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How the AI Bubble Will Pop

derekthompson.org

361–370 of 531 posts

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the kind of question that takes into account that people thinking that they are more productive does not imply that they actually are. This happens in a wide range of contexts, from AI to drugs.

It's not that hard to review how much you actually got done and check whether it matches how much it felt like you were getting done.

In fact, when this was studied, it was found that using AI actually makes developers less productive:

https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-o...

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just you switching away from Google is already justifying 1T infrastructure spend. Just think about how much more effective advertisements are going to be when LLMs start to tell you what to buy based on which advertiser gave the most money to the company.

1 Trillion US dollars? 1 trillion dollars is justified because people use chatGPT instead of google sometimes?

google search engine is the single most profitable product in the history of civilization

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#363
post #123

I feel kind of like a Luddite sometimes but I don't understand why EVERYONE is rushing to use AI? I use a couple different agents to help me code, and ChatGPT has largely replaced Google in my everyday use, but I genuinely don't understand the value proposition of every other companies offerings. I really feel like we're in the same "Get it out first, figure out what it is good for later" bubble we had like 7 years a…

In my eyes, it'd be cheaper for a company to simply purchase laptops with decent hardware specs, and run the LLMs locally. I've had decent results from various models I've run via LMStudio, and bonus points: It costs nothing and doesn't even use all that much CPU/GPU power. Just my opinion as a FORMER senior software dev (disabled now).

Maybe you mean it'd be cheaper for companies to host centralized internal(ly trained) models...

That seems to me more likely, more efficient to manage and more cost effective than individual laptop-local models.

IMO, domain specific training is one of the areas I think LLMs can really shine.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#364
post #123

I feel kind of like a Luddite sometimes but I don't understand why EVERYONE is rushing to use AI? I use a couple different agents to help me code, and ChatGPT has largely replaced Google in my everyday use, but I genuinely don't understand the value proposition of every other companies offerings. I really feel like we're in the same "Get it out first, figure out what it is good for later" bubble we had like 7 years a…

Just you switching away from Google is already justifying 1T infrastructure spend. Just think about how much more effective advertisements are going to be when LLMs start to tell you what to buy based on which advertiser gave the most money to the company.

I mean I think Ads will be about as effective as they are now. People need to actually buy more and if you fill LLMs with ad generation well the results of results will just get shitty the same way googles search results had. Its not a Trillion dollar return + 20% like you'd want out of that investment

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? The maximum possible benefit of fusion (aside from the science gained in the attempt) is cheap energy. We'll get very cheap energy just by massively rolling out existing solar panels (maybe some at sea), and other renewables, HVDC and batteries/storage. Fusion is almost certain to be uneconomical in comparison if it's even feasible technically. AI, is already dramtically impacting some fields, including scien…

Cheap, _limitless_ energy from fusion could solve almost every geopolitical/environmental issue we face today. Europe is acutely aware of this at the moment and it's why China and America are investing mega bucks. We will eventually run out of finite energy sources. Even if we do capture the max capacity possible from renewables with 100% efficiency, our energy consumption rates increasing at current rates will event…

I mean, the limit to renewables is to capture all the energy from the sun, and maybe the heat of the earth.

But then you start to have some issues with global warming (the temperature at which energy input = energy radiated away)

We probably don't want to release more energy than that.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#366
post #123

I feel kind of like a Luddite sometimes but I don't understand why EVERYONE is rushing to use AI? I use a couple different agents to help me code, and ChatGPT has largely replaced Google in my everyday use, but I genuinely don't understand the value proposition of every other companies offerings. I really feel like we're in the same "Get it out first, figure out what it is good for later" bubble we had like 7 years a…

I used BofA chat bot embedded in their app recently because I was unable to find a way to request a pin for my card. I was expecting the chat bot to find the link to their website where I can request the pin, and would consider a deep link within their app to the pin request UI a great UX.

Instead, the bot asked a few questions to clarify which account is for the pin and submitted a request to mail the pin, just like the experience talking to a real customer representative.

Next time when you see a bot that is likely using LLM integration, go ahead and give it a try. Worst case you can try some jailbreaking prompts and have some fun.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#367
post #123

I feel kind of like a Luddite sometimes but I don't understand why EVERYONE is rushing to use AI? I use a couple different agents to help me code, and ChatGPT has largely replaced Google in my everyday use, but I genuinely don't understand the value proposition of every other companies offerings. I really feel like we're in the same "Get it out first, figure out what it is good for later" bubble we had like 7 years a…

> ChatGPT has largely replaced Google in my everyday use

This. Organically replacing a search engine (almost) entirely is a massive change.

Applied LLM use cases seemingly popped up in every corner within a very short timespan. Some changes are happening both organically and quickly. Companies are eager to understand and get ahead of adoption curves, of both fear and growth potential.

There's so much at play, we've passed critical mass for adoption and disruption is already happening in select areas. It's all happening so unusually fast and we're seeing the side effects of that. A lot of noise from many that want a piece of the action.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#368
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs cannot think on their own, they’re glorified autocomplete automatons writing things based on past training. If the “AI figured out something on your mind”, it is extremely likely the “thing on your mind” was present in the training corpus, and survivorship bias made you notice.

Tbh if Claude is smarter than average person, and it is, then 50% of the population is not even a glorified auto complete. Imagine that, all not very bright.

It's comments like these that motivate me to work to get to 500 on HN

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot that part: > The artificial intelligence firm reported a net loss of US$13.5 billion during the same period If you sell gold at $10 a gram you'll also make billions in revenues.

That loss includes the costs to train the future models. Like Dario/Anthropic said, every model is highly profitable on it's own, but the company keeps losing money because they always train the next model (which will be highly profitable on it's own).

But even if you remove R&D costs, they’re still billions of dollars short of profitability. That’s not a small hurdle to overcome. And OpenAI has to continue to develop new models to remain relevant.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI "spent" more on sales/marketing and equity compensation than that: "Other significant costs included $2 billion spent on sales and marketing, nearly doubling what OpenAI spent on sales and marketing in all of 2024. Though not a cash expense, OpenAI also spent nearly $2.5 billion on stock-based equity compensation in the first six months of 2025" ("spent" because the equity is not cash-based) From https://archi…

How the fuck does anyone spend 2 billion dollars on sales and marketing. I’ve seen the odd ad for openai but thag number seems completely bananas.

Astroturfing on social media, most likely. The AI hype almost certainly isn’t entirely organic.
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