Stocks are priced on the margin, which means the last sale sets the price, and so the market cap for the whole float. The $440B never really existed. But it could have been used as collateral for loans which would turn it into 'real' money. However when the price falls, those loans may be called in, and so the 'real' money is destroyed. If these loans have to be be paid off by selling the stock, then we enter a deleveraging spiral.
Theoretically the market cap should equal the present value of expected future returns (dividends and buybacks, not speculation), modulo risk, but that assumes a perfect market.
With a top heavy population pyramid, more resources have to be diverted to caring for the elderly, therefore less for raising the young - a self reinforcing mechanism.
When actually given the choice, many women are choosing not to have children, for good reasons. E.g. disruption of careers, physical effects on the body, being tied to a partner, financial drain.
Until we face up to both these issues, demographic collapse will continue - humanity will simply evaporate.
.. humanity will be replaced by the subset of it which continues to have children.
If a subgroup actually has children at above replacement, then as the other groups shrink, they will be a larger and larger fraction of the population.
Wouldn't it be ironic if, after all this, it was discovered that the most economical way of producing some fundamental 'unit of intelligence' was to feed/clothe/entertain a human?
It sad that it has come to this, but your approach is correct - it is the act of writing (code or prose) that is important, not the finished output itself.
Interestingly, this applies not just for learning, but also to a great extent in production/work contexts too.
I went to buy a new phone about a year ago - all the branding/blurbs etc was "AI this! AI that!"
I didn't end up buying at that point, but 6 months ago my existing phone failed, so I had to return to the shops. Same phones for sale more or less, but not a single word about AI anywhere.
Also, writing, indeed any making activity, forces you to think clearly. Often that is the deepest purpose of prose, even code - forcing the author to confront the problem and sharpen their own understanding of the world we share. That it then communicates something to another person (or to a machine), is a happy bonus.
An awful lot of effort has gone into making LLMs present as human/intelligent. Without that they would just be a prose / code / image generator and/or search assistant, and nobody would be pouring 100s of billions into the technology with the end goal of replacing expensive human labour.
everyone (on all sides!) is losing at AI and we'll see increasingly frantic attempts from all players to paper over the cracks as this extreme resource misallocation bites.
Theoretically the market cap should equal the present value of expected future returns (dividends and buybacks, not speculation), modulo risk, but that assumes a perfect market.
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