Peoplenomics readers get a little more than the usual economic deep dive today. We begin with the latest ChartPack as markets head toward next week’s Fed decision with energy, inflation, currencies and interest rates suddenly tied together in ways that could make this meeting considerably more interesting than advertised.
Then there’s a complete new book: Test-Fitting Apes: How Economics Goes Bananas. It looks at what happens when AI does to the cost of THINKING what industrial machinery once did to the cost of LABOR—and why the next major economic dislocation may hit the professional “thinking class” harder than the traditional working class. Subscribers get the entire book today, plus something new: the complete book as three MP3 audiobook files for listening in the car, shop, tractor, or wherever else economics happens.
And because the world refuses to wait while books get written, we fire up News Compressor afterward: $100-ish oil, impaired Hormuz traffic, Gulf escalation, Ukraine heating back up, Asian currencies feeling the energy squeeze, and a new Deep-Middle signal worth watching: AI> electricity > nuclear power > sovereign infrastructure. One of those Wednesdays where the ChartPack, the news flow and the new book unexpectedly start telling different parts of the same story.
Next month’s book (writing like mad now) is “Thinking on the Gallows” and it’s about what happens when thinking – as in “routine actions with formatic thought” – becomes the object of mass replacement.
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Just started the new book…the first chapter already has me deep in thought..my fears a 13 year old and DOGEs big balls, greed for power , our politicians….I’m not afraid of AI because it’s “smart.” I’m afraid of what happens when a tool that can scan the entire light web and dark web in seconds ends up in the hands of people who have never shown restraint, accountability, or even basic curiosity about the laws they vote into power…
HELL…ask them to read just one of those thousand page bills and you’ll get a response similar to asking the kids to clean their rooms..whining, crying,and gnashing of teeth…
I’ve lived long enough to see how technology gets used in the real world. A 13?year?old with an old computer figured out how to write code to get free meals. A college kid nicknamed “Big Balls” uncovered mismanaged political funds so large they rivaled the national deficit. Criminals on the dark web sell financial identities like trading cards. And I’ve personally seen how a simple cloud login — triggered by a three year old looking for cartoons — gave me access to everything in an IT specialist’s digital life….
That’s what scares me. Not the machine — the lack of human guardrails…and a greedy political leader in search for more…
We already have political leaders who treat public office like a personal business model… neglect their jobs and positions..heck some never have even walked onto the floor… We already have agencies collecting oceans of metadata for “pattern analysis,” while human trafficking victims call the same region the “Mecca” for exploitation. We already have drones that cost less than a dollar, and TED Talks showing autonomous “slaughterbots” that can make kill decisions without human interference.
https://youtu.be/O-2tpwW0kmU?si=5kv7lf9_0ClOQkdu
Now imagine combining all of that with an AI that can write code, scan billions of documents, and act faster than any oversight committee can even schedule a meeting. Ethics and morals aren’t hardwired into machines — they’re programmed by people. And people have a long history of choosing power, profit, and convenience over caution.
I’m just an old wanderer in the wastelands who likes to read and think, but I can see the shape of the runaway train. AI is a yin yang… incredible potential for good, and terrifying potential for misuse. The cloud never forgets. The internet never sleeps. And once a tool exists, someone will eventually use it for the worst possible purpose.
My fear isn’t science fiction. It’s human nature.