15 captures, most recent first.
Dwarkesh Patel reposted
Eli Dourado @elidourado · 10h
We have lived all our lives deep inside another era's singularity
[Embedded Our World in Data chart: 'Global GDP over the long run']
Total output of the world economy. These historical estimates of GDP are adjusted for inflation. We combine three sources to create this time series: the Maddison Database (before 1820), the Maddison Project Database (1820-1989), and the World Bank (1990 onward).
Y-axis: $0 to $180 trillion. X-axis: year 1 to 2025 (approx).
The curve is near-flat near zero for most of history, then rises sharply near the present, reaching close to $180 trillion by 2025.
Data source: Eurostat, OECD, IMF, and World Bank (2026); Bolt and van Zanden – Maddison Project Database 2023; Maddison Database 2010
Note: This data is expressed in international-$ at 2021 prices.
OurWorldInData.org/economic-growth | CC BY
1. International dollars: International dollars are a hypothetical currency that is used to make meaningful comparisons of monetary indicators of living standards. Figures expressed in constant international dollars are adjusted for inflation within countries over time, and for differences in the cost of living between countries. The goal of such adjustments is to provide a unit whose purchasing power is held fixed over time and across countries, such that one international dollar can buy the same quantity and quality of goods and services no matter where or when it is spent.
Read more in our article: What are international dollars?
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Tweet by Eli Dourado (reposted by Dwarkesh Patel) captioned 'We have lived all our lives deep inside another era's singularity', embedding an Our World in Data chart of global GDP over the long run showing a hockey-stick curve rising to nearly $180 trillion by 2025.
economicsgdpgrowthsingularitytwitter
Peter Wildeford... ✔️ @peterwildef... · 9m
We're doing the AI build out big time
[quoted tweet:]
nxthompson ✔️ [A] @nxthompson · Aug 2
A wild chart. In the span of a few years, the combined free cash flow of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle will go from $234 billion to negative $100 billion. washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
[attached bar chart, titled 'Tech giants are burning through cash with AI spending', subtitle 'Cash left over after paying expenses and AI infrastructure costs for five leading tech companies'. Green bars for 2019-2025 ranging roughly $100B-$234B (2024 peak labeled $234B, highlighted in lighter green), a near-zero bar for 2026, and a red negative bar around -$100B for 2027. Footnote: 'Cash from operations minus capital expenditures for Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Oracle. Some figures for 2026 and 2027 are analyst projections.' Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence and S&P Global Visible Alpha. Byline: Shira Ovide / The Washington Post.]
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Tweet from Peter Wildeford about AI infrastructure spending, quoting Axios's Nick Thompson sharing a Washington Post chart showing combined free cash flow of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle projected to swing from +$234B (2024) to -$100B (2027) due to AI infrastructure capex.
ai infrastructuretech spendingtwittereconomicsbig tech
Andy Masley @AndyMasley · Jul 27
One of the funniest things I heard in college was an anarchist friend saying "I've been trying to think about how the gift economy would actually work in complex society and it just falls apart. Like, 'hey, I just decided to give you a gift of 4 tons of molten aluminum'"
> QUOTED: 我不喜欢万税爷✈️... @HikoukiHik... · Jul 26
> Why is it always communist coffee shops. Has anyone tried a communist regional beverage distributor? What about a communist B2B software startup x.com/trueslazac/sta...
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Text-only quote tweet, no images, unrelated to AI — economics/politics humor.
economicshumorpoliticstwitter
Minh Nhat Nguyen @menhguin · 7h
v fun thought exercise 5-10 yrs from now: what industries would grow a lot faster if workers could lift 3-5x as much, lose limbs regularly, never sleep, coordinate perfectly in realtime, acquire information instantly and die ?
> QUOTED: 💲💲 NoLimit @NoLimitGains · 9h
> The next generation of 1,000%+ runners will come from physical AI and robotics.
