TL;DR: AI will soon reverse a big economic trend.

Epistemic status: This post is likely more speculative than most of my posts. I'm writing this to clarify some vague guesses. Please assume that most claims here are low-confidence forecasts.

There has been an important trend over the past century or so for human capital to increase in value relative to other economically important assets.

Context

Perplexity.ai says:

A 2016 economic analysis by Korn Ferry found that:

Human capital represents a potential value of $1.2 quadrillion to the global economy.
This is 2.33 times more than the value of physical capital, which was estimated at $521 trillion.
For every $1 invested in human capital, $11.39 is added to GDP.

I don't take those specific numbers very seriously, but the basic pattern is real.

Technological advances have reduced the [...]

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Outline:

(00:31) Context

(02:06) AI-related Reversal

(02:45) Macroeconomic Implications

(04:26) AI Software Companies

(06:47) Other Leading Software Companies

(08:15) Highly Profitable Companies

(09:03) Universities

(09:35) Conclusion

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First published:
September 30th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/S4fA2bKG27cfLi52f/peak-human-capital

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Peak Human Capital” by PeterMcCluskey

LessWrong (30+ Karma)