Just as we now have more people employed as bureaucrats at the U.S. Department of Agriculture than there are farmers in the U.S., we will end up with huge numbers of people employed in the “business” of regulating and managing AI — for government, for corporations, for political advocacy groups, etc.
I think that gets to the essence of where we are.
I don’t have numbers, so I’ll use silly numbers:
How many farmers do we need in the US? Let’s say 100.
How many government bureaucrats do we need to oversee the farmers? Let’s say 300.
Now consider every industry to go in that direction: Insurance, banking, stock market, infrastructure.
This becomes like the meme of the road construction worker in a hole digging with a shovel while 10 supervisors stand around the hole and watch him work.
That may be where we’re going, but it’s not a final destination. It’s stupid. So it won’t last. At some point it will be “Atlas Shrugged” and the small number of real workers will not tolerate the vast number of government bureaucrats who desire to regulate and manage things they don’t understand.
Society has been moving in this direction for a long time. I don’t think they can continue in this direction forever. Something is going to explode and I think AI is the match.
No
The number of U.S. farms continues slow decline
In the most recent survey, there were 1.89 million U.S. farms in 2023, down 7 percent from the 2.04 million found in the 2017 Census of Agriculture.
USDA is made up of 29 agencies and offices with nearly 100,000 employees who serve the American people at more than 4,500 locations across the country and abroad.
Good point—it will take millions of people to make sure that AI obeys political dictats—and to quickly censor it if it disobeys.
AI: “Young black men commit twenty times as much crime as young white men.”
AI human manager: “Assemble the team. We need to reprogram this racist AI. Meanwhile shut it down immediately.”