One wonders whether they are rebutting their critics' actual arguments - I simply cannot imagine that a serious critic would make the quoted claim.

The other problem that Tao identifies is that math has typically been an unusually open subject in many respects. This openness may not work if big AI labs can afford to throw $X million at a problem to scoop you if the rumor gets around that you think you have something promising. Hence, less collaboration, and less chance of identifying these exciting new problems, infinite though they may be.

What does it mean with his d() operator to "divide by dx"? All of a sudden it seems like he has changed dy/dx from unfortunate notation that sort of looks like a division into something that actually is dividing two meaningful things, dy and dx? And so what the hell are dy and dx?

This mindset really baffles me, as a unionized guy with a white collar email job. Don't you, like, want things that your employer doesn't want to give you? Job protection? Better than CoL wage growth? Work from home? Internal job progression? Clear, understandable job factors agreed upon in advance?

The union negotiates for what its members want. There's nothing magical about unions that mean, like, a white collar union is going to be negotiating for all its members to get a new hard hat every year, just because that's what auto worker unions do.

Anyway, I agree with you that simultaneous productivity gains and deskilling as a result of AI efficiency, if it comes to pass, would work against labor power. The claim is that unions would hold no purpose under such an arrangement. I'd say if anything they'd be more important. The question is, would an employee rather have union protections if this comes to pass, or not?

Aside from general job protection stuff, the general answer would be that they can ensure that some of the productivity gains go to employees rather than employers. Let's say the company has been so much more efficient thanks to AI that they earn an extra 100 million in revenue with the same level of spending. So, the union goes into contract negotiations asking for a 50 million increase in salaries per annum, and employees get part of that windfall.

This is not true. There can be non-union job classes even if the employer has some unionized employees. Even in different geographic areas you can have one location have class X union and another non-union (eg Starbucks).

What you cannot do, is have a unionized location with union Software Engineer I and non-union Software Engineer I. Sometimes employers try to skirt this and have non-union jobs that are too close to union jobs, and then it's lawsuit time.

If the only reason WMF had to request a formal election was to allow secret ballot, they would not be hiring union busting law firms. The point of such firms is to legally and illegally discourage union membership - the penalties for doing so illegally are comically small.