I have the impression that a new winter is coming. The amount of threads about a bubble is surpassing the discussions about AI
The AI bubble argument misunderstands both bubbles and AI
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Re: The AI bubble argument misunderstands both bubbles and AI
#42Better to talk about the Gartner Hype cycle and it's stages compare it to technologies that clearly followed that cycle such as; - Virtual Reality: big hype in the early 90s (arcades, movies like Lawnmower Man) through to use cases today like surgical training, aviation training - Mobile video calls: hyped in early 2000's with 3G and pre-iPhone devices. Actually took off with 4G and 5G plus iOS and Android phones - 3…
> Looking back at 2025 we'll be saying "Remember when they said everyone would lose their jobs to AI..." Even if... one would think that a capitalist economy would do great with more and capable workers. One would think that more stuff would get done. Right? I think there is a good chance that it will, in fact, shift millions towards unemployment. I am pro technology, yet technology in the hands of profit seekers wil…
>For-profit production is not compatible with mass employment.
I think reality differs. Most countries have for profit production and most have mass employment. Maybe 95% employed and 5% unemployed but it generally muddles along. The masses always seem to vote for it unless they have communism imposed at gunpoint with walls to prevent them escaping.
Re: The AI bubble argument misunderstands both bubbles and AI
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont know if we can draw parallels to something that happened hundred years ago. Since then there has been increases automation yet the unemployment rate esp in the US hasnt budged beyond 4% barring the depression years. I think access to education and opportunities to upskill are crucial for maintaining a sustainable economy. Its helps people just move on esp if they are of working age. With the industrial revolut…
I think there are a bunch of assumptions in your take. There are billions of us. We cannot all be capitalists and start our own businesses. Literally 100 years ago American socialists like Olive Johnson were already pointing out how the profit motive from large players has ruined mom and pop shops and made medium businesses almost completely beholden to production and finance monopolies. What do you think will happen…
No I agree with the Detroit example but not all of us have to be capitalists either just a few more. But we would beed more regulations to break down some of these monopolies so we can have more competition and job creation. Either way, its also about being able to add value to the chain. The artisans who make high end clothes still do fine, the thing is the weaver became obsolete with the advent of the spinning machine. The question is in a world where AI can do anything, is human productivity in any form still necessary ? I 'd imagine it is, since humans like talking to humans, somebody still has to go sell or babysit the AI or supervise. So I dont imagine it being as catastrophic as people claim but yeah I'd sharpend my business skills, and keep off massive debt on the off chance we all find ourselves redundant.
Re: The AI bubble argument misunderstands both bubbles and AI
#44I appreciate the author trying to address this. The only issue is the author didn't define what 'pops' in the bubble. The 'what' that pops, probably, IMHO, is the investment and resources ecosystem dumped, poured, thrown, redirected, etc. to AI. Just like the .com boom, the costs and money thrown at AI are outsized and will 'pop" as it matures. A 'pop" and leveling down to something perhaps not so outrageous is comin…
Im not convinced at the comparison to the .com boom of the internet, its intellectually lazy. The internet was always going to disrupt the way we think about the discovery and purchase of goods and services at the bare minimum. Some saw that the role of the personal computer was evolving from just computation to communication and so on.. this stuff was obvious early on. Irrespective of the equity bubble at that time,…
AI is not the same as LLMs. AI is pretty inevitable. LLMs will likely be superseded by some other algo.
Re: The AI bubble argument misunderstands both bubbles and AI
#45The article says a bubble is something that pops but in the context of AI I think most people mean a financial bubble as in "a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify". Which we probably have. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble)
Re: The AI bubble argument misunderstands both bubbles and AI
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Im not convinced at the comparison to the .com boom of the internet, its intellectually lazy. The internet was always going to disrupt the way we think about the discovery and purchase of goods and services at the bare minimum. Some saw that the role of the personal computer was evolving from just computation to communication and so on.. this stuff was obvious early on. Irrespective of the equity bubble at that time,…
AI is not the same as LLMs. AI is pretty inevitable. LLMs will likely be superseded by some other algo.
I never mentioned AI once in my post.
Comments such as "Ai is inevitable" okay... post something tangible dude. All this stuff is just total noise.
Re: The AI bubble argument misunderstands both bubbles and AI
#47It certainly is a bubble. EDIT: The fact that I'm downvoted for saying that tells you that not only we're in a massive bubble, but the author knows that he's personally invested in the bubble getting bigger. So of course he'll say "it isn't a bubble".
The author does have a point that you need to specify what you think the bubble is. Obviously AI is real technology with interesting applications. The tech itself is not the bubble. The bubble is (as always) the inflated expectations.
From the article:
> But if they think the bubble is the idea that AI will cause foundational change in business, the economy, and human work, then—in my opinion—they're just wrong
That's just the author's opinion, not a fact. People claiming it's a bubble disagree with this part. And they might be right. As far as I understand, no massive productivity gains have been detected yet. Some expected gains weren't there. Some kinds of work might benefit some, but so far, nothing that justifies the enormous investments.
It's not the AI itself that's the bubble, but the "use more AI" attitude. The idea that the AI is a genius and better than people. Every company doing something with AI because they need to be seen doing something with AI. That's the bubble.
After it pops, there will still be AI, and some companies will be wildly successful with it, just like many .coms survived the .com crash. But investors will finally see that it's not going to meet the inflated investor expectations.
Re: The AI bubble argument misunderstands both bubbles and AI
#48A bubble that will pop is the one where they say that AI will replace creative humans. This is certainly wrong, because it requires consumers to stop being fans of actual people.
Consider XKCD. Will I lose interest in Randall Munroe because an AI thing will auto-generate any number of XKCD-style comics? Of course not.
The proliferation of AI has been compared to the proliferation of polyester.
Re: The AI bubble argument misunderstands both bubbles and AI
#49I appreciate the author trying to address this. The only issue is the author didn't define what 'pops' in the bubble. The 'what' that pops, probably, IMHO, is the investment and resources ecosystem dumped, poured, thrown, redirected, etc. to AI. Just like the .com boom, the costs and money thrown at AI are outsized