The Only Way is UP!

antrobus

mwpt wrote: »

...However, what do interest rates even mean in the presence of super-human intelligence where we move into a post scarcity world. ....

I don't believe you particularly need "super-human intelligence"; what you need is robots. And robots don't need to be smart. They just need to do what you want them to do. You want a robot car to be able to drive from A to B without hitting anything along the way, it doesn't need to invent a cure for cancer.

I expect the future to be more like the Stainless Steel Rat than Terminator.

antrobus

mwpt wrote: »

...Why would anyone even borrow at this point when resources will be virtually unlimited. Interest rates will not be zero, they will just be meaningless since people do not need to borrow. ...

That would be a more accurate way of looking at it. Money itself will have no meaning.

Conrad

If the EU fails to give us a good trade deal, Bond yields will rise as investors will anticipate a fall in trade all round and this will hurt the EU given it's vast borrowing.


Anyone here arguing we wont get a decent trade deal is living in land of clouds and cuckoos. Follow the money, all other considerations such as the EU wanting to punish Britain, are secondary

Generali

antrobus wrote: »

That would be a more accurate way of looking at it. Money itself will have no meaning.

If there is no need for a medium of exchange or a store of wealth then interest rates are immaterial as no scarcity means that people will no longer care about being compensated for consuming tomorrow rather than today.

I fear we are an extremely long way away from that point. Vanishingly far.

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

If there is no need for a medium of exchange or a store of wealth then interest rates are immaterial as no scarcity means that people will no longer care about being compensated for consuming tomorrow rather than today.

I fear we are an extremely long way away from that point. Vanishingly far.

I agree on both counts. Whilst I can hypothetically envisage a point in time where the zombie robot apocalypse finally arrives, I think we may have to wait at least a few centuries before we even get close.

michaels

Of course since we decided the only way is up, the yield on German 10Y has gone below zero for the first time....

Generali

Conrad wrote: »

If the EU fails to give us a good trade deal, Bond yields will rise as investors will anticipate a fall in trade all round and this will hurt the EU given it's vast borrowing.


Anyone here arguing we wont get a decent trade deal is living in land of clouds and cuckoos. Follow the money, all other considerations such as the EU wanting to punish Britain, are secondary

1. This isn't about Brexit
2. The fall in EU trade if the UK falls into the North Sea is negligible. 1% of GDP from memory.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Of course since we decided the only way is up, the yield on German 10Y has gone below zero for the first time....

That's a dash for safety. Investors aren't running towards Gilts let alone UK risk assets.

cells

antrobus wrote: »

I agree on both counts. Whilst I can hypothetically envisage a point in time where the zombie robot apocalypse finally arrives, I think we may have to wait at least a few centuries before we even get close.

If current trends continue it can't take too long that's the power of the exponential function.

If things continue at the rate of the recent past in 100 years a single computer will have the power of about 1,000 trillion that of today. So using only 0.0001% of its power it could beat all the computers on earth today combined

This is why a lot of scientists don't think it will take hundreds of years. You find smart people predicting tineframes of 20-60 years for AI

Mistermeaner

Whoever makes such ai will monetize and ration the use of said ai for personal gain.

Remember alot of human happiness is not linked to absolute wealth but to relative wealth when comparing ones self to others.

Ai will be a tool with which to leverage commercial advantage