The mode gets shown more, so it gets picked more, so the model grows more confident the mode is what people want, and the tails starve. Within a few dozen rounds, a catalogue that began almost perfectly even collapses onto one dominant option. But why does it collapse toward the mode rather than fan out across all that individual data?
I read about this article in Pluralistic’s blog. It felt timely, as just yesterday we were having the same discussion about how everything feels the same. About how all houses look the same from the inside, about how all AirBnBs are the same, about how all cars look the same and so on.
The Tragedy of the Commoner by Hugh Howey
This might all sound theoretical, but it’s actually what’s happening all the time. Every company is trying to increase profits, which means doing more work with fewer costs. Driving down costs means keeping wages as low as the market will tolerate and hiring as few people as required to do all the work. But every company also relies on all the other companies to pay great wages so there are consumers with dollars to spend. Walmart and Amazon might think they are in the business of selling widgets, but they are really in the business of generating wages. Their value to shareholders is measured by profits, but their value to the economy can be measured in how much in wages they inject into the system.
I did not know that Ford paid more wages for his workers and reduced their working hours.
This is the frustrating thing I have with how everyone is behaving wrt AI. Who will buy things when AI is doing everything? Who will buy these services if no one has any money to spend?
Here’s the thing: Walmart and Amazon would be idiotic to do anything other than what they are doing. Overpaying would be suicide. Hiring too many workers would be suicide. There’s zero incentive to do either. What both of them NEED, while they both fight to prevent with union busting, is MANDATED HIGHER WAGES. They both would benefit from a federal minimum wage hike to $30 an hour. It would increase consumer spending. Their profit margins would decrease, but SO WOULD EVERYONE ELSE’S, so there wouldn’t be a better place for investor dollars. In fact, the only way to prevent this gradual gutting of the middle class and the destruction of these business models seeking greater efficiency is for the government to rescue them with higher minimum wages.