This is the same group (Ayush Chopra & Ramesh Raskar) that previously published the highly circulated (clickbait) article saying that 95% of AI pilots were failing based on extremely weak study design and questions that didn't even support the takeaways.
Anything coming from Ayush and Ramesh should be highly scrutinized. Ramesh should stick to studying Camera Culture in the Media Lab.
I will believe a study from MIT when it comes out of CSAIL.
It's been really disheartening to see the impact of media / hype mongering on groups within research institutions.
IMO, it's clear there is massive demand for any research that shows large positive or negative impacts of AI on the economy. The recent WSJ article about Aiden Toner-Rodgers is another great example of demand for AI impact outstripping the supply of AI impact. Obviously this thread's example is just shoddy research vs. the outright data fraud of Toner-Rodgers, but it's hard to not see the pattern.
I hope that MIT and other research institutions can figure this out...
You should read the paper (or at least the abstract) before making personal attacks. It makes no claims about job disruption (quite the opposite actually).
This study was led by a PI in the MIT Media Lab who studies cameras and their impact on society.
There's a reason it has a catchy headline, there's a reason you needed to fill in an email form to get access to the study, and there's a reason why the 2nd author has an agentic AI startup.
I thought it was a low quality article with no data or in detail methods. MIT needs to do better. This is the second article of this type in the last few months that caught headlines.
We ought to refuse to address the content of the message if there is even a single em-dash — things written with AI can’t be true, aren’t worth considering, and lack substance or merit.
Either have opinions or don't, but don't delegate opinions to chat bots. It defeats the purpose of discussion forums. Also slop is only partially due to the model. The rest is the prompt and editing process. It's tiresome to read to ChatGPT-specific bombastic drama like "The 30-day limit isn't a constraint. It's a demonstration period."
Market-share is a cumulative metric, representing the sum of all purchases over several years. Sales is a flow metric, representing the sum of purchases in a given year. Market-share can increase, yet sales can be down in a given year.
This could change the process to this: 1) Seller gives a portion of their home price to their Agent as a commission (let's say 3%). The seller only paid 3% in commissions. 2) The Buyer negotiated a commission with their Agent (let's say $10,000). Which the buyer pays out-of-pocket, or has paid out of their financing for the home.
This allows the Seller's Agent to maintain their duty to maximizing the value of their client's home by reducing the commission the seller pays. While also ensuring the Seller's Agent doesn't bend to the Buyer's Agent's wishes for a higher commission to secure a deal. This also allows the Buyer's Agent to maintain their duty to their client by negotiating their commission up-front, regardless of the price of the property. They could negotiate a percentage with their client, but that percentage is the Buyer's responsibility, not the seller. It gives the Buyer more power in the commission paid to their Agent.
TLDR: Seller's had more power in pricing and commission payments to Agent's on both sides of the transaction, skewing home values higher to offset their (commonly) 6% commission payments. This segments the Seller's commission to just their Agent, and the Buyer's commission to just the buyer.
We don't really have buyer's agents in New Zealand (the idea exists but used extremely rarely in my experience).
I'm rather suspicious of the US system that creates a place for two agents getting 3% each for little gain (and a lot of scope for collusion against the buyer and/or seller!)
The New Zealand system has its flaws. The major problem is that vendor real estate agents are financially incentivised to turn over sales as quickly as possible and so smart agents do not represent their vendors properly. I've seen lots of house sales where an offer is made and the agent recommends the seller take it. An early sale costs the agent much less time and they make way more money per year. New Zealanders are generally too trusting, so we get screwed over by people that take advantage of that.
> maximizing the value of their client's home by reducing the commission the seller pays.
Selling a house quickly (convincing the seller to take a qualified and likely-to-close offer) still dominates as a strategy over eeking out a few extra points of contract price. As an agent, taking 1.25% or 1.5% of a $950K sale quickly is way better than holding out for a $1M offer.
The difference in commission at 1.5% on a $50K delta in sales price is $750. Freeing up your time to work on the next listing is more valuable.
I always thought the right strategy would be to have a sellers agent contract that was tiered, eg agent gets 1-2% of selling price up to average comps, and then 20% of excess selling price over that. Maybe a bonus or penalty for timing, to prevent waiting forever for a good offer.
