Commentary on X
@teortaxesTex great example - I’d be interested in what the cost multiplier of beauty would have been (@_brianpotter?). How much more expensive would it have been to build beautiful, differentiated buildings instead of stamp out rows of identical ugly blocks
11:01 AM · Jul 15, 2026@icyponds @teortaxesTex agree, if I was a city government right now I’d be seeing if I could get models to give instant turn around on proposals - would be transformative. Suspect a well promoted model would agree with your existing assessors judgements
11:03 AM · Jul 15, 2026@_sholtodouglas @icyponds @teortaxesTex working on it at http://brain.co:)
11:05 AM · Jul 15, 2026@_sholtodouglas the main illustration of why cheap construction is not enough is China they've poured maybe 30% of all concrete in history over the last 20-30 years, similarly for bricks. Their construction is a large share of total human-made mass still insane costs for ugly T1 city properties
10:56 AM · Jul 15, 2026View all
@teortaxesTex Yeah, construction labour rn is only ~50% I think, but I think you can make cost of materials go way down w/ robots too. Agree that land/location (and regulation!) are the primary problems right now, expect that to be much less true post AGI though
10:53 AM · Jul 15, 2026@_sholtodouglas Construction is already quite cheap (even if that doesn't apply to fancy construction you think of) the core problem is land and location premiums on that front we need more work from home and better logistics, to make "bad" locales viable
9:31 AM · Jul 15, 2026