> But most of the value will be in software ultimately.
Isn't one of the points of AI to make democratize the act of writing software? AI isn't like other software inventions which make a product from someone's intelligence - long term its providing the raw intelligence itself. I mean we have NVDA's CEO saying to not learn to code, and lot of non-techies quoting him these days.
If this is true the end effect is to destroy all value moats in the software layer from an economic perspective. Software just becomes a cheap tool which enables mostly other industries.
So if there isn't long term value in the hardware (as you are pointing out), and there isn't long term value in the software due to no barriers of entry - where does the value of all of this economic efficiency improvement accrue to?
I suspect large old stale corporations with large work forces and moats outside of technology (i.e. physical and/or social moats) not threatened by AI, who can empower their management class by replacing skilled (e.g software dev's, accountants, etc) and semi-skilled labor (e.g call centre operators) with AI. The decision makers in privileged positions behind these moats, rather than the do'ers will win out.
> I mean we have NVDA's CEO saying to not learn to code, and lot of non-techies quoting him these days.
Simply planting the seed of ignorance for generations to come. If people do not learn, they need someone/something to produce this, and who else is better than the gold mine(AI) to supply you these knowledge? Also, as long as cryptocurrency and AI boom goes, shovel sellers(i.e. NVDA) gains to profit, so it is in their best interest to run the sales pitch.
Also, once people think that all is gone, future is bleak, people will not learn and generate novel ideas and innovations, so all knowledge, research and innovation will slowly get locked away behind paywalls of people who can afford select few with the knowledge and access to wield the AI tech. Think of the internet of our gone years minus all the open and free knowledge, all the OSS, all the passionate people contributing and sharing. Now replace that with all the course sites where you must pay to get access to anything decent and replace the courses with AI.
At best, I see all these as feeding the fear and the laziness to kill off the expensive knowledge and the sharing culture, because if that is achieved, AI is the next de-facto product you need to build automation and digitalization.