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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'

#341

Post by jaredklewis »

uniq7 wrote: post #314
jaredklewis wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's completely out of the realm of reality for many young people now and the plummeting birth rates show it. I'm skeptical of this explanation for falling birthrates just because birthrates are falling across the world and there seems to be no correlation between fertility and financial security. America has low birthrates. Scandinavia (usually considered to have generous welfare states) has low birthrates. Hung…

In which of those countries is it possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children?

I mean that I know of first hand, just the US and Japan. "Possible" being a low bar that just means that I've seen it at least once.

I don't think data with all of those factors (household income, number of earners per household, gender of the earners, home ownership, and number of children) exists for any country. Do you have data like that for 1960s America or is your argument based on extrapolations from watching Leave it to Beaver?

But if we abstract your hypothesis slightly to: fertility is lower now than in 1960 because people are less financially secure now than they were in 1960, I don't think the data we have supports this.

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

#342

Post by rockemsockem »

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…

I'd say the most mundane thing I use chat GPT for is to tell me which deeply nested menu some option is in for software I don't use very often.

I feel like most people would get value out of that.

Most recent example from a few days ago 'How do I change settings around spacing for "heading 2" in a document?'

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

#343

Post by SchemaLoad »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #17
aurareturn wrote: post #4

Is it really a bubble about to burst when literally everyone is talking about AI being in a bubble and maybe bursting soon? To me, we're clearly not peak AI exuberance. AI agents are just getting started and getting so freaking good. Just the other day, I used Vercel's v0 to build a small business website for a relative in 10 minutes. It looked fantastic and very mobile friendly. I fed the website to ChatGPT5.1 and a…

I think you are missing the fundamental point here. The question is not really if AI has some value. That much is obvious and the exemple you give, increasing developer productivity, is a good one. The question is: is the value generated by AI aligned with the market projected value as currently priced in AI companies valuation? That's what's more difficult to assess. The gap between fundamental financial data and va…

There's also a lot of debate over how long a GPU lasts. If a GPU loses most of it's value after 2 years because a newer model is much better/cheaper, that destroys the economics of the companies who have spent billions on now obsolete hardware.

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

#344

Post by stocksinsmocks »

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…

Or maybe the type of labor desired will be more comple, interesting, and valuable as it was when we gave up hunting and gathering for farms and as we mechanized farming and left for factories and factories and offices.

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

#345

Post by rockemsockem »

There's a weird gleefulness about AI being a bubble that'll pop any day now both in this thread and in the world at large. It's kinda weird and I find most of the predictions about the result of such a bubble popping to sound highly exaggerated.

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

#346

Post by p1necone »

crossbody wrote: post #339
p1necone wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

You're still presupposing that there's a linear (or at least linear enough to be significant amongst the myriad other factors involved) relationship between square footage of house and cost. And that that relationship extends arbitrarily downwards as you reduce the square footage.

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

#348

Post by janalsncm »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #291
janalsncm wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI correctly identifies the problem (people can’t afford housing/clothing/food without money) but is an inefficient solution imo. If we want people to have those things, we should simply give them to them.

How much of them, which ones, to who, at what price, who is forced to provide them, how much do they get, what about other needs... Or we could just give people money and let them do as they wish with it, and trade off between their needs and wants as they see fit (including the decision of whether they want to work to obtain more of their wants).

How much money should everyone get?

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

#349

Post by stingraycharles »

rockemsockem wrote: post #345

There's a weird gleefulness about AI being a bubble that'll pop any day now both in this thread and in the world at large. It's kinda weird and I find most of the predictions about the result of such a bubble popping to sound highly exaggerated.

I think it’s because a lot of people feel like AI is being pushed from the top a lot with all kinds of spectacular claims / expectations, while it’s actually still difficult to apply to a lot of problems.

The AI bubble bursting would be somewhat of an “I told you so!” moment for a lot of people.

And there’s also a large group that’s genuinely afraid to lose their job because of it, so for that group it’s very much understandable.

Whether or not the predictions of the bubble popping are exaggerated or not, I cannot tell; it feels like most companies investing in AI know that the expectations are huge and potentially unrealistic (AGI/ASI in the next few years), but they have money to burn and the cost of missing out on this opportunity would be tremendous. I know that this is the position that both Meta and Google shared with their investors.

So it all seems to be a very well calculated risk.

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