Die chinesische Wirtschaft des Jahres 2024 zeichnet die zerstörerischsten wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen der KI ab: nicht Arbeitslosigkeit, sondern Deflation.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/06/ex-pboc-head-china-should-focus-on-fighting-deflationary-pressure.html
6 Kommentare
Submission statement
The last 12 months have seen the most sustained period of deflation in China since the late 1990s. It’s hard to know how much AI is responsible, but I would guess it is to some extent. It’s driving the reduction in prices in the manufacturing of so many things, EVs especially.
Many people assume unemployment will be AI’s most destructive economic effect. That may be true, but before it causes a problem, there will be a far more immediate one to deal with – deflation.
Deflation is so destructive because it shrinks businesses‘ incomes while increasing the size of their debt relative to this income. If there is sustained deflation, then this leads to a spiraling collapse that takes asset prices like the stock market and property values with it. This was the main mechanism that caused most of the damage in the Great Depression.
If AI is on the cusp of giving us lawyers, doctors, and other experts knowledge for practically free, then it follows that there is massive deflation to come. There is already a backlash against AI in some quarters, I would expect it to grow when the deflation problem arrives.
What’s the source for AI actually driving any reduction of cost in manufacturing?
Deflation is a doomsday scenario for the 1%, the ultra rich. For everyone else, it’s a good thing. I don’t have $$$ in the bank that will lose value, so please, make things cheaper.
The article mentions nothing of AI.
You might be conflating two economc concepts.
Deflation is a broad decline in the overall price level caused by weak demand, leading to reduced economic activity and potential job losses. In contrast, companies lowering prices due to increased efficiency stems from innovation and improved productivity, benefiting consumers without harming the economy.
Deflation is harmful, while efficiency-driven price reductions (like those driven by AI) are generally signal healthy market competition.
Deflation is easy enough to fight, you just take less in taxes and people spend more.
It’s only really a problem for the over extended, which does rather make it a problem for the West, where all our governments are over borrowed.
Who owns property, especially in China? Who benefits from the Stock Market?
We need to dispense of the notion that the stock market means anything. The real economy, and the nexus of our moral solvency as a planetary species, is the *ecology*, not the selective reasoning and rationalization involved in making our „economics“.