[2 replies, 7 likes, 847 views]
Minh Nhat Nguyen @menhguin · 7h
a robot could be 2x as expensive per hour and 2x as slow, but still be useful if "a human should not die while operating this" is bottlenecking a process worth millions/day, or bottlenecking rapid expansion
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Plain text reply thread, no images; economic/robotics speculation thread.
twitterroboticseconomicsphysical-ailabor
↻ Teortaxes ▶️ (DeepSeek 推特🐋铁粉 2023 – ∞) reposted
Fernando 🌺🪷✨ ✓ @zetalyrae · 5h
Replying to @StephenPiment
This is the difference between constants and asymptotic behaviour. Humans having trust networks, capital, tacit knowledge etc. is a constant factor that only lasts so long. The AIs being smarter is an asymptotic advantage that continually compounds.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Dark-mode X post, no visible images beyond profile pictures; no engagement counts visible in the crop.
aitwittereconomicssingularityai-safety
@tszzl (roon) — 18h
it is quite unpleasant to be "agi pilled" and most intelligent people cant stomach it. the amount of cope and departure from reality is increasing over time rather than decreasing
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@MindyGalveston (Mindy Galveston) — 7h
Accepting that classical computers can match any computation performed by animal brains is a singular razor that shreds virtually all copes, and constrains your worldview to accept that wild humans can only exist indefinitely through coordinated luddism or chartered protection.
💬 1 🔁 1 ♥ 3 📊 99
@MindyGalveston (Mindy Galveston) — 6h
I believe this, not because it is pleasant or personally convenient to believe, but because it follows naturally from the nature of computation and the economic assumptions underlying the construction of the socially contracted state.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A reply-chain thread; the roon post is the parent with the two Mindy Galveston replies nested below it (indicated by a connecting vertical line).
ai riskagitwitter discoursesingularityeconomics
[repost] Danielle Fong 🐦☀️ reposted
roon (@tszzl) · 2h:
it does seem that this time, unlike others, it is fair to characterize it all as 'late stage capitalism'
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Brief roon tweet, likely about economic dynamics of the current AI boom. Minimal standalone context; general economic/social commentary tangential to Nathan's research focus.
economicslate stage capitalismroontwitter
Alexander Berger @albrgr · 19h
Construction Physics is a million posts in a row dashing dreams of improving construction productivity through automation and modularization. Every title is like "what we can learn from the failure of Japan's 1973 effort to try this exact idea you had last week." I love it
> QUOTED: Brian Potter @_brianpotter · 21h
> Operation Breakthrough was an ambitious 1960s government program to industrialize the US homebuilding industry.
>
> This week on Construction Physics, I look at w...
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A tweet about the "Construction Physics" newsletter/blog and its recurring theme of historical construction-automation failures. Unrelated to AI safety; general interest/economics content.
twitterconstruction physicsalexander bergerbrian pottereconomicshousingautomation
prinz ✓ @deredleritt3r · 10h
Dear "AI bubble will pop" doomers, I hate to break it to you, but:
- if the bubble pops tomorrow and OpenAI/Anthropic go bankrupt, their assets (including the frontier models and datacenter assets/rights) will just be acquired on the cheap by the big tech companies. Microsoft will continue OpenAI's mission. Amazon will continue Anthropic's mission. Google will just be Google.
- when a company goes bankrupt, its key personnel don't just magically evaporate. The best researchers, the model IP, and the compute will quickly find each other again, albeit in slightly new teams and under a new corporate umbrella.
- the net effect of the AI bubble popping is that progress would just be delayed by maybe a year or three.
Whether you like AI or hate it, want to accelerate it or pause it, or even if you don't understand much about it at all, the world with AI *is* your future, and it is the future that you must now accept.
> QUOTED: [green mask/theater icon] @deepfates · 12h
> "I can't wait for this bubble to pop faster so everything can slowly return to normal again"
> This is what people think x.com/NikTek/status/...
