Tech Tycoons have actually Got the Economics of AI Wrong

Even as financial development was just removing, some financial experts were already cynical. Coal, composed William Stanley Jevons in 1865, is “the mainspring of contemporary product civilisation”. Yet it was finite and would soon run out. Although more might be found by digging deeper, it would be significantly expensive to extract and these greater expenses would lower the competitiveness of Britain’s makers. After all, in other countries the black fuel was still in sight of daylight. Efficiency gains-using less coal to produce the same quantity of stuff-would not conserve the nation. Indeed, cleverer use of limited resources would merely provide an incentive to burn a lot more coal, which would, paradoxically, lead to an even faster use of British reserves. There was no escape, the Victorian economist thought. Coal would be exhausted and the nation was most likely to “agreement to her former littleness”.

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This short article in the Finance & economics area of the print edition under the heading “Rocked by DeepSeek”

Finance & economics February 1st 2025

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Tech tycoons have got the economics of AI wrong

From the February 1st 2025 edition

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