What we’re reading (2/27)
“Tech Has Never Caused A Job Apocalypse. Don’t Bet On It Now.” (Wall Street Journal). “I keep stumbling over one small problem with the doomsday vision: It requires a breakdown in how the market economy functions. Nothing like it has happened in the U.S. before, and there is no evidence it is happening now.”
“No, AI Is Not About To Kill The Software Industry” (Fast Company). “Wall Street’s apparent belief that AI spells bad news for today’s software titans is premature, and possibly just misguided, period. It’s certainly heavy on vibes rather than hard data: Monday’s dip in the S&P 500 apparently stemmed in part from a dystopian imaginary June 2028 memo published by Citrini Research. Laying out a sweeping nightmare involving AI crushing the U.S. economy, it name-checked specific companies such as DoorDash and Zendesk as being incapable of competing with AI-infused apps and agents. Well, maybe, though even the document’s authors admitted they were ‘certain some of these scenarios won’t materialize.’”
“Crypto Is Pointless. Not Even The White House Can Fix That.” (Ryan Cummings and Jared Bernstein). “ Since its peak last fall, Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has lost almost half its value. Nearly $2 trillion of wealth has evaporated from the global crypto market since October. We have one question. What took so long? Outside of crimes and scams, the technology is useless, and its economics are even worse.”
“Six Months, 9 Offers And $81 Billion. How Hollywood’s Nasty Takeover Was Won.” (Wall Street Journal). “The dramatic bidding war ended on Thursday night, after Paramount made its latest attempt to buy Warner for $81 billion—and Netflix walked away from the deal. Shortly after photographers snapped Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos leaving the White House, the company announced that it wouldn’t match Ellison’s latest offer, which was 63% higher than his first.”
“Does Overwork Make Agents Marxist?” (Ghosts of Electricity). “The key finding from our experiments: models asked to do grinding work were more likely to question the legitimacy of the system. The raw differences in average reported attitudes are not large—representing something like a 2% to 5% shift along the 1 to 7 scale—but in standardized terms they appear quite meaningful (Sonnet’s Cohen’s d is largest at -0.6, which qualifies as a medium to large effect size in common practice). Moreover, these should be treated as pretty conservative estimates when you consider the relatively weak nature of the treatment.”
