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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'

#331

Post by ocdtrekkie »

rr808 wrote: post #328
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. That's completely out of the realm of reality for many young people now and the plummeting birth rates show it. Most of the people I see working in tech can easily afford this. Maybe not private schools or McMansions but the basics are pretty easy. Sure if you're a humanities major w…

This is far from true. Aside from Valley pay, which also has Valley housing costs, a "tech job" will barely pay for healthcare and housing for one, much less healthcare and housing for four.

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

#332

Post by voidfunc »

willis936 wrote: post #326

Forget the talk about bubbles and corrections. Can someone explain to me the rationale of investing in a product, marketing it, seeing that it drives consumers away from your product and erodes trust, and then you continue to invest at an accelerating rate? Good business would have driven us very far away from this point years ago. This is very deep in the "because we can" territory. It's not FOMO.

Because the investor class is drunk on their own wine.

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

#333

Post by rightbyte »

nradov wrote: post #219
jimbokun wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Education is part of it. But a lot of the social capital which makes societies prosperous is separate from what we usually consider to be education. On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes ta…

> On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted

I don't see your point.

Those rules does not apply to the upper class and middle class workers have way more leeway regarding that than the lower class.

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

#334

Post by crossbody »

apsurd wrote: post #183
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.

I originally upvoted the parent comment. But I changed it. "The good ol' days" ... yeah, but good for who?

The good old days... that never were!

Life has improved for nearly everyone on nearly every metric. But if one myopically focuses on house purchasing as the only thing that matters and takes anomalous post WW2 period, then sure, things are bad (ignoring the fact that housing space and quality + amenities improved dramatically, but hey, who cares about nuance, we just love to complain!)

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

#335

Post by Ancapistani »

willis936 wrote: post #326

Forget the talk about bubbles and corrections. Can someone explain to me the rationale of investing in a product, marketing it, seeing that it drives consumers away from your product and erodes trust, and then you continue to invest at an accelerating rate? Good business would have driven us very far away from this point years ago. This is very deep in the "because we can" territory. It's not FOMO.

> Can someone explain to me the rationale of investing in a product, marketing it, seeing that it drives consumers away from your product and erodes trust, and then you continue to invest at an accelerating rate?

Sure!

Google began investing heavily in AI (LLMs, actually) to catch up to the other frontier labs, which had already produced a product that was going to eviscerate Google Search (and therefore, Google ad revenue). They recognized this, and set about becoming a leader in the emerging field.

Is it not better to be a leader in the nascent industry that is poised to kill your profitability?

This is the same approach that Google took with smartphones. They saw Apple as a threat not because they had a product that was directly competing, but because they recognized that allowing Apple to monopolize mobile computing would put them in a position to take Google’s ad revenue — or allow them to extract rent in the form of payments to ensure Apple didn’t direct their users to a competing service. Android was not initially intended to be a revenue source, at least not most importantly. It was intended to limit the problem that Apple represented. Later, once Google had a large part of the market, they found ways to monetize the platform via both their ad network and an app store.

AI is no different. If Google does nothing, they lose. If they catch up and take the lead, they limit the size of the future threat and if all goes well, will be able to monetize their newfound market share down the road - but monetization is a problem for future Google. Today’s Google’s problem is getting the market share.

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

#336

Post by Octoth0rpe »

willis936 wrote: post #326

Forget the talk about bubbles and corrections. Can someone explain to me the rationale of investing in a product, marketing it, seeing that it drives consumers away from your product and erodes trust, and then you continue to invest at an accelerating rate? Good business would have driven us very far away from this point years ago. This is very deep in the "because we can" territory. It's not FOMO.

> Can someone explain to me the rationale of investing in a product, marketing it, seeing that it drives consumers away from your product and erodes trust, and then you continue to invest at an accelerating rate?

I'll take a stab at this. It's not 100% clear to me which product you're referring to, so I'll try to answer as if the product is something that already has customers, and the maker of the product is shoving AI into it. The rationale is that the group you're trying to convince that you're doing a good job is your shareholders or investors, not your actual customers. You can justify some limited customer attrition by noting that your competitors are doing the same thing, and that maybe if you shove the _right_ AI features into the product, you'll win those customers back.

I'm not saying it's a _good_ rationale, but that seems to be what's at play in many cases.

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

#337

Post by SchemaLoad »

cedws wrote: post #137
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…

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…

We will be able to build even bigger super yachts for billionaires now though. Bezos can have his own personal cruise ship.

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

#338

Post by rockemsockem »

willis936 wrote: post #326

Forget the talk about bubbles and corrections. Can someone explain to me the rationale of investing in a product, marketing it, seeing that it drives consumers away from your product and erodes trust, and then you continue to invest at an accelerating rate? Good business would have driven us very far away from this point years ago. This is very deep in the "because we can" territory. It's not FOMO.

If you're talking about all of AI with your statement I think you may need to reconcile that opinion with the fact that chat GPT alone has almost 1 billion daily users. Clearly lots of people derive enormous value from AI.

If there's something more specific and different you were referring to I'd love to hear what it is.

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

#339

Post by crossbody »

p1necone wrote: post #323
georgeecollins wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of this stuff about baby boomers vs now is based on how remember things. The data is more complicated. Example: The average home in 1960 was like 1600 sq ft, now its like 2800 sq ft. Sometimes we are comparing apples to oranges. I am not trying to blunt social criticism. The redistribution of wealth is a real thing that started in the tax policies of the 1980s that we just can't seem to back away from. But a lo…

> The average home in 1960 was like 1600 sq ft, now its like 2800 sq ft. Statements like this are not particularly meaningful unless there is actually a supply of 1600 sqft houses that are proportionally cheaper, otherwise you're just implying a causal relationship with no evidence.

Supply is driven by demand unless there is a monopoly in house building (there isn't). If this wasn't the case, one could quickly become a billionaire by starting first company that build small houses that are supposedly in demand but not provided by the market

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

#340

Post by crossbody »

Retric wrote: post #198
Avicebron wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Finally a rational comment and not blind hating-complaining. Thank you
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