AI Me!

Welcome to This Week’s Leyendecker View

Chat GPT is fast tracking the commoditization of the human spirit by mechanizing the imagination.
– Rocker, writer and more, Nick Cave

A BIG THINK

AI Me!

How AI will change the world: “There’s virtually no major industry that modern AI — more specifically, ‘narrow AI,’ which performs objective functions using data-trained models and often falls into the categories of deep learning or machine learning — hasn’t already affected.”

How could AI destroy humanity: “Researchers and industry leaders have warned that AI could pose an existential risk to humanity.”

AI can help us live longer: “Artificial intelligence technologies present a broad array of opportunities to improve healthcare across the care continuum, including longevity.”

AI is coming for architecture: “Dall-E, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney have made what might have taken an extremely skilled illustrator or animator a week to do into something any of us can commission in a few moments. There is no doubt those jobs are at terminal risk.”

These are just a tiny sampling from countless articles about how AI will change the world and, in the process, possibly destroy jobs, incomes and more.

Will AI significantly increase productivity by improving processes and reducing labor? That would certainly make the shareholders and executives of AI, technology and maybe all industries more money. But what about the average worker?

Will AI create enough new jobs to replace the jobs it destroys? Will the replacement jobs pay more or less than the old jobs? 

Replacing decent-paying American manufacturing jobs with low-paying service jobs doesn’t seem to have inspired our economy over the last 40 or so years. Rather, it seems to have required an explosion of debt to keep our economy afloat.

Maybe the more important question about jobs is, can everyone become a knowledge and knowledge-manipulation worker, or is a big part of the population simply predisposed to physical labor?

Will AI save us from inflation, deflation, debt and all other Black Swan events? Or will AI lead to lower overall employment, lower wages and the need for governments to provide citizens with universal basic income (UBI)? Or will it do both?

With the world’s current debt load, where will governments get money for UBI? Are technology companies like Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and even Open AI suggesting that Washington tax them more in order to feed a UBI savings account?

The big problem with AI is the desire by a few people who control technology to make ever more billions. That instinct for wealth seems a far greater influence on whether or not to go full steam ahead with AI than any concern for its potential unintended consequences on the masses of humanity.

Are we good if a few more people become ultra billionaires and a bunch of other billionaires increase their billions while many people, maybe most across the world, struggle to adapt to a technology that increases its capability at a speed significantly faster than humans can be taught to relearn?

Maybe everyone needs to read an essay Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, wrote in 2021: Moore’s Law of Everything. Does he sound logical, or does he sound like someone who’s been seduced by the technology’s dark side and is searching for a rational justification of his then-impending power and wealth?

Just listen to the letter deep thinker and rocker-turned-writer Nick Cave wrote to his friend.

No one fretted over the potential unintended consequences of the fax machine, video games, cell phone, personal computer, operating systems, software applications, internet browsers or even social media, which was hailed as a great potential builder of community. 

But now at the very beginning of the AI era, there is great debate over humanity’s future. Shouldn’t all this concern, so early in AI’s life, be a big red flag?

THE ECONOMIC VIEW

GDP growth beats expectations
Consumers remain resilient, so far.
Yet personal saving rates is quite low
P&G earnings suggest resilient consumers

Americans are upbeat about the economy
But nearly 30% of urban dwellers
Are behind on their debt payments
Credit card delinquencies at decade high
Capital One charge-offs jump

From riches to rags
The truth we don’t want to know.
The US debt clock in real time

THE INFLATION BOGEYMAN

Are $1,000-a-night-hotel rooms
The new normal?

P&C insurers reap big profits
As premium prices skyrocket
Auto rates up 37% since 2020
While healthcare insurer struggles

Ocean shipping rates surge
Is this an inflationary influence?

THE LABOR VIEW

Which companies are starting 2024 with layoffs?
WSJ has a list.

Embracing slow productivity
Multi-tasking needs to slow down.

