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Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

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Re: Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

#51

Post by shevy-java »

Hmm. The comparison makes sense in some ways, but the thing is - as much as I dislike AI, I think AI will stay, whereas the internet bubble seemed to subside without that much left from it, more or less. While I hate most of AI, it does have some use cases - the current hype will eventually subside or collapse, but I think the core use cases will most likely remain.

"All but Alphabet have seen big share declines in the past month. Microsoft is down 12 percent, Amazon is down 14 percent, Meta is down 22 percent, Oracle is down 24 percent"

That fluctuates anyway and profits are made by some - nothing new here.

I think the world needs to detach from the stock markets though. That may not seem realistic right now, but if you look at the current US president and the ties to superrich, we really have a huge problem now. A few parasitize on the masses. That can not be sustained. It is not ethical.

"It will spark a generation of innovations that we can’t yet even imagine."

I am not so sure. So far I successfully avoided AI, including becoming dependent on AI - I am not. So that is good.

I can not really see what "innovation" would make me want to embrace AI. Perhaps I can be forced into it, but right now I am happy avoiding it.

"Because we humans are pretty good at predicting the impact of technology revolutions beyond seven to ten years."

No, we really are not.

"Not only does the AI bubble in 2025 feel like the internet bubble in 1999"

It is still not the same.

I feel the article is falling apart there. It tries too much to compare to the 1999, but it is not the same.

Re: Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

#52

Post by mancerayder »

forgetfulness wrote: post #6
mmooss wrote: post #2

To say whether it's a bubble, we need to know the value of the technology. The value of modern AI seems very high. That nobody knows how high, that they still haven't figured out applications, and that the technology and its tools are still far from refined, is normal for any new technology. If you add the value of the potential political power gained by controlling AI, then the value to the owners and investors is a…

The implied promise was that these things were going to “revolutionize the workplace” i.e. massively automate middle class office jobs A couple of years down the road, their useful applications still are summarizing text, transferring style to text, generating code under strict supervision, and generating images that need retouching. That’s a lot to get out of a tool, but it’s dubious that investors were pouring tril…

You forgot - cheating on job interviews, writing resumes to be repetitive, and adding an annoying flowery tone to non-native English speakers who think AI wrote something for them that isn't AI-obvious.

Re: Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

#53

Post by shigawire »

I think I'm asking for the impossible here... But is anyone trying to hedge risk in their personal finances?

I'm not a real "investor" (index funds only) but I am feeling more willing to forgo gains to be more risk averse just based on my own neuroses.

Maybe I cash out and buy T-bills? Gold? Bullets? What's the non-crazy person equivalent?

Re: Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

#54

Post by baxtr »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #39
baxtr wrote: post #35

No, it doesn’t. Go and actually read the crazy story about startups like Global Crossing. Crazy amount of funding, little to no revenue, no competitive moat, no demand. Compare that to today, and you see only the crazy amount of funding part is the same.

How are the revenues these days? Let’s not count Nvidia since they’re the ones selling the shovels. How are the moats?

Revenues are up massively, across the board for the big companies but interestingly enough also for startups like ChatGPT, Loveable, Cursor etc. Which is again totally different than last time where mostly startups were driving the insane valuations.

For the shovels part: Actually Global Crossing tried to sell shovels. But failed since there was no demand and no moat. Now compare that to NVIDIA.

Re: Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

#55

Post by AstroBen »

stevage wrote: post #42

Fundamentally they seem different. The web looked like it had the potential to make lots of money but no one knew exactly how. AI literally does people's jobs for them. There's not much imagination required.

Which jobs is it doing, exactly?

From what I can tell at this point it's a solution looking for a problem. Incredibly impressive, not so useful

Re: Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

#56

Post by exegete »

more_corn wrote: post #14

Ok, so if that prediction is true what actions did you take? Identify the therefore part of the prediction and enumerate the three highest priority steps. Have you determined that the stock market will crash and bought positions accordingly? Have you sold all your nvidia stock? What are the implications in the broader economy and what steps have you taken?

I’ve got 15-20 years to retirement so I just watch the market but don’t do anything other than keep buying index funds and rebalancing periodically.

Re: Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

#57

Post by kergonath »

mmooss wrote: post #2

To say whether it's a bubble, we need to know the value of the technology. The value of modern AI seems very high. That nobody knows how high, that they still haven't figured out applications, and that the technology and its tools are still far from refined, is normal for any new technology. If you add the value of the potential political power gained by controlling AI, then the value to the owners and investors is a…

> To say whether it's a bubble, we need to know the value of the technology.

Not really. I mean, not only. The value of the web is immense. And yet, the dot-com bubble was indeed a bubble. What matters is the value in the short term compared to the value of the companies in the current context. Even if AI is huge 20 years from now, it can still crash dramatically tomorrow.

Re: Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

#58

Post by counters »

lagosfractal42 wrote: post #17
forgetfulness wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implied promise was that these things were going to “revolutionize the workplace” i.e. massively automate middle class office jobs A couple of years down the road, their useful applications still are summarizing text, transferring style to text, generating code under strict supervision, and generating images that need retouching. That’s a lot to get out of a tool, but it’s dubious that investors were pouring tril…

GPUs have massive applications such as Alphafold, CRISPR, Medical Imaging, Meteorology. The massive planetary investment is not to make more AI chats that summarize text. That's just short sighted.

> Meteorology

It seems like that at first glance. But in reality, GPUs have had extremely slow adoption for real-world operational meteorology applications. Because of the fundamental design and architecture of most NWP systems, it was very difficult to leverage GPUs as compute accelerators; most efforts barely eked out any performance gains once you account for host/device memory transfers. It really wasn't until some groups started to design new weather modeling systems from the ground up that they could architect things in such a way that GPUs made a significant difference.

Obviously AI / ML weather modeling is a different story.

Re: Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

#59

Post by [deleted] »

shevy-java wrote: post #51

Hmm. The comparison makes sense in some ways, but the thing is - as much as I dislike AI, I think AI will stay, whereas the internet bubble seemed to subside without that much left from it, more or less. While I hate most of AI, it does have some use cases - the current hype will eventually subside or collapse, but I think the core use cases will most likely remain. "All but Alphabet have seen big share declines in t…

[deleted]

Re: Boom, bubble, bust, boom. Why should AI be different?

#60

Post by tempestn »

shigawire wrote: post #53

I think I'm asking for the impossible here... But is anyone trying to hedge risk in their personal finances? I'm not a real "investor" (index funds only) but I am feeling more willing to forgo gains to be more risk averse just based on my own neuroses. Maybe I cash out and buy T-bills? Gold? Bullets? What's the non-crazy person equivalent?

I've always used value-tilted indexes, and am hoping that they will suffer less when the bubble pops. With that and a healthy dose of fixed income (which I chose years ago based on an assumption that the equity portion of the portfolio could drop 50% in a downturn at any time) I'm trying to stick to the plan and not try to time the market. Even though it very much feels like the bubble is near its peak (if not just past it!) I do still believe on some level that market timing is a fool's game, so I'm trying to stay convinced that the steps I've already taken are all one can rationally do.
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