Christopher North

Technology investor (fund), investor (angel), advisor and mentor. Ex-Amazon, Shutterfly.

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@GillibrandPeter @UKRunChat My Garmin tracked 12.84 miles. Other runners reported similar readings.

[Ashmolean Museum @AshmoleanMuseum]

We are delighted to announce that we have been successful in our campaign to save an early Crucifixion by Fra Angelico for the public.

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@Orange_France I've had the worst customer experience of my life with Orange France over the last week. Fibre optic line cut 300m from our house, 14 houses without network (no 3G/4G in our area) and six days of Orange denying there was a problem.

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@jasonfurman Could we have an educational response to the NYT’s QT article today? https://t.co/46nkQ6tLKT

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@michael_nielsen The standard way to enforce a non-compete in the UK is via paid gardening leave. During that period the employee is still an employee and receiving consideration. Non-competes are not unenforceable outside of that, but riskier and more prone to legal challenge.

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@StevieParle Steve, eager to hear about the new restaurant and be among your first guests -- we organised many private dinners back in the day at JOY and its predecessor ... DM me?

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@dsiroker @RewindAI @chamath I need to add to my Bucks FF miles, Dan … pancakes on me!

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@UCPA_Clients Au secour! On n'a pas encore reçu le carnet de voyage pour notre fils pour la colo de vacances ce week-end à Lacanau Ocean (départ Bordeaux Gare)?

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

… Dying Every Day (Roman), The Every (Eggars), Red Notice (Browder).

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@jasonfurman what’s on your summer reading list? Best books of the year so far? I liked Piranesi (Susanna Clark), Burnham Wood (Eleanor Catton), A Gentleman in Moscow as well as The Lincoln Highway(Amor Towles), The Long Ships (Bengtsson), The Monk of Mokha (Eggers) …

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

… How the World Really Works (Smil), Why We Sleep (Walker), Our Mutual Friend (Dickens), both collections by Ken Liu, the entire Chrestomanci series (Wynne Jones), The Midnight Library (Haig), everything by Emily St John Mandel, the Oryx & Crake series (Atwood) …

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@gwern Visit the Ashmolean, especially the outstanding 'Knossos' exhibition: https://t.co/Qlo9UwSqbI

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@sama GPT4 identified four ways in which this message is ambiguous: "GPT-4 currently has a cap of 25 messages every 3 hours. Expect significantly lower caps, as we adjust for demand" and came up with a number of improved versions. Consider enlisting its help in site copy!

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@davidmarcus @davidmarcus, you're exactly right. The contagion will drive 100% of deposits to GSIBs otherwise.

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

Why AI Won't Cause Unemployment

"In retrospect, I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of [running] a business." -- George McGovern

Fears about new technology replacing human labor and causing overall unemployment have raged across industrialized societies for hundreds of years, despite a nearly continual rise in both jobs and wages in capitalist economies. The job apocalypse is always right around the corner; just ask the Luddites.

We had two such anti-technology jobs moral panics in the last 20 years — “outsourcing” enabled by the Internet in the 2000’s, and “robots” in the 2010’s. The result was the best national and global economy in human history in pre-COVID 2019, with the most jobs at the highest wages ever.

Now we’re heading into the third such panic of the new century with AI, coupled with a continuous drumbeat of demand for Communist-inspired Universal Basic Income. “This time is different; AI is different,” they say, but is it?

Normally I would make the standard arguments against technologically-driven unemployment. And I will come back and make those arguments soon. But I don’t even think the standand arguments are needed, since another problem will block the progress of AI across most of the economy first.

Which is: AI is already illegal for most of the economy, and will be for virtually all of the economy.

How do I know that? Because technology is already illegal in most of the economy, and that is becoming steadily more true over time.

How do I know that? Because, see the chart.

This chart shows price changes, adjusted for inflation, across a dozen major sectors of the economy.

As you can see, we actually live in two different economies.

The lines in blue are the sectors where technological innovation is allowed to push down prices while increasing quality. The lines in red are the sectors where technological innovation is not permitted to push down prices; in fact, the prices of education, health care, and housing as well as anything provided or controlled by the government are going to the moon, even as those sectors are technologically stagnant.

We are heading into a world where a flat screen TV that covers your entire wall costs $100, and a four year college degree costs $1 million, and nobody has anything even resembling a proposal on how to fix this.

Why? The sectors in red are heavily regulated and controlled and bottlenecked by the government and by those industries themselves. Those industries are monopolies, oligopolies, and cartels, with extensive formal government regulation as well as regulatory capture, price fixing, Soviet style price setting, occupational licensing, and every other barrier to improvement and change you can possibly imagine. Technological innovation in those sectors is virtually forbidden now.

Whereas the sectors in blue are less regulated, technology whips through them, pushing down prices and raising quality every year.

Note the emotional loading of the interplay of production and consumption here. What do we get mad about? With our consumer hat on, we get mad about price increases — the red sectors. With our producer hat on, we get mad about technological disruption — the blue sectors. Well, pick one; as this chart shows, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Now think about what happens over time. The prices of regulated, non-technological products rise; the prices of less regulated, technologically-powered products fall. Which eats the economy? The regulated sectors continuously grow as a percentage of GDP; the less regulated sectors shrink. At the limit, 99% of the economy will be the regulated, non-technological sectors, which is precisely where we are headed.

Therefore AI cannot cause overall unemployment to rise, even if the Luddite arguments are right this time. AI is simply already illegal across most of the economy, soon to be virtually all of the economy.

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@tapairportugal Dear TAP, on your customer service page you list Twitter as an option -- but you haven't replied to my message from the 2nd of April. How can I reach you?

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@SNCF Cannot access my booking online to print tickets -- have tried with the reference number, the e-ticket numbers, and by logging in to "My Account", using both Chrome and Safari, as well as the OUIGO app. In each case the site/app returns me to the search box without results

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

Excited about what Argent is building -- exceptional founder formerly of Amazon -- Layer 2 is coming -- https://t.co/6w7LZFRc53

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

⁦@NatalieMassenet⁩ delivery to Ken Palace!

[Christopher North @subjective_p]

@fdestin @gdibner Agreed. United is now excellent on long haul (including inter coastal).