Marc Andreessen isn’t worried about artificial intelligence taking people’s jobs. According to him, technological innovation is not allowed to disrupt much of the economy anyway.
Venture capital giant co-founder Andreessen Horowitz shares his thoughts in his newsletter This weekend.
In less regulated sectors of the economy, Andreessen argues, “technology is flowing through them, driving down prices and improving quality every year.” Think computer software, mobile phone services and televisions.
But in other sectors, technological innovation is “virtually forbidden”, he writes.
“Prices for education, health care and housing and anything else provided or controlled by the government are going to the moon, even as these sectors are technologically stagnant,” he notes.
Moreover, very little is being done to address this problem, he writes: “We are heading towards a world where a flat-screen TV that covers your entire wall costs $100, and a four-year college degree costs $1 million. , and no one has anything even resembling a proposal on how to solve this problem systemically.
Over time, he adds, the prices of regulated, non-tech products go up, while the prices of less regulated, tech-based products go down.
“Who eats the economy? Regulated sectors are continuously growing as a percentage of GDP; less regulated sectors are shrinking,” he writes. “Ultimately, 99% of the economy will be the regulated, non-tech sectors, and that’s precisely where we’re headed.”
Andreessen has made a similar argument before, although this weekend he used it in a different way. In 2017, speaking at a code conference, he divided the economy into a fast sector and a slow sector. The first is “eaten” by the software, as he said in a the wall street journal grandstand in 2011and become more efficient, with prices falling accordingly.
But in the slow sector – aged care, child care, health care, education, construction and government – prices are rising rapidly and there is almost no growth in productivity as measured. by economists. “If nothing is done, these sectors will only devour the economy,” he said.
In this weekend’s article, Andreessen used the argument to discredit the “panic” over artificial intelligence taking jobs, and the idea that AI is somehow different from past technologies perceived as threatening. employment.
“AI cannot increase overall unemployment, even if the Luddite arguments are right this time,” he writes. “AI is quite simply already illegal in most of the economy, and soon to be in almost the entire economy.”
Learn how to navigate and build trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Register here.