The Barriers to Mediocrity Have Collapsed
Dick and Paul dig into why general-purpose AI models are doing to robotics what they already did to language — and why that's a bigger deal than the humanoid-robot hype suggests. They trace the throughline from Chinese EVs to laundry-folding robots to Rich Sutton's "Bitter Lesson," then make the case that cheap, general-purpose automation is set to collapse wages across the board. Along the way: a takedown of the "infinite abundance" argument coming from Silicon Valley and Washington alike, a detour through Veblen's theory of the leisure class, and a prediction that doesn't sugarcoat where…
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