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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'

#191

Post by throwacct »

rozap wrote: post #160
OptionOfT wrote: post #114

Interestingly I think if the AI succeed at the level that a lot of these CEOs hope we're not much better off either. And the sentiment that goes around is more: reduce the amount of people needed to do the same amount of work: https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/09/mckinsey_ai_monetizat... > McKinsey says, while quoting an HR executive at a Fortune 100 company griping: "All of these copilots are supposed to make work…

Realistically I think there are two outcomes: AGI succeeds and there are mass layoffs, money is concentrated further in the hands of those who own compute. OR AI bubble pops and there are mass layoffs, with bailouts going to the largest players to prevent a larger collapse, which drives inflation and further marginalizes asset-less people. I honestly don't see a third option unless there is government intervention, w…

Third option: no bailouts of any type. Don't socialize losses. The board resets itself again, and let entrepreneurs, small businesses flourish again.

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

#192

Post by eqvinox »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #163
eqvinox wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> lots of money sloshing through New York.

That's kinda the problem, I'd expect it to be a bit… volatile. I guess it's a valid target to gamble on if that matches your risk profile.

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

#193

Post by ben_w »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #150
OptionOfT wrote: post #114

Interestingly I think if the AI succeed at the level that a lot of these CEOs hope we're not much better off either. And the sentiment that goes around is more: reduce the amount of people needed to do the same amount of work: https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/09/mckinsey_ai_monetizat... > McKinsey says, while quoting an HR executive at a Fortune 100 company griping: "All of these copilots are supposed to make work…

> Who is going to be buying the products and services if no-one has money to throw around? We have no basis for seriously considering this hypothetical when it comes to LLMs.

Depends how absolute one takes the statement "no-one has money to throw around".

Taken loosely, we have seen previous developments which make a large fraction of a population redundant in short periods, and it goes really badly, even though the examples I know of are nowhere near the entire population.

I'm not at all sure how much LLMs or other GenAI are "it" for any given profession: while they impress me a lot, they are fragile and weird and I assume that if all development stopped today the current shinyness would tarnish fast enough.

But on the other hand, I just vibe coded 95% of a game that would have taken me a few months back when I was a fresh graduate, in a few days, using free credit. Similar for the art assets.

How much money can I keep earning for that last 5% the LLM sucks at?

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

#194

Post by throwacct »

jimbokun wrote: post #186
rozap wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically I think there are two outcomes: AGI succeeds and there are mass layoffs, money is concentrated further in the hands of those who own compute. OR AI bubble pops and there are mass layoffs, with bailouts going to the largest players to prevent a larger collapse, which drives inflation and further marginalizes asset-less people. I honestly don't see a third option unless there is government intervention, w…

If the AI bubble pops it's just another bubble like the many ones that have occurred throughout history and the market eventually recovers. In the AGI Succeeds scenario, the situation is unprecedented and it's not clear how it ever gets better.

Tbh, the answer is simple: if we truly get AGI, the government would nationalize it because it's a matter of national security and prosperity for that matter. Everything will change forever. Agriculture, Transportation, Health... Breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough. The country would hold the actual key to solve almost any problem.

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

#195

Post by watwut »

jimbokun wrote: post #179
Demiurge wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Every kind of a man, or woman? Why do so many people miss the point on this? Instead of making this dream true for all the people who were previously excluded, we have pursued equality by making this dream accessible to NO ONE. > Well, this probably why statistics exist. Like the statistics on plummeting mental health and happiness, an obesity epidemic, increases in "deaths of despair", and plateauing or decreasing…

I think there is something to be valued about historical accuracy.

> Like the statistics on plummeting mental health and happiness, an obesity epidemic, increases in "deaths of despair", and plateauing or decreasing life expectancy?

In the 60ties, suicide rates went UP. Peaked around 1970 and we did not reached their levels.

Long terms statistics about alcoholism rates and drug use are also a real exiting thing. We know that cirrhosis death rate was going up in the 60ties up to 70ties, peaked and went down. It was the time when drinking and driving campaigns started.

Current drug use is nowhere near what it was a generation ago.

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

#196

Post by jimbokun »

redhed wrote: post #188
jimbokun wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. What does this sentence mean?

I assume the idea is more money could've been invested into bringing the bottom rungs of American society up and created a more skilled and educated workforce in the process.

So "social capital" == "education"?

The US has pushed a shit ton of money into education. I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there.

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

#198

Post by Retric »

Avicebron wrote: post #143
cedws wrote: 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…

What's crazy is that people will jump all over themselves to say "well you could totally live like that at a 1960s level" like that's even a viable possibility today (in the US). What's that about the falcon and the falconer? The center cannot hold..

People do make it work in the US with tiny incomes and a better standard of living than you’d see in a typical 1960’s household.

I know people raising a family of 4 on 1 income well below the median wage without a collage degree. They do get significant help from government assistance programs for healthcare, but their lifestyle is way better off than what was typical in the 1960’s.

Granted they aren’t doing this in a ultra expensive US city, but on the flip side they’re living in a huge for 1960’s 3 bedroom house with a massive backyard.

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

#199

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

boringg wrote: post #138
helterskelter wrote: post #90

I'm curious what HN is doing with their portfolios right about now. I'd be dumping NVDA and reallocating to more bonds for the time being.

Theres a really funny thing going on right now -- in that everyone is forecasting an AI bubble to pop. It feels like every single human is saying that from the heads of tech companies with comments that are veiled to bankers and everyone on the street. It reminds me of the time that everyone said the economy was going to tank and somehow everyone had it wrong a couple years ago. It feels implausible that it isn't ove…

If it was the people actually investing in AI all saying it's a bubble, implying that they are holding back, not all-in, for fear of it crashing, then it'd have room to run further (until they were all-in, and leveraged to the eyeballs, cf subprime housing crash liar loans, dot-com crash investor margin accounts).

However, it seems more like the people pumping billions into AI are all still "this is going to the moon" gung-ho, and unless they are investing billions of CASH, then I guess they are borrowing to do so.

I don't know how this financing works - maybe no fear of having it pulled like a foreclosure on a subprime mortgage holder, or a broker margin call, but it's not going to end well if these investments start to fail and the investors start running for the door.

Peter Thiel's recent exit from NVidia should be a bit concerning given his good record on macro bets and timing.

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

#200

Post by hermanzegerman »

lazide wrote: post #126
bigbuppo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Meta or Google disappared overnight, it would be, at worst, a minor annoyance for most of the world. Despite the fact that both companies are advertising behemoths, marketing departments everywhere would celebrate their end.

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

Then they would just use another Messenger or fall back on RCS/SMS.

The only reason WhatsApp is so popular, is because so many people are on it, but you have all you need (their phone number) to contact them elsewhere anyway

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