Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

crazystupidtech.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 215 posts

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

#121

Post by logsr »

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…

>still haven't figured out applications

the real answer is that the applications for the military, surveillance, and population control are proven, and the pathways to scale those capacities are clear, so the money will pour in no matter what. the implication is that we had better come up with some more consumer/humanity friendly applications that create comparable value, or that is all we will get.

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

#122

Post by carsoon »

ghm2180 wrote: post #109

I have a noob question. How can developed economies where populations levels have plateaued continue to be expected to post positive GDPs (and therefore add net new goods and services) yoy? Homes as assets should pass on, higher cost services of today would be replaced by lower cost which only temporarily would increase units sold(but should eventually plateau because #units/person is not going to change). No compone…

People don't stop wanting things.

Total GDP can keep rising so long as technologist can improve efficiency through robotics, inventions and scientific breakthroughs.

GDP just describes peoples amount of activity. People will always build bigger buildings or monuments (see egypt pyramids, dubai skyscrapers, cambodia angkor wat). These are actaully not inelastic as megaprojects will quickly hit real limits regardless of the amount of capital. (I can always add 10 more floors to the tallest skyscraper, or 10 feet to the longest wall, or 10 facets to the most ornate church)

There has never once in history been a point where people decieded that they where going to stop innovating or producing permanently. This is equivalent with death.

So the people with the most money at some point will decide to build things which they spend all their money on which increases GDP.

Also the actual "number" of gdp if heavily controlled by USA inflation rates. So we should always look at gdp in regards to inflation adjusted dollars to get a clearer picture.

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

#123

Post by schumpeter »

avidiax wrote: post #98
m0llusk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real Estate is currently trading at the highest price to earnings ratios ever recorded.

Yeah, not sure how valuable lots of real estate is if there aren't any high-paying jobs nearby, in part due to AI. And this isn't even about the total number of high-paying jobs. Even having too much income concentration (fewer, but higher paying jobs) will mean that there's less demand at the margin. To put it another way, if the job growth in say, silicon valley, starts to reverse because of AI, there will still be…

Those people still need to rent. So as long as the rental income covers the mortgage, you’re ahead of the game and someone is paying an asset down for you.

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

#124

Post by carsoon »

arexxbifs wrote: post #119
vorpalhex wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your entire premise is simply incorrect, through and through. Discard it entirely and begin again. You have a hundred people, they have a GDP of N. Tomorrow, their productivity doubles because of a technological innovation. Your GDP is 2N. Prices matter extensively to the rich and poor. The cost of a given compute capacity has gone from "literally the entire United States can't afford it" to "my lightbulb has this mu…

> What happens tomorrow if eg ChatGPT 5.1 performance becomes doable for $500 of tech? $50? The bubble would burst and the US economy would face a recession?

No, it wouldn't as the whole reason people were giving Openai that 500 dollars is because they thought they could make more than 500 dollars from it.

So now that value is just shifted into the companies that were going to purchase from openai.

It would just hurt the investors who have exposure to openai/anthropic/google/microsoft.

Much of the value of this AI boom is not from the direct model companies but its from companies which use their technology.

Although the government could be stupid and bail out these companies which WOULD hurt all us citizens and the inflation caused by money printing due to that could cause a recession.

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

#126

Post by didibus »

ghm2180 wrote: post #109

I have a noob question. How can developed economies where populations levels have plateaued continue to be expected to post positive GDPs (and therefore add net new goods and services) yoy? Homes as assets should pass on, higher cost services of today would be replaced by lower cost which only temporarily would increase units sold(but should eventually plateau because #units/person is not going to change). No compone…

GDP does not require that the goods or services were sold for money. GDP measures the market value adjusted to constant quality of all final goods and services produced. GDP can grow even with fewer workers, fewer hours, fewer buyers, and fewer units sold.

So the way I understood it, productivity, efficiency and quality gains can increase GDP year over year.

Say we are a country of 1 person. If that person can make a car in 2025, but in 2026 manages to make both a car and a house, the GDP has more than doubled. Doesn't matter that nobody paid the money for them.

Another weird thing is, say that 1 person country makes a car in 2025, and in 2026 makes a similarly priced car, if the car is higher quality, it counts as a higher GDP, because they'll measure its value as greater than last year's model, even if it sells for the same price, because the old model would now be worth less.

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

#127

Post by tartoran »

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…

> The implied promise was that these things were going to “revolutionize the workplace” i.e. massively automate middle class office jobs

Promise by who? I think the bet is that it would lay off nearly everyone white collar and let AI take its place.

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

#128

Post by mmooss »

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…

That's the same mistake made with every new, and eventually successful, technology - we haven't found a valuable application yet, so the technology is not valuable.

Finding the valuable application is often the hardest part. That it hasn't happened yet is meaningless. Some technologies sit on the shelf for decades.

AI seems to have a lot of potential: It may be the most valuable technology ever; it may not provide more value than it does now, or something in between. Nobody actually knows. The challenge of innovation is managing that irreduceable risk. It starts by accepting risk, accepting that you don't know. One wrong way is to deny the risk - denying uncertainty - by either saying it's worthless or that success is guaranteed.

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

#130

Post by mmooss »

digdugdirk wrote: post #33
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…

Alternate viewpoint - 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, might be a sign that the technology shouldn't be valued this highly at all

> 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, might be a sign that the technology shouldn't be valued this highly at all

That might be true, but it also might be true that it's tremendously valuable. The conditions you identify exist for every new technology; obviously the outcomes vary greatly.

Post reply on HN