Cal State’s faculty strikes.
Wages aren’t keeping pace with inflation

Hey, restaurant cooks!
This robot is coming for your job
Robots are also looking good to US automakers
Thanks to the new union labor deal.

MEANWHILE IN EUROPE

Turkey approves Sweden’s NATO bid
Hungary will soon do same

Austrian extremist stirs up Germany
No, it’s not the 1930s.
German far-right leader questions EU
She would consider a “Brexit.”
While German exports keep falling
German train drivers strike for higher pay

European worker wage demands
Could stymie rate cuts
ECB leaves current rate alone

THE GLOBAL GAME

Argentina’s YFP won’t be privatized
At least not yet.

Is the Davos consensus cracking
Thanks to the growing global voter revolt?

Is Western-dominated Davos being upstaged
By Eastern-dominated Dubai?

THE UKRAINE FIRE

NATO is on the edge
Is war between NATO and Russia coming?
German defense minister thinks so
Belarus defense minister calls today a “hot phase”

Should Ukraine get frozen Russian reserves?
That certainly seems fair and reasonable.

Why sanctions on Russia are not working
What’s to learn from their resilience?
Putin hunts for former Russian empire’s assets

THE GAZA FIRE

US and UK hit more Yemeni targets
It seems we’re escalating…

Russia puts aircraft on Israel-Syria border
Pressure in the Middle East builds.

Jordan Peterson educates Piers Morgan
A simple perspective on this war.

THE NEW COLD WAR

China’s been courting Africa
While the US works to derail China’s influence in Africa
China changes course in Latin America

US is the world’s largest economy.
Extending its lead over China

China is not happy with new US defense act
Our self-interest needs their approval?

Foreign investors in China
Are racing for the exits
Foreign investment goes negative
US’ largest import supplier is now Mexico

FINANCE

Regional banks had an ugly quarter
Canary in the economic coal mine?

Some hedge funds killed it in 2023
While America’s smaller banks are in trouble
Are these good things?

Put the brakes on rate decline talk
Says the IMF.

REAL ESTATE

Developer raises big fund for NYC offices
Is this the buy-low year?

CPI measures of rent index.
Prices dropping hard for new tenants

Mortgage rates are falling
Is a home sales boom coming?

TECHNOLOGY

Global electricity demand set to surge
Technology is an electricity hog.
Because of AI, coal might not be going anywhere

Crispr pioneer eyes the microbiome
What can be cured through the gut?

A 27-year-old student
Busted cryptocurrency’s anonymity

THE CHAT ON AI

Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave’s letter about AI
This short video is a MUST watch.

6 ways AI could change politics
MIT opines.

ChatGPT’s CEO wants in the chips biz
Doesn’t want to rely on the open market.

THE NEXT NORMAL

Are states going to levy wealth taxes?
Proponents are optimistic.

Billionaires wanted to save the news
They failed.
LA Times lays off 20% of staff

Luxury goods makers are struggling
Is the “everything luxury” economy dying?

THE WAR ON CARBON

Coal-fired electricity generation
Set a global record last year

Heating houses this winter is cheaper.
Thanks to US natural gas boom

Will Europe soon drop net zero?
European voters make the case.

THE NEW ENERGY TRANSITION

The US is about to remove lots of dams
Better for the fish, but less clean power.

Publicly-held solar company restructures
While operating performance falls.
Another big offshore wind project dies

Potential 2024 geothermal breakthroughs
This potential energy source is quite interesting.

THE EV DREAM

Here comes the EV automaker bloodbath
Suggests Euro-American Stellantis.
Is the EV world starting to come undone?
Lithium prices plunge on weaker demand
Tesla issues “slower growth” guidance
Musk says the West needs protectionism
EV adoption will peak at 30%
Says Toyota’s chairman.

Europe’s EV sales run out of juice
More Germans are avoiding EVs.

