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America is now one big bet on AI

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Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#71

Post by dghlsakjg »

shubhamjain wrote: post #33

> Foreigners poured a record $290bn into US stocks in the second quarter and now own about 30 per cent of the market — the highest share in post-second world war history. Europeans and Canadians have been boycotting American goods but continue buying US stocks in bulk — especially the tech giants. I fail to find any plausible explanation for this other than the fact that yes, it is a bubble. Tesla, a car company faci…

> "Be fearful when everyone is greedy." I’ve cashed out of U.S. stocks, and I think it's wise thing to do when craze is at its peak.

The man who said the thing you are quoting also repeatedly advised never to bet against America, and to never try to time the market...

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#72

Post by singleshot_ »

rustyconover wrote: post #4

Just remember TINA - "There Is No Alternative." But come on, there should be an alternative. Without diversification, we’re just setting ourselves up for an economic rug pull the moment the AI growth hits the law of large numbers and people realize its not the magic they think it is. Economically? Don’t worry it’ll just be another “oops, your 401k lost a bit, here’s a bailout” moment. AKA, stimulus with sprinkles. So…

> people realize its not the magic they think it is

2023

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#73

Post by adcoleman6 »

soupfordummies wrote: post #24
woeirua wrote: post #8

We'll know next year if it's not the right move. If we get another wave of incremental upgrades at best then AI will clearly be in a bubble and it's time to look for the exits. If we keep getting major advances then any country _not_ going all in on AI will be left behind.

Have we gotten major advancements in the last ~year? Not being facetious, genuinely asking. I don't see it from my end but then again I don't really use much more than ChatGPT a couple times a week.

I think the major advancements are outside the textbox in this last year: video generation, robotic models like Helix, world models, Genie 3.

Even for text, Deepseek R1 was this year, and agentic and coding AI has made progress on length/complexity of tasks. The rise of MoE architecture in the open/local model space has made it possible to run useful models locally on hardware under like $2K, something I didn’t expect for a long time.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#74

Post by noosphr »

I read these articles about how much of a suckers bet AI is and start feeling existential dread about the coming market crash.

Then I remember I just did a weeks worth of work in a few hours and feel a lot better about my prospects at least.

AI won't replace people, but it will make people who know how to use it vastly more efficient. In the same way that a tractor made a farmer more efficient.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#75

Post by cs702 »

rtkwe wrote: post #43
cs702 wrote: post #39

Key quote: > The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year. In other words, investment in AI is a massive private-sector stimulus program, powering economic growth. Questions for which no one knows the answer include: * Will these AI investments earn a positive rate of return in the aggregate? * Without these investments o…

> Without these investments on AI and their second-order economic effects, would the US economy be growing? It's only 40% of the growth so.. yes.

Not necessarily. It depends on the second-order economic effects of these investments in AI.

For example, companies that build new giant data centers for AI pay salaries to thousands of temporary construction workers who then spend some of it on retail goods and services. That additional spending by the workers is a second-order effect, and it shows up on GDP growth. There are higher-order effects too, but they are more diffuse.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#76

Post by thr0w »

trod1234 wrote: post #32
Oras wrote: post #9

> No nation has seen an immigration boom-bust cycle near the scale of the one roiling America. Net immigration nearly quadrupled after 2020 to peak at well over 3mn in 2023, but the backlash led by President Donald Trump sent that figure into freefall. This year only around 400,000 net new arrivals are expected, and that could be the trend in the coming years. If true, that's <1% of the population?

There aren't enough jobs because we are stuck in a money-printing loop thanks to the baby boomers. The dynamics and debasement floor prevent new entrants from entering the market while regulation cripples those trying to keep things going. Concentrating and sieving the money-supply into non-productive companies on a moonshot bet to eliminate capital formation and one party that forms the basis for the economic cycle.…

> intolerable and torturous acts which have become so commonplace today

What are you referring to?

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#77

Post by DebtDeflation »

We're in this weird situation where:

1) the average American is heavily dependent on equities in their 401k for retirement,

2) so the stock market has to go up,

3) but the stock market is already at record valuations and it's difficult to see how forecasted growth levels justify the current valuation let alone an increased valuation,

4) without revenue growth, the only way for companies to sustain EPS growth is massive reduction in costs,

5) labor is the primary cost for most companies,

6) in come the AI folks telling CEOs that "AI can replace most of their workforce",

7) and so as the article states, everyone goes all in and "America is one big bet on AI"

That leaves us with only 2 possibilities - AI either replaces a significant part of the workforce or it does not. If it does not, the bubble bursts and the economy crashes. If it does, the economy still crashes because consumer spending is 70% of GDP and if the majority of the population becomes unemployed then spending collapses.

I don't think people have realized the latter (or at least they're deliberately choosing to ignore it). That said, I believe the former is more likely (AI not replacing the majority of the workforce in the near future). Either way, buckle up.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#78

Post by wing-_-nuts »

goalieca wrote: post #59
cs702 wrote: post #39

Key quote: > The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year. In other words, investment in AI is a massive private-sector stimulus program, powering economic growth. Questions for which no one knows the answer include: * Will these AI investments earn a positive rate of return in the aggregate? * Without these investments o…

The 40% investment could presumably go into jobs and infrastructure that might be more durable.

That 40% investment used to be sitting in giant cash slushfunds on company balance sheets. This isn't government investment. It would have never been spent on 'infrastructure'.

On the upside, even if AI is a bubble and implodes spectacularly we're going to have metric tons of compute available for climate models, drug discovery and anything else that requires a super computer to model.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#79

Post by anal_reactor »

righthand wrote: post #14
xiphias2 wrote: post #3

While it's all true, I think it's exciting that there's a country that's not afraid of betting when all the signs point to AI being accerelated. USA already bet on software when it let China overtake manufacturing. Now the only worse thing to betting on AI would be slowing it down inside USA.

This is something I don’t get. The general cost of living is sky rocketing, largely due to this push and some of the population thinks there is prosperity for all on the otherside of the meat processing machine we’re pushing everyone toward. Groceries are going to get more expensive. Every dollar we spend on over building AI infrastructure is a dollar we never get back. We could use this money for other things such a…

The collective west enjoyed a period of prosperity because it had massive technological advantage. The Spanish had guns, native Americans had sticks. The British had steam engines, the Indians had cows. The Americans had computers, the soviets had abascus. Now the Chinese have AI, we have if statements. Losing the AI race is an existential threat to our civilization.

Re: America is now one big bet on AI

#80

Post by righthand »

gooob wrote: post #63
righthand wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I don’t get. The general cost of living is sky rocketing, largely due to this push and some of the population thinks there is prosperity for all on the otherside of the meat processing machine we’re pushing everyone toward. Groceries are going to get more expensive. Every dollar we spend on over building AI infrastructure is a dollar we never get back. We could use this money for other things such a…

the idea is to use AI to build super productive farms and greenhouses, improve the capability to do that in urban areas, automated and super efficient transportation. but it's not just AI doing all that, it's someone who wants to start a business using AI himself to figure out how to best start up a greenhouse in his community and setup the tech infra needed including the API for people to be able to view available p…

Okay this is even more pie-in-the-sky. You can build productive greenhouses today, we don’t need AI to summarize the internet to figure out how to do it. There are no secrets hidden in the generative token tea-leaves that reveals better greenhouses. Urban farming will never be profitable or sustainable in a dense urban center. It’s been done.

“Standard observability software” whatever that is also does not require AI to build. We need 10GW to calculate rainfall for who? What benefit over how we currently calculate rainfall? This rainfall is hallucinated through summarization?

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