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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'

#251

Post by jitix »

palmotea wrote: post #244
jitix wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common maxim across all cultures is to "manage expectations" for happiness. And while comparing societal standards expand the time horizon to 100 years, not nitpick one specific unnatural era of history. An automotive engineer in Detroit in 1960 was a globally competitive worker because most of his counterparts in other countries were either dead, disabled or their companies bankrupt. The equivalent in today's worl…

> An automotive engineer in Detroit in 1960 was a globally competitive worker because most of his counterparts in other countries were either dead, disabled or their companies bankrupt. > The equivalent in today's world would be aerospace engineers, AI researchers, quantum engineers, robotics engineers, etc who arguably have the same standard of living as the automotive engineer in 1960s Detroit. You know were not re…

I hope you understand the concept of relative prosperity - The current equivalent would be a factory worker at Boeing. In 60s cars were innovative in US, now Nigeria can outcompete China in cars.

Times change, standards rise, competition increases. If America wants to remain competitive globally you need to work in the top 1% fields like you did back in 60s, not expecting $25 per hour for flipping burgers (which should have been automated with robots by now).

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

#252

Post by nomel »

aurareturn wrote: post #31
nabla9 wrote: 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.

Or, instead of spending billions training models that are nearly all the same, they instead take advantage of all the datacenter full of GPUs, and AI companies frantically trying to make a profit, many most likely crashing and burning in the process, to pay relative pennies to use the top, nearly commoditized, model of the month?

Then, maybe someday, starting late and taking advantage of the latest research/training methods that shave off years of training time, save billions on a foundation model of their own?

I don't think it makes sense for Apple to be an AI company. It makes sense for them to use AI, but I don't see why everyone needs to have their own model, right now, during all the churn. It's nearly already commodity. In house doesn't make sense to me.

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

#253

Post by palmotea »

bigbuppo wrote: post #104
pksebben wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they already have that confirmation. When we bailed the banks out in 08 we basically said "If you're big enough that we'd be screwed without you then take whatever risks you like with impunity". That's a reduction of complexity, of course, but the core of the lesson is there. We have actually kept on with all the practices that led to the housing crash (MBS, predatory lending, Mixing investment and traditiona…

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.

> If Meta or Google disappared overnight, it would be, at worst, a minor annoyance for most of the world.

I'll grant you Meta, but losing Google in that way would be highly disruptive because so many people have their primary email account on it.

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

#254

Post by [deleted] »

thewebguyd wrote: post #136
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? The same people who are buying products and services right now. Just 10% of the US population is responsible for nearly 50% of consumption. We are just going to bifurcate even more into the haves and have-nots. Maybe that 10% now becomes responsible for 70+% of consumption and everyone else is fighting for scraps. It won't be s…

[deleted]

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

#255

Post by bigstrat2003 »

aurareturn wrote: post #31
nabla9 wrote: 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 -…

OpenAI has yet to make a single, solitary thing that works well. It's nothing but Sam Altman hyping things. They aren't an existential threat to anyone.

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

#256

Post by tharne »

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…

> The problem becomes that eventually all these people who are laid off are not going to find new roles.

> Who is going to be buying the products and services if no-one has money to throw around?

I've wondered about this myself. People keep talking about the trades as a good path in the post-AI world, but I just don't see it. If huge swaths of office workers are suddenly and permanently unemployed, who's going to be hiring all these tradesmen?

If I were unemployed long-term, the one upside is that I would suddenly have the time to a do a lot of the home repairs that I've been hiring contractors to take care of.

The other thing I worry about is the level of violence we're likely to see if a significant chunk of the population is made permanently unemployed. People bring up Universal Basic Income as a potential, but I think that only address a part of the issue. Despite the bluster and complaints you might hear at the office, most want to have the opportunity to earn a living; they want to feel like they're useful to their fellow man and woman. I worry about a world in which large numbers of young people are looking at a future with no job prospects and no real place for them other than to be made comfortable by government money and consumer goods. To me that seems like the perfect recruiting ground for all manner of extremist organizations.

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

#257

Post by tharne »

Demiurge wrote: post #147
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…

> 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.

> Well, this probably why statistics exist.

How are statistics going to answer this question? Statistics are used to measure things. They don't tell you what things you should be measuring.

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

#258

Post by palmotea »

thewebguyd wrote: post #151
n8cpdx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're big enough that we'd be screwed without you then take whatever risks you like with impunity". I know financially it will be bad because number not go up and number need go up. But do we actually depend on generative/agentic AI at all in meaningful ways? I’m pretty sure all LLMs could be Thanos snapped away and there would be near zero material impact. If the studies are at all reliable all the programmers…

> I’m pretty sure all LLMs could be Thanos snapped away and there would be near zero material impact. I mostly agree, but I don't think it's the model developers that would get bailed out. OpenAI & Anthropic can fail, and should be let to fail if it comes to that. Nvidia is the one that would get bailed out. As would Microsoft, if it came to that. I also think they should be let to fail, but there's no way the US GOV…

> Nvidia is the one that would get bailed out. As would Microsoft, if it came to that.

> I also think they should be let to fail, but there's no way the US GOV ever allows them to.

There's different ways to fail, though: liquidation, and a reorganization that wipes out the shareholders.

OpenAI could be liquidated and all its technology thrown in to the trash, and I wouldn't shed a tear, but Microsoft makes (some) stuff (cough, Windows) that has too much stuff dependent on it to go away. The shareholders can eat it (though I think broad-based index funds should get priority over all other shareholders in a bankruptcy).

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

#259

Post by janalsncm »

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…

Intuitively, the whole economy cannot be B2B SAAS companies funded by VCs. At some point you need to provide value to consumers or the government. If those consumers don’t have any money and/or aren’t willing to spend a paycheck making studio ghibli profile pics, you have a problem. I guess Sam Altman has been asking for a government bailout so maybe he is going for the b2g option in a backwards sort of way.

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

#260

Post by tharne »

ethanwillis wrote: post #223
astura wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the census bureau median family income in 1960 was $5,600, which is $58,946.59 in Jan 2024 dollars. It's $83,730 in 2024. For individual males, in 1960 it was $4,100 ($43,157.33 Jan 2024 dollars) and $71,090 in 2024. Sources: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1962/demo/p60-03... https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-28... https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl The thing is,…

now tell us how they calculate those inflation adjusted dollars-- what basket of goods? prices in which markets?

They've cited and linked their sources. What's the issue?
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