The physics of the supply side
Ways to think about token pricing — Benedict Evans
AI is in a supply crunch today, but what happens when we come out of it? How and where will supply, demand, price, capacity and capex get back into equilibrium? Today, model labs can name their price, but why won’t they end up as low-margin commodity infrastructure?
interfluidity » The great game of global public goods provision
War is bad. Excuses should not be made for it. All sides should work to end this and every war as quickly as possible and shift to modes of bargaining and competition that are not profoundly destructive.
"Greedflation" and the Profits Equation
The assumption behind the "greedflation" thesis is that companies are choosing to squeeze volumes because they care more about unit margins than total profits. There are other possibilities.
Jevons paradox
In economics, the Jevons paradox, or Jevons effect, is said to occur when technological improvements that increase the efficiency of a resource's use lead to a rise, rather than a fall, in total consumption of that resource. Greater efficiency reduces the amount of the resource needed per application, lowering its effective cost; if demand is sufficiently price elastic, this induces demand, frequently resulting in a net increase of total resource consumption.
Design Rules, Volume 1: The Power of Modularity
We live in a dynamic economic and commerical world, surrounded by objects of remarkable complexity and power. In many industries, changes in products and t
We used to get excited about technology. What happened?
Innovation that truly serves us all is in scarce supply. That’s a problem.
A Practical Model for Jobs To Be Done (JTBD)
“People don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole” – Theodore Levitt The concept of jobs to be done provides a lens through which to understand value creation. The approach loo…
Power: A Primer for Perplexed Economists
Let's Assume an Unfettered Marketplace of Ideas! Or Actually, Let's Not.
Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist | Do the Math
[An updated treatment of some of this material appears in Chapter 2 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook, also mirrors a 2022 article in Nature Physics..]
On Taste, Effort & Curiosity - again
When AI collapses how long it takes to ship, what’s left is judgment, experimentation, and knowing what not to build.
How Infrastructure Works: Transforming our shared systems for a changing world
'Pulsing with wisdom and humanity... a masterpiece' ED YONG'A hopeful, lyrical - even beautiful - hymn to the systems of mutual aid we embed in our material world' CORY DOCTOROW'An extraordinary book' MARK MIODOWNIK'You won't see the world the same after reading this book!' AUSTIN KLEONEvery day, we are granted the power to travel at high speeds, fly, see in the dark, summon water from distant mountains and electricity from the sun. The systems that run our world are invisible to us until they fail.Infrastructure enables lives of astounding ease and freedom that would have been unimaginable just a century ago. These technological systems - the most complex and vast ever created by humans - have allowed us to work collectively for the public good. But these systems are now beginning to fail us.Engineering professor Deb Chachra takes readers on a fascinating tour of these essential utilities, revealing how they work, what it takes to keep them running, and just how much they shape our lives - but also the price they extract, who pays it and in what ways, as well as the threats to our infrastructure in a changing world.From Snowdonia's Electric Mountain to a solar plant in southern India, Chachra shows how we can rebuild our shared infrastructure to be not just functional but also equitable, resilient, and sustainable. We need to learn how to see these systems and to transform them, together, because the cost of not being able to rely on them is unthinkably high.