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CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

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Re: CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

#31

Post by layer8 »

JohnMakin wrote: post #26
Der_Einzige wrote: post #11

The “AI is in a bubble crowd” still has no answer to “why didn’t the tech bubble pop in 2022?” Snowflake bought streanlit (a bad python UI/UX) for 800 million in 2022. I still have not seen a single deal even close to that bad post 2023, and especially post interest rate hikes. https://datafortune.com/snowflake-acquires-streamlit-for-usd... Actually investing in AI is smart and will deliver unfathomable ROI. AI bears…

unfathomable. The imagination has no limits. It could be billions, trillions even! The fact we do not know only means we don't know how high the ceiling can be. It could even be gazillions!

Many people are saying this!

Re: CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

#32

Post by ceejayoz »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #11

The “AI is in a bubble crowd” still has no answer to “why didn’t the tech bubble pop in 2022?” Snowflake bought streanlit (a bad python UI/UX) for 800 million in 2022. I still have not seen a single deal even close to that bad post 2023, and especially post interest rate hikes. https://datafortune.com/snowflake-acquires-streamlit-for-usd... Actually investing in AI is smart and will deliver unfathomable ROI. AI bears…

> The “AI is in a bubble crowd” still has no answer to “why didn’t the tech bubble pop in 2022?”

I mean, the Fed funds rate was at 0.25%. Free money helps, for a while.

Re: CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

#33

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #11

The “AI is in a bubble crowd” still has no answer to “why didn’t the tech bubble pop in 2022?” Snowflake bought streanlit (a bad python UI/UX) for 800 million in 2022. I still have not seen a single deal even close to that bad post 2023, and especially post interest rate hikes. https://datafortune.com/snowflake-acquires-streamlit-for-usd... Actually investing in AI is smart and will deliver unfathomable ROI. AI bears…

The answer seems very straightforward? The bubble did pop, as you can clearly see in a number of stocks like Comcast. But OpenAI also released a genuinely impressive innovation in ChatGPT, which reinflated it for AI and AI-adjacent companies. Whenever the next recession comes, investors will start to ask more serious questions about whether another ChatGPT-level innovation is on the way, and even from my relatively AI-sympathetic stance the answer seems to be no.

Re: CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

#36

Post by palmotea »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #19
ryandrake wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The promise of being able to run a business without having to employ people is just too alluring to these guys. They feel like they're nearly on the cusp of it: Like any day now, the technology will be there, and it can just be AI + robots, and the C-suite and shareholders can just pocket all the returns. No more pesky bags of meat to feed and clothe. You can feel it--they are absolutely salivating over the idea. "If…

Then they can stand alone on a pile of ashes at The End of the World and then see how much happiness their "money" bought them.

> Then they can stand alone on a pile of ashes at The End of the World and then see how much happiness their "money" bought them.

Like the book "Don't Create the Torment Nexus," the wisdom of this cartoon is an inspiration to business leaders everywhere who know that shareholder value is paramount:

https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed...

Re: CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

#37

Post by spwa4 »

ryandrake wrote: post #17
bArray wrote: post #13

> After a year in which trillions of dollars worth of AI investments buoyed global markets and the economy, 68% of CEOs plan to spend even more on AI in 2026 They are too far in to turn back. They got into AI via fear of missing out (FOMO) and now they are too heavily invested to write it off on their balance sheet. To revert now would cause nothing but trouble. > Less than half of current AI projects had generated m…

The promise of being able to run a business without having to employ people is just too alluring to these guys. They feel like they're nearly on the cusp of it: Like any day now, the technology will be there, and it can just be AI + robots, and the C-suite and shareholders can just pocket all the returns. No more pesky bags of meat to feed and clothe. You can feel it--they are absolutely salivating over the idea. "If…

The whole history of AI from at least the 1930s happened in waves, and each wave could be accurately summarized by what you just said. Oh, and add Bitcoin with the same logic.

But it never happened. None of the AI waves, not perceptrons, not "deep neural networks", not RNNs, not support vector machines, not ... made zero-human companies possible, or even less-human companies, in contrast to buying from China I might add, and other nations before China.

Re: CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

#38

Post by giancarlostoro »

benterix wrote: post #27
ruralfam wrote: post #8

M$FT increased 365 student monthly charges from $7 to nearly $20 per month automatically to cover CoPilot for 2026. Evidently did not inform the college about this. Just sent yearly charges for nearly $200 to gob-smacked parents. We canceled the next day. WTF M$FT. They say you will get refunded in you cancel within 30 days of the yearly charge. We did so, but I am wondering if M$FT simply and reliably does the refun…

My kid needed Windows and Office for school. I went through the pain of installing the system for her while avoiding creating a Microsoft account. As for Office, I bought a perpetual license. I believe these are the last months while these two options are still available.

> while avoiding creating a Microsoft account

They're going to eventually make it so the entire OS squawks if you aren't on a Microsoft account.

Re: CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

#39

Post by ahartmetz »

matusp wrote: post #25
bArray wrote: post #13

> After a year in which trillions of dollars worth of AI investments buoyed global markets and the economy, 68% of CEOs plan to spend even more on AI in 2026 They are too far in to turn back. They got into AI via fear of missing out (FOMO) and now they are too heavily invested to write it off on their balance sheet. To revert now would cause nothing but trouble. > Less than half of current AI projects had generated m…

> Less than half of current AI projects had generated more in returns than they had cost, respondents said. Compares to non-AI software, is this a bad number?

Zero is technically a number smaller than 0.5

Re: CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

#40

Post by tarsinge »

chasd00 wrote: post #18
bob1029 wrote: post #15

I believe we will see breakthrough success in the B2B/SaaS market sometime in 2026. I am getting an uneasy feeling regarding the notion of a bubble. By most accounts it should have popped by now. I am still using the LLM tech on a daily basis. It definitely adds value. Concerns like whether or not a human needs to be in the loop seem practically irrelevant at this point. Applying this value through productized channe…

Don't forget, the bubble talk is more around "AGI is right around the corner, don't get left out!" and not so much the application of an LLM to business process flows. There's definitely value in some use cases to using an LLM but I don't see the massive bets on AGI paying off in timelines Wall St. is comfortable with. Further, my feeling is the AGI promise and investment is what is keeping some of the model provider…

Yes the problem is not whether LLM have value, but whether they will add enough value in the next two three years to pay for the hundred of billions of trillions needed to match the expectations. OpenAI has to find more than a trillion by the end of the decade, project Stargate still has 500 billions to find, etc. Also add fast depreciation on everything invested. The ZIRP playbook of building a monopoly for years before turning a profit cannot work here, models are commoditizing fast so no moat there either, and capabilities as a function of compute have plateaued.
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