Swedish battery maker in the spotlight.
It gets billions to produce outside of China

THE CHINA SYNDROME

Chinese not interested in US movies
Maybe the social credit system scares people.
Xi’s heavy hand is a big problem

China’s government mandates
That the stock rout stop immediately
It did for three days, but looks to have resumed
Chinese investors pour into US and Japan
China tries to prevent a capital flight

China’s population keeps falling
But this may not create deflation
Raising children is more costly in China

THE WASHING-TONE

Immigration takes over inflation
As the top voter concern.

Biden cajoles Wall Street on green energy
But does it make good economic sense?

US textile mills have almost evaporated.
Can tariffs help them survive?

MAKING A BETTER YOU

Tight on time?
Here’s how to exercise

Want a simple diet upgrade?
Eat more nuts and seeds

Forget the noisy alarm clock.
Get yourself a light alarm clock

HOW ABOUT A BREAK

Some funky map surprises
Most Canadians live south of Seattle.

Rats love to take selfies
After being taught how to do it.

Huge lost city found in the Amazon
Thousands lived there for a thousand years.

SONG OF THE WEEK

“Jealous Moon”
Sarah Jarosz from Wimberley, TX.
Lyrics really can be poetry, ya know.

CASTING AROUND THE PODS

The impact of private credit
A Bloomberg Odd Lots discussion.

VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Masters of the Air trailer.
Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg team up.

Society of the Snow trailer.
Netflix’s most popular foreign language movie.

The Greatest Night in Pop trailer.
The making of “We Are the World.”

FROM THE HEADHUNTER’S KITCHEN

When it’s chilly outside, then chill out.
Best white chicken chili ever
Tasty venison chili
Pulled pork chili
Mile high green pork chili
The best healthy turkey chili
Bison chili (bison is low cholesterol)
Homemade vegetarian chili

And don’t forget…
Easy peasy cornbread

And then there’s…
Chili nachos!!!
Chili con queso
Chili mac and cheese
Cincinnati chili spaghetti
Oh, boy Frito pie
Cheesy chili enchiladas
Pozole rojo

THE RANDOMS

Wall Street seems to be behind Niki Haley. Will she be in Wall Street’s back pocket at the expense of average Americans?

About ten years ago, the internet was awash with stories and videos of giant clusters of buildings in China that were rapidly built but remained totally empty. “Ghost cities,” they are called. If it took ten years for empty buildings to become a problem in China, then they must now have a really really big problem.

I was recently pondering the subscription costs of all the publications we link to in this newsletter that I pay for, and readers would also need to pay for, in order to access all our links. Lots of paywalls here. I haven’t done the full accounting. Maybe I’m afraid. But I have thought that I pay for physical nourishment (food) every day, so maybe paying for intellectual nourishment is a worthwhile expense.

There’s an assumption that home sales rise as mortgage rates fall. But given how many people have a 3%-ish mortgage, will they actually trade that in for a 5%-ish mortgage? Or will it be first-time homebuyers that drive new home sales because they are happy with a 5%-ish rather than 7%-ish mortgage? Maybe it’s going to take homebuilders buying down mortgage rates and/or cutting prices to spur more home sales.

Do DEI and affirmative action translate into a kind of racism because they force the color of a person’s skin to be front and center in decision-making? If we were not told to think about race, would we?

Back in the 1930s, the US experienced a massive heat and drought wave. Of course we never read or hear about that in today’s panic to save the earth. Industrial activity back in the 1930s paled in comparison to today’s levels, so what climate influence back then caused the heat and drought wave?

It really seems like there are influences on climate other than the prevailing narrative of too much carbon that “scientists” have all lined up to support. What if the growing carbon content in our atmosphere is a correlation of climate change, and not a causation?

It’s pretty strange that when we are young we want to be older, but when we are old we want to be younger. Ha ha ha…The joke is on us, eh?

Life is short…even when it’s long.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Pondering the Future
January 19, 2024

Hope Is Now a Strategy
January 12, 2024