that it's difficult to beat, and the difficulty increases exponentially. Unless you cheat.
Playing the stock market is a loosing game. It is gambling where all the rules and all the odds are stacked in favor of a handful of people who gamble for a living. (it is also systemic exploitation of the working classes; so if you are into worker solidarity [you should] you should not partake in said exploitation).
If you just buy and hold, and don't panic sell during a recession, you'll win.
Will other more sophisticated players make money exploiting short-term swings? Sure. Will other players beat your returns? Also yes.
But that money isn't coming out of your pocket, so why does it matter? You're still beating leaving your money in a savings account, where inflation is outpacing interest.
Indeed. And yet opting out is an even bigger loss.
30% is much higher than 4-5%, but it's still much lower than most public companies (~80%)
Given gov currently spends 1T annually on servicing debt, I expect US is forced to print money and increase inflation for a long time.
But, as they say, bears sound smart, bulls make money.
Not if open weight models turn inference into a commodity that's sold at cost.
There will be, as is always the case, some amount of new labour skills that emerge and I can't say for sure what percentage or amount that might be.
Looking at tech work being increasingly well the last 20-30y, we can imagine new ways of working might be pretty valued.
Most technologies seemed doom and gloom, and also have absorbed existing jobs for new ones, and current LLMs as AI is a bigger sponge than usual.
Maybe I’m naive but I expect any kind of “we’re just taking over the world now” event with any AI company will be met with enough resistance from 99.99999% of the world’s population that they’ll have to make it a sweet deal for us if they want to survive.
Now there will be bargaining friction given that any power sharing agreement with Anthropic will likely increase their future capacity and thus the future expected balance of power, but maybe AI has a long enough utility horizon that we should all expect to be dead by the time it realizes the long-term expectation advantage
The "dark-enlightenment" billionaires have been planning for a "collapse" for years, and their plans involve bunkers, acquiring citizenship in remote places, pervasive surveillance and armed dogbots/drones, the last 2 powered by AI, naturally.
Altman already has a couple I think.
Thiel has gone to Argentina but has a backup in New Zealand (w/ Citizenship).
Zuckerberg just bought an Irish castle (a Medieval bunker of sorts) but probably has others.
Musk probably has plans for a Moon bunker complete with Pleasure-Dome. Investor funded of course. Not sure how cosmic rays affect sperm however.
Brin couild opt for Blimps - imagine floating above the reeks and the wrecks like a Meth from Altered Carbon.
Bezos - does he have a bunker?
If they aren't patrolled by giant, iris-scanning eyeballs he's missed out on a vertical.
Maybe these sociopaths should try to save the world rather than making fantasy hedges against its collapse (while actively making things worse).
You can pack enough to survive for decades in that bunker, and then see how world will look like. If you are superrich, it is dumb to not take this chance.
> Maybe these sociopaths should try to save the world rather than making fantasy hedges against its collapse (while actively making things worse).
Its very loaded topic. There are other competing sociopaths, and also 8B of population who don't care about saving world much. But both goals(bunker and saving the world) could be tried simultaniously.
These billionaire nerds got lucky, but now think themselves as natural-born leaders — as evidenced by their wealth, but they wouldn't survive the post apocalypse.
If society collapses, and you were an elite ex-special forces armed detail on a billionaire's security team, would you continue to accept their now-worthless dollars, or would you or just take a fully-stocked bunker for you and yours?
Remember there are effectively no cops or courts in this world that would stand in the way of the (former) billionaires from being demoted to farm-hand by those with the guns.
It seems a lot of the bunkerbros don't realize this value of society. They don't need society any more, they think.
Consequences from the aforementioned functioning society that would have collapsed in the billionaire's dystopian survival fantasy.
Also, soldiers running amok in rhe absence of a strong government happens in our world - ask any civilian who's been caught up in an insurgency, or look at places like the Democratic Republic of Congo where armed militias run fiefs, and you have to pay tribute to operate a cobalt or lithium mine "their" area.
The post-apocalyptic stable-state doesn't require a billionaire at the top; without the threat of state violence, I posit that the most stable configuration is the people who control the guns calling the shots. Things will get feudal fast medieval-era food tasters included; explosive collars do nothing against the chef intentionally lacing food with botulism neurotoxins from canned food.
> [...] with security team to have enough incentives to not challenge leader and enjoy what they have.
This is what we have with the current system, underpinned by the "rule of law" - which has seen better days tbh. These billionaires have been cynically chipping away at its foundations without realizing if society falls, they fall with it. In the dystopian fantasy, the nerds in charge have to pacify all their employees all the time, an ambitious or dissatisfied lackey only needs to get lucky once.
I suppose the bunkers are just go-bags for the ultra-rich bastards, except I don't delude myself into thinking I can hang onto my go bag against a handful of people who desperately want it, after civilization collapses. The other difference is I don't think my neighbors will go feral on me and fight me for my supplies, but the billionaire have no faith in humanity - I suppose they deduce that everyone will act as they would act.
they(some/most) absolutely will do once experience real hunger and suffering.
it could be true. You can think about how much say avg American cares about life quality of people in Bangladesh.
Emphasis being survive. Maybe. These morons seem to think this will be a continuation of their current lives. That somehow people will continue to serve them if society has collapsed. They're delusional.
> There are other competing sociopaths, and also 8B of population who don't care about saving world much.
Oh please! The billionaires think that they're so special, they owe their fortune to their inherent genius. But when it comes to helping the world it's apparently "but but the other 8B aren't doing it, I'm just a regular guy who can't accomplish anything!"
Losers.
The term singularity is worn out, but the physics parallel is quite apt - a point where the known gears of economics stop working, and it's unknowable what's there until you get there.