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  • Founded Date August 15, 1951
  • Sectors Office
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Tech Tycoons have Got the Economics of AI Wrong

Even as economic development was simply taking off, some economic experts were already pessimistic. Coal, wrote William Stanley Jevons in 1865, is “the mainspring of contemporary material civilisation”. Yet it was limited and would soon go out. Although more could be found by digging deeper, it would be increasingly pricey to extract and these higher costs would reduce the competitiveness of Britain’s makers. After all, in other nations the black fuel was still in sight of daytime. Efficiency gains-using less coal to produce the exact same quantity of stuff-would not conserve the country. Indeed, cleverer use of limited resources would merely provide an incentive to burn a lot more coal, which would, paradoxically, lead to an even faster use of British reserves. There was no escape, the Victorian economist thought. Coal would be tired and the country was most likely to “agreement to her previous littleness”.

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This post appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Rocked by DeepSeek”

Finance & economics February 1st 2025

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Tech magnates have got the economics of AI incorrect

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