Tech Tycoons have Got the Economics of AI Wrong

Even as was just removing, some financial experts were currently cynical. Coal, composed William Stanley Jevons in 1865, is “the mainspring of contemporary material civilisation”. Yet it was finite and would quickly run out. Although more might be found by digging deeper, it would be increasingly costly to extract and these higher costs would reduce the competitiveness of Britain’s makers. After all, in other countries the black fuel was still in sight of daylight. Efficiency gains-using less coal to produce the exact same quantity of stuff-would not save the nation. Indeed, cleverer usage of minimal resources would simply offer a reward to burn much more coal, which would, paradoxically, cause an even much faster usage of British reserves. There was no escape, the Victorian economic expert believed. Coal would be tired and the nation was likely to “agreement to her previous littleness”.

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This short article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the heading “Rocked by DeepSeek”

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