Humans are about to give up their 200,000 year monopoly on thinking. General intelligence is in transition from a mystical property possessed solely b

The Basic Economics of AGI, and Why Open Source will Lose

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2024-02-13 17:00:03

Humans are about to give up their 200,000 year monopoly on thinking. General intelligence is in transition from a mystical property possessed solely by human minds to just another commercial output of the engine of global capitalism. In the same way something special was lost and much efficiency was gained in the switch from master cobblers to industrial shoe factories, so too will we feel a loss (us human minds especially!) in the switch from human general intelligence (HGI) to artificial general intelligence (AGI). At the same time, we will find ourselves in a new world of abundance.

As we prepare for this transition ( and look to invest in it) it might be good to understand just what type of economic good AGI is exactly. Is it rival? Excludable? Is it differentiated or a commodity? Who in the value chain will capture the value? What are its economies of scale? Which companies will dominate? Or will open source models win?

I tackle these questions below, and in the process try to gain some understanding of how AI markets will mature. The important conclusions, as I see them, are as follows: