> the frontier labs are priced according to the narrative that they have produced or will in the very near future produce a fully automated drop-in replacement for most knowledge workers...
Even assuming this is how the AI companies are being valued (they're not), the numbers are off.
The "value" of most knowledge workers -- based on what enterprises currently pay for them -- is $50 - 70 trillion annually. It's reasonable to assume that if AI drop-in-replaced all those knowledge workers, AI companies could credibly charge somewhere in that order of magnitude, because that's what the market is already bearing.
So if their hypothetical revenues are double-digit trillions and valuations are some multiple of that, the entire AI industry would be valued at double-digit trillions at the least.
Yet cumulatively the industry (the frontier labs + the SWAG estimate of the AI parts of all the other players) are valued at, say, ~6 - 7 trillion? Which seems like a fair approximation of how much knowledge work they can currently automate.
I would add to the other comments that are replying below the following thought : replacing workers with AI means less income/spending, which drives the value of those companies down at the same time.
keeda · · focus · HN ↗
> the frontier labs are priced according to the narrative that they have produced or will in the very near future produce a fully automated drop-in replacement for most knowledge workers...
Even assuming this is how the AI companies are being valued (they're not), the numbers are off.
The "value" of most knowledge workers -- based on what enterprises currently pay for them -- is $50 - 70 trillion annually. It's reasonable to assume that if AI drop-in-replaced all those knowledge workers, AI companies could credibly charge somewhere in that order of magnitude, because that's what the market is already bearing.
So if their hypothetical revenues are double-digit trillions and valuations are some multiple of that, the entire AI industry would be valued at double-digit trillions at the least.
Yet cumulatively the industry (the frontier labs + the SWAG estimate of the AI parts of all the other players) are valued at, say, ~6 - 7 trillion? Which seems like a fair approximation of how much knowledge work they can currently automate.
AureliusMA · · focus · HN ↗