Daz ₿

the rba is raising fucking interest rates as we approach the ai singularity. bunch of kunst today they raised their cash rate to 4.85%. rate settings at two decimal points of absurdity. they cite the middle east oil shock and, astonishingly, the inflationary effects of ai investment. yep. ai. the same technology that might be about to make vast quantities of human labour economically redundant. and they're worried about the price of computers. i'm worried about the price of human beings. think about the sequence. first comes the extraordinary spending on data centres. shortages of chips. rising electricity demand. inflation. but what happens when the machines start doing the work? what happens to wages when employers discover they need fewer people? what happens to consumption when the mortgage is still there but the salary isn't? that's the deflationary carnage i'm trying to imagine. and the grey suits in australia are staring at today's inflation print and raising the price of time. to be fair, they've got an argument. domestic capacity is tighter than they thought and inflation expectations have risen. i understand that. but house prices are already falling. unemployment is rising. three of the nine board members wanted to hold. and now they're tightening into what could become the greatest labour-displacing technological revolution in human history. perhaps ai delivers a productivity miracle without the unemployment catastrophe. i'd love that. but imagine the alternative. a country drowning in household debt discovers that the value of human labour is falling just as the central bank makes servicing that debt more expensive. they're fighting the inflationary cost of building the machines. i'm terrified of what happens when they switch them on. 🌴🏴‍☠️