The main issue with that possibility is many brokerages (at least ones in my area) do not allow a Seller's Agent to reduce their commission without prior Broker authorization. Regardless of what the Seller themselves wants. So while that deal may be advantageous for the Seller (sell quickly) and the Agent (get the deal over with and move on to the next), the Broker is the one getting paid a lower sum and will not allow that contract to be ratified.
Nothing in my comment is about changing the percentage of the commission. (The 1.25% or 1.5% is simply the listing agent's personal split of a 5% or 6% total commission [whichever is customary in the local area]).
Sorry, I didn't explain enough. The total commission remains 6%, but if the Seller's Agent split is only 1.25%, the Seller Agent's Broker (most likely) will deny that as the Broker would receive a reduced cut of the commission.
The Seller and the Seller's Agent may be cool with the reduction, but the Broker would ultimately have the final say since it's, legally, their contract.
Yeah, it's usually unequal in the area I used to work in. The Agent's have their own agreements with their Brokers that are independent of any sale/purchase they work on. I've seen everything from 50/50 all the way to 90/10 (10% to Broker).
Yeah, it is very high. Although, the real estate industry in the US is vastly different.
- Agents do not receive salary, benefits, etc. Their only payment is when they close a deal.
- Real Estate Agents are a dime a dozen since the licensing and training is pretty minimal. So lots of competition fighting over small supply, so it can be difficult to consistently get clients.
- Agents can pay around $100/month to their Brokerage for E&O insurance, maybe access to legal forms, and a Broker for questions/insight. So they start spending money from the get-go.
- Agents, typically, pay all expenses related to the job (advertising, signage, listing fees, etc).
Yeah, it's tough on both sides. Competition is fierce for leads, but the rates have to be sky high to support the enormous mass of realtors. If the fees drop a lot of people are going to need to find new jobs.
If competition is fierce for leads because there is a glut of workers due to nearly zero requirements to become one, one would expect rates to plummet. Which, I suppose, is why we have a collusion situation here.
This reads like the reason why one shouldn't become an agent in the US. It's honestly hard to feel sympathy for people who are basically gambling their professional careers on the real estate market.
Nothing yet. I'd imagine it will go through appeals for a few years before anything actually happens, and U.S. antitrust enforcement has not exactly been a powerful force for the last few decades.
Destruction is so easy, quick, and satisfying. It's why the simple minded find it so enjoyable. Creation is hard, and requires a thousand times the work. Fuck that.
Whenever I see articles like this I come back to Calpers venture returns over the last 20 years:
> Calpers' venture returns have been historically lackluster. From 2000 to 2020, its venture performance was a dismal 0.49%, compared to 11.59% in buyouts. Calpers declined to comment.
When Calpers started reporting this info their portfolio companies (VCs like Sequoia) were furious and tried to block it. It exposed their made up IRR numbers to public view. But as a public agency, Calpers was able to stick to its guns and provide a valuable service.
People forget how tiny the VC business is: just a pimple on the PE market. Typically it’s a tiny part of a big investor’s portfolio, just to have some exposure diversity. You can tell how important it is to them when you attend an LP meeting for a VC fund: the GPs may be bowing and scraping* but among the LPs’ representatives are a lot of 22 year old first year associates, which shows how unimportant the sector is to these big guys.
* props to the GPs who are both not arrogant and not ingratiating to their customers (cough sorry, “LPs”). In my experience there are fewer than you would think.
Well put and I have also witnessed the same patterns at GP/LP meetings.
Ironically, Calpers' excuse for their poor returns is that the "top tier" VCs (such as Sequoia) now exclude them due to their public reporting requirements, and therefore they are forced to deploy to tier 2 managers.
Sports is easy enough. The hardest part is getting around limits and finding new accounts cuz anyone with a brain inevitably gets kicked. But overall relatively easy side income
Just because Calpers fails doesn't mean the industry is a failure.
VC is a wide gamut, the top 25% generates something like 30% IRR while the bottom 25% is negative return.
LP in VC is just like VC - have to get in on the good deals and I think maybe since it's harder to evaluate deals, than say for building some homes, a lot of money goes to crap.
The issue with your argument is the government chanced the eviction rules ex post facto.
Yes, the poster is taking the risk that they tenants cannot pay, but they also took that risk with the assumption they could evict them and replace them with a paying tenant.
Anything coming from Ayush and Ramesh should be highly scrutinized. Ramesh should stick to studying Camera Culture in the Media Lab.
I will believe a study from MIT when it comes out of CSAIL.