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Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

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Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#161
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how much of the world runs on WhatsApp alone, that’s laughably wrong.

So if WhatsApp had an outage, but you needed to communicate to someone, you wouldn't be able to? Don't you have contacts saved locally, and other message apps available?

In most of Asia, Latin America, Africa, and about half of Europe?

You’d be pretty stuck. I guess SMS might work, but it wouldn’t for most businesses (they use the WhatsApp business functionality, there is no SMS thing backing it).

Most people don’t even use text anymore. China has it’s own Apps, but everyone else uses WhatsApp exclusively at this point.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#162

Does anyone really think it’s “if” and not “when” ?

I've been trying to grok this idea of - when does a bubble pop. Like in theory if everyone knows it's a bubble, that should cause it to pop, because people should be making their way to the exists, playing music chairs to get their money out early. But as I try to sort of narrative the ideas behind bubbles and bursts, one thing I realize, is that I think in order for a bubble to burst, people essentially have to want…

It's important to keep in mind the difference between the stock market and the economy.

Economically, AI is a bubble, and lots of startups whose current business model is "UI in front of the OpenAI API" are likely doomed. That's just economic reality - you can't run on investor money forever. Eventually you need actual revenue, and many of these companies aren't generating very much of it.

That being said, most of these companies aren't publicly traded right now, and their demise would currently be unlikely to significantly affect the stock market. Conversely, the publicly traded companies who are currently investing a lot in AI (Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc) aren't dependent on AI, and certainly wouldn't go out of business over it.

The problem with the dotcom bubble was that there were a lot of publicly traded companies that went bankrupt. This wiped out trillions of dollars in value from regular investors. Doesn't matter how much you may irrationally want a bubble to continue - you simply can't stay invested in a company that doesn't exist anymore.

On the other hand, the AI bubble bursting is probably going to cost private equity a lot of money, but not so much regular investors unless/until AI startups (startups dependent on AI for their core business model) start to go public in large numbers.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sub is the most important question in the thread. Where do you put your money to hedge against an AI market crash?

Land/housing/property, as directly as possible and reasonable. Just make sure you don't do it in an overheated place like New York.

> Just make sure you don't do it in an overheated place like New York

If the stock market crashes, New York property probably sings. Stock market crash means ZIRP. And ZIRP means lots of money sloshing through New York.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#164
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even know what the selling point of AI is for regular people. In the 60s it was possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children. That's completely out of the realm of reality for many young people now and the plummeting birth rates show it. The middle class have financially benefited very little from the past 20+ years of productivity gains. S…

> In the 60s it was possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children. Every kind of a man, or woman? > Do people really think more technology is going to be the path to a better society? Because to me it looks like the opposite. Well, this probably why statistics exist.

Thanks for pointing out this skewed view of economic history common in North America.

The short period of boom in 50s/60s US and Canada was driven by WW2 devastation everywhere else. We can see the economic crisis' in the US first in the 70s/80s with Europe and Japan rebounding, then again in 90s/00s with China and East Asia growing, and now again with the rest of the world growing (esp Latin America, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines, etc). Unless US physically invades and devastates China, India or Brazil the competition will keep getting exponentially higher. It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs.

In short, its easier to have high standards of living in your secure isolated island when the rest of the world (including historical industrial powers) are completely decimated by war.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#165
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even know what the selling point of AI is for regular people. In the 60s it was possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children. That's completely out of the realm of reality for many young people now and the plummeting birth rates show it. The middle class have financially benefited very little from the past 20+ years of productivity gains. S…

> In the 60s it was possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children. Every kind of a man, or woman? > Do people really think more technology is going to be the path to a better society? Because to me it looks like the opposite. Well, this probably why statistics exist.

I'm not going to engage with you on a debate because you aren't acting in good faith.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#166
post #22

Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon will get through easily. They don't have excessive debt. They can afford to lose their investments into AI. Their valuations will take a hit. Nvidia will lose revenue and profits, stock will go down by 60% or more, but it will also survive. Oracle will likely fail. It funded its AI pivot with debt. The Debt-to-Revenue ratio is 1.77, the Debt-to-Equity ratio D/E is 520, and it has a…

OpenAI, Anthropic, and others will be bought for cents on the dollar. OpenAI is existential threat to all big tech including Meta, Google, Microsoft, Apple. Hence, they're all spending lavishly right now to not get left behind. Meta --> GenAI Content creation can disrupt Instagram. ChatGPT likely has more data on a person than Instagram does by now for ads. 800 million daily active users for ChatGPT already. Google -…

>Apple --> OpenAI can make a device that runs ChatGPT as the OS instead of relying on iOS.

Ah yes, PromptOS will go down in the history books for sure.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#167
Assuming this is irrational and must come back to reality at some point, I'm not convinced this is connected to the common man economy as other bubbles in the past were. This round of investment is mostly being funded by exuberant cash flow accumulated over the years that was otherwise used as stock buybacks by a small number of stocks and some private credit deals that are not that accessible to the general public. This is looking more like a crypto crash kind of effect rather than a 2008 one.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#168
post #29
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon might get through easily as companies . I don't think all G/M/M/A staff will get through easily.

I cry for Elon, that precious jewel of a human being. Tesla (P/E: 273, PEG: 16.3) the car maker without robots, robotaxis is less than 15% of the Tesla valuation at best. When the AI hype dies, selloff starts and negative sentiment hits, we have below $200B market cap company. It will hurt Elon mentally. He will need a hug.

He's gonna need a lot of ketamine in the aftermath that's for sure.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#169
post #29
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon might get through easily as companies . I don't think all G/M/M/A staff will get through easily.

I cry for Elon, that precious jewel of a human being. Tesla (P/E: 273, PEG: 16.3) the car maker without robots, robotaxis is less than 15% of the Tesla valuation at best. When the AI hype dies, selloff starts and negative sentiment hits, we have below $200B market cap company. It will hurt Elon mentally. He will need a hug.

Then show us your puts, mr buffet

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#170
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cry for Elon, that precious jewel of a human being. Tesla (P/E: 273, PEG: 16.3) the car maker without robots, robotaxis is less than 15% of the Tesla valuation at best. When the AI hype dies, selloff starts and negative sentiment hits, we have below $200B market cap company. It will hurt Elon mentally. He will need a hug.

Then show us your puts, mr buffet

lol - yea…
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