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jimrandomh comments on Comparative and absolute advantage in AI - Less Wrong Discussion
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The theory of comparative advantage is wrong in practice, because trade goods are not perfect commodities; there are differences not just in how much different parties can produce, but in quality. If things are in generally short supply, this won't matter much; but advance technology to get rid of scarcity, and suddenly those quality differences are all that matters, and someone whose output is slightly-lower quality can't trade at all.
And that is why our iPhones are made in the USA and Europe.
NOT. They are made in China using cheap labor instead of being made in USA and Europe using robots.
"Cheap Labor" is a statement that unwraps to absolute advantage, generally. An hour of labor in the US produces about 7X the value as an hour of labor in China. Their wage drifts down to allow them to change in the comparative advantage sense: an iphone made the same way in the US as it is made in China would be prohibitively expensive.