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How the AI Bubble Will Pop

derekthompson.org

51–60 of 531 posts

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#51
post #6
post #2

> Some people think artificial intelligence will be the most important technology of the 21st century. I don’t, I think a workable fusion reactor will be the most important technology of the 21st century.

We’ll probably need to innovate one of those to power the immense requirements of AI chatbots.

[deleted]

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#52
post #25

Every financial bubble has moments where, looking back, one thinks: How did any sentient person miss the signs? Well maybe a lot of people agree already with what the author is saying : the economics might crash, but the technology is here to stay. So we don't care about the bubble

The technology is there til the GPUs become obsolete, so about 3 years.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#53
post #2

> Some people think artificial intelligence will be the most important technology of the 21st century. I don’t, I think a workable fusion reactor will be the most important technology of the 21st century.

What makes you think we'll have fusion reactors in the 21st century?

I don’t think we’ll have the choice.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#54
>data-center related spending...probably accounted for half of GDP growth in the first half of the year. Which is absolutely bananas.

What? If that figure is true then "absolutely bananas" is the understatement of the century and "batshit insane" would be a better descriptor (though still an understatement).

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#55
post #40

Also no one is talking about how exposed we are to Taiwan. Nvidia, AMD, Apple, any company building out GPUs (so Google, Microsoft, Meta etc), even Intel a bit, are all manufacturing everything with one company, and it's largely happening in Taiwan. If China invades Taiwan, why wouldn't TSMC, Nvidia and AMD stock prices go to zero?

Guess why USA invested in intel?

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#56

The most frustrating thing to me about this most recent rash of biz guy doubting the future of AI articles is the required mention that AI, specifically an LLM based approach to AGI, is important even if the numbers don't make sense today. Why is that the case? There's plenty of people in the field who have made convincing arguments that it's a dead end and fundamentally we'll need to do something else to achieve AGI…

Where's the business value? Right now it doesn't really exist, adoption is low to nonexistent outside of programming and even in programming it's inconclusive as to how much better/worse it makes programmers. I have a friend who works at PwC doing M&A. This friend told me she can't work without ChatGPT anymore. PwC has an internal AI chat implementation. Where does this notion that LLMs have no value outside of progr…

This says more about PwC and what M&A people do all day than it does about ChatGPT.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#57
post #25

Every financial bubble has moments where, looking back, one thinks: How did any sentient person miss the signs? Well maybe a lot of people agree already with what the author is saying : the economics might crash, but the technology is here to stay. So we don't care about the bubble

I don't think the question would be whether the technology literally disappears entirely, only how important it is going forward. The metaverse is still technically here, but that doesn't mean it is impactful or worth near the investment.

For LLMs, the architecture will be here and we know how to run them. If the tech hits a wall, though, and the usefulness doesn't balance well with the true cost of development and operation when VC money dries up, how many companies will still be building and running massive server farms for LLMs?

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#58

The most frustrating thing to me about this most recent rash of biz guy doubting the future of AI articles is the required mention that AI, specifically an LLM based approach to AGI, is important even if the numbers don't make sense today. Why is that the case? There's plenty of people in the field who have made convincing arguments that it's a dead end and fundamentally we'll need to do something else to achieve AGI…

i think it is more like maps. before 2004, before google maps, the way we interacted with the spatial distribution of places and things was different. all these ai dev tools like claude code as well as tools for writing, etc. are going to change the way we interact with our computers.

but on the other side, the reason everyone is so gung ho on all this is because these models basically allow for the true personalization of everything. They can build up enough context about you in every instance of you doing things online that they can craft the perfect ad experience to maximize engagement and conversion. that is why everyone is so obsessed with this stuff. they don't care about AGI, they care about maintaining the current status quo where a large chunk of the money made on the internet is done by delivering ads that will get people to buy stuff.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#59
"The “pop” won’t be a single day like a stock market crash. It’ll be a gradual cooling as unrealistic promises fail, capital tightens, and only profitable or genuinely innovative players remain."

(This comment was written by ChatGPT)

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#60

The most frustrating thing to me about this most recent rash of biz guy doubting the future of AI articles is the required mention that AI, specifically an LLM based approach to AGI, is important even if the numbers don't make sense today. Why is that the case? There's plenty of people in the field who have made convincing arguments that it's a dead end and fundamentally we'll need to do something else to achieve AGI…

Where's the business value? Right now it doesn't really exist, adoption is low to nonexistent outside of programming and even in programming it's inconclusive as to how much better/worse it makes programmers. I have a friend who works at PwC doing M&A. This friend told me she can't work without ChatGPT anymore. PwC has an internal AI chat implementation. Where does this notion that LLMs have no value outside of progr…

> This friend told me she can't work without ChatGPT anymore.

Is she more productive though?

People who smoke cigarettes will be unable to work without their regular smoke breaks. Doesn’t mean smoking cigarettes is good for working.

Personally I am an AI booster and I think even LLMs can take us much farther. But people on both sides need to stop accepting claims uncritically.

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