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A tweet arguing that even if the "AI bubble" pops financially, the underlying research talent, model IP, and compute would simply be reabsorbed by big tech, delaying but not reversing AI progress. Relevant to Nathan's tracking of AI industry/economic-fragility discourse and how it bears on the "economic fragility of personhood" theme in the soul doc.
ai-bubbleopenaianthropiceconomicstwitterai-industryforecasting
Nobody who's building something with high future value is worried about AI taking their job. When you're in that setting, building stuff expands your opportunity surface area to build even higher-value stuff. The more you do, the more there is to do. The more of your work AI takes, the more work you have left to do.
But, unfortunately, things with high future value are the hardest to automate because they typically haven't been done or even thoroughly imagined yet. So basically you're safe from AI doing your work, and you're sad about that. That's what happens when you build where building creates more opportunities to build.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A plain-text quote card attributed to Justin Skycak, black serif text on off-white background, making an argument about why builders of high-future-value work aren't threatened by AI automation.
aifuture of workquoteeconomics
Sneedle @SRamirez68083
I'd love to see an experiment where they measure the performance of employees hired by HR vs an assortment of whacky methods like hiring employees by second price auction (where the price is the wage the employee will be getting).
9:16 AM · Jun 22, 2025 · 772 Views
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Andre Infante @AndreTI · 3h
The company agrees to pay exit insurance for the hire (which pays out 75% of salary for a few months if the employee leaves or is fired), and the company hires whoever the insurance companies thinks is cheapest / lowest risk.
💬 1 ♥ 3 📊 26
Sneedle @SRamirez68083 · 3h
It is indeed interesting to think why everyone use career agents.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Twitter thread proposing mechanism-design alternatives to traditional HR hiring (second-price auctions, exit insurance markets) — a mechanism-design/economics musing thread, not directly AI-safety related.
mechanism designeconomicshiringtwitterlabor markets
Gritty is the Way
@Gritty20202
'Landlords provide housing like scalpers provide concert tickets' is my new favorite analogy.
6:23 AM · 11/20/21 · Twitter Web App
334 Retweets 4 Quote Tweets
housingeconomicstwitterpolitics
web weaver (@deepfates), 11h: Dark kitchens. Dark factories. Dark warehouses. Whole dark cities could be created underground, providing all of the goods and services for the surface dwellers. Populated entirely by robots, digging ever deeper, a subterranean shadow of the skyline.
It's time to delve.
[16 replies, 7 reposts, 159 likes, 3.6K views]
Reply — Daniel Faggella (@danfaggella), 7m: ^ this
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A speculative/aesthetic tweet imagining automated "dark factory" robot-run underground cities as a future economic infrastructure layer beneath human cities. Loosely relevant to Nathan's interest in automation and future economic structures, though more sci-fi flavored than technical.
automationroboticsfuturismeconomicstwitterspeculative fiction
Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil · 1h
"If it were profitable, why didn't a company do it?"
Companies routinely make dumb mistakes, ignore low-hanging fruit, and get tangled in bureaucratic HR nonsense.
The argument that things "must not be profitable" if they're not done by BigCo is pure ignorance.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A general economics/business-reasoning tweet arguing against the "market efficiency" fallacy used to dismiss unexploited opportunities. Not AI-specific; general argumentation/economics content Nathan read.
twittereconomicsmarket-efficiencybusinessargumentation
The US often produces way too much corn—50 million metric tons too much; farmers hoard the rest while 9M people die from starvation every year.
(That's enough corn to fully sustain 250M people for an entire year.)
Embarrassing as it is for our species, abundance is necessary but not sufficient for anything akin to utopia.
4:27 PM · Mar 9, 2025 · 12 Views
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A tweet arguing that food abundance alone doesn't solve starvation, using US corn overproduction as an example of distribution failure. Not AI-related; general social/economic commentary Nathan came across.
agriculturepovertyeconomicstwitterutopia
