I suspect this has much less to do with AI than the consolidation of industries, especially tech. There’s almost zero antitrust enforcement left in this country, and it shows in these numbers and in the lack of meaningful technological advancement.
Yeah, I guess if your heroine hits right and the fiends keep coming back for more, it should just be legal. I think the issue here is that these apps are designed to defeat even the little self control that humans are capable of.
Clicks on "actual research," finds the usual econometric voodoo. Even better, the use of instrumental variables to supposedly "isolate" effects. Totally representative, I am sure.
PS: the author's own words contradict your claim that the effect is tiny, although again I think this is a serious undercount resulting from a poor model and ever worse availability of data nationwide:
"This means that, in aggregate, the growth in home-sharing through Airbnb contributes to about one-fifth of the average annual increase in U.S. rents and about one-seventh of the average annual increase in U.S. housing prices."
https://hbr.org/2019/04/research-when-airbnb-listings-in-a-c...
No, we have been ignoring your point because it’s one of those Econ 101 world views based on assumptions that have no basis in the real world and actual human behavior. You can’t look at the number of Airbnb rentals and conclude it’s not having a significant impact on the market simply based on the raw number of units. What we know from all systems theory is that a small portion of things has the majority of the effect. In this case, short term rentals are very likely setting the upper bounds of the pricing range.
It's amazing how lazy the supply siders are on this argument. Of course there's no good data-- real estate interests fight to prevent that data from even being collected. You only have to drive around major cities at dusk and see how many units have no lights on for weeks on end to recognize the magnitude of the problem. There may be data from Vancouver BC and other places that have passed vacancy taxes to address the issue. Further, the amount of construction resources that go into building luxury condos and other useless units are resources that CANNOT be used to build good housing. There is a limited supply of labor and supplies for that.
There are plenty of empty luxury condos in every major city. They mostly serve as bank accounts for foreign investors. There's plenty of construction, just the wrong type.
Exactly-- the number of young people still living at home has surged in the last decade. This is not surprising given that "starter homes" are one of the main targets of housing speculators. People who would buy their first house rent longer, driving up rental rates and putting the transition from family to independence further out of reach for many.
Gee, how about having a parade of random people showing up at all hours of the day/night just to start? The erosion of community. Further commodification of housing so that only the rich and upper middle class can buy a house in any city?
This reminds me of all the tech people (from Bill Gates on down) who think society can solve its toughest problems by supposedly sidestepping politics, as if they were not political actors and their “solutions” devoid of political context.
Also, charter schools are the education equivalent of “greenfield” solutionism alluded to in earlier comments.