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How the AI Bubble Will Pop

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Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#231

Post by nizsle »

aurareturn wrote: post #11
hemloc_io wrote: post #7

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…

Greater output doesn't always equal greater productivity. In my days in the investing business we would have junior investment professionals putting together elaborate and detailed investment committee memos. When it came time to review a deal in the investment committee meetings we spent all our time trying to sift through the content of the memos and diligence done to date to identify the key risks and opportunities, with what felt like a 1:100 signal to noise ratio being typical. The productive element of the investment process was identifying the signal, not producing the content that too often buries the signal deeper. Imo, AI tools to date make it so much easier to create content which makes it harder to be productive.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#232

Post by throw0101d »

leojfc wrote: post #17
throw0101d wrote: post #3

Perhaps worth remembering that 'over-enthusiasm' for new technologies dates back to (at least) canal-mania: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Revolutions_and_... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_Mania

Absolutely. Years ago I found this book on the topic really eye-opening: - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Technological-Revolutions-Financial... The process of _actually_ benefitting from technological improvements is not a straight line, and often requires some external intervention. e.g. it’s interesting to note that the rising power of specific groups of workers as a result of industrialisation + unionisation then argua…

> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Technological-Revolutions-Financial...

Yes, that is the first link of my/GP post.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#233

Post by Gerardo1 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #147
donatj wrote: post #123

I feel kind of like a Luddite sometimes but I don't understand why EVERYONE is rushing to use AI? I use a couple different agents to help me code, and ChatGPT has largely replaced Google in my everyday use, but I genuinely don't understand the value proposition of every other companies offerings. I really feel like we're in the same "Get it out first, figure out what it is good for later" bubble we had like 7 years a…

Just you switching away from Google is already justifying 1T infrastructure spend. Just think about how much more effective advertisements are going to be when LLMs start to tell you what to buy based on which advertiser gave the most money to the company.

1 Trillion US dollars?

1 trillion dollars is justified because people use chatGPT instead of google sometimes?

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#234

Post by baggachipz »

yomismoaqui wrote: post #212

I'm always commenting the same on these posts. The web bubble also popped and look how it went for Google, Amazon, Meta and many others. Remember pets.com that sold pet products on the internet, dumb idea right? Now think where you buy these products in 2025.

There was a ton of pain in between. Legions of people lost their livelihoods. This bubble pop will be way worse. Yes, this tech will eventually be viable and useful, but holy hell will it suck in the meantime.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#235

Post by Gerardo1 »

squidbeak wrote: post #230
emp17344 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed… I feel increasingly alienated because I don’t understand how AI is providing enough value to justify the truly insane level of investment.

Remember, investment is for the future. It would seem riskier if progress was flat, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

What makes it seem like progress isn't flat?

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#236

Post by benregenspan »

fabian2k wrote: post #74
kumarm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[even in programming it's inconclusive as to how much better/worse it makes programmers.] Try building something new in claude code (or codex etc) using a programming language you have not used before. Your opinion might change drastically. Current AI tools may not beat the best programmer, they definitely improves average programmer efficiency.

AI can be quite impressive if the conditions are right for it. But it still fails at so many common things for me that I'm not sure if it's actually saving me time overall. I just tried earlier today to get Copilot to make a simple refactor across ~30-40 files. Essentially changing one constructor parameter in all derived classes from a common base class and adding an import statement. In the end it managed ~80% of t…

One thing I like for this type of refactoring scenario is asking it to write a codemod (which you can of course do yourself but there's a learning curve). Faster result that takes advantage of a deterministic tool.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#237

Post by fragmede »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #60
aurareturn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Doesn’t mean smoking cigarettes is good for working.

Fun fact; smoking likely is! There have been numerous studies into nicotine as a nootropic, eg https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1579636/#:~:text=Abstract,sh... which have found that nicotine improves attention and memory.

Shame about the lung cancer though.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#238

Post by tamimio »

If you look at all the tech “breakthroughs” in the past decades, you will know AI is just another one: dot com, automation, social media, smartphones, cloud, cybersecurity, blockchain, crypto, renewable energy and electric X, IoT, and now AI. It will have an impact after the initial boom, and I personally think they are always negative impacts. Companies will always try to milk investors' money during the boom as much as possible, and the best way to do that is to keep the hype, either with false promises (AGI omgg singularity!!) or even fears, and the latter one is stronger because it taps into public emotions. Just pay a few scientists to create "AI 2027!!" research saying it will literally take over the world in two years, or it will take your jobs meanwhile you use the excuse to hire cheaper labor to maximize profits and blame it on AI. I remember I said that to a few friends back in early 2024, and it seems we are heading to that pop sooner than I expected.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#239

Post by tail_exchange »

JohnKemeny wrote: post #169
hamburgererror wrote: post #138

Until recently everyone was bragging about predicting bitcoin's bubble. To the best of my knowledge there was no huge crash, crypto just got out of fashion in mainstream media. I guess that's what's going to happen with AI.

Almost everyone who has interacted with a blockchain ended up losing money.

It's very ironic that the way they could have made money was the simple, but boring one: buying and holding bitcoin. Being a shitcoin day-trader is much more exciting though, and that's how they lost all their money.

Maybe that's also what will happen with AI investors when the bubble pops or deflates.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#240

Post by 9rx »

bko wrote: post #217
donatj wrote: post #123

I feel kind of like a Luddite sometimes but I don't understand why EVERYONE is rushing to use AI? I use a couple different agents to help me code, and ChatGPT has largely replaced Google in my everyday use, but I genuinely don't understand the value proposition of every other companies offerings. I really feel like we're in the same "Get it out first, figure out what it is good for later" bubble we had like 7 years a…

I think text is the ultimate interface. A company can just build and maintain very strong internal APIs and punt on the UX component. For instance, suppose I'm using figma, I want to just screenshot what I want it to look like and it can get me started. Or if I'm using Notion, I want a better search. Nothing necessarily generative, but something like "what was our corporate address". It also replaces help if well int…

They thought the same thing in the 70s. Text is very flexible, so it serves a good "lowest common denominator", but that flexibility comes at the cost of being terrible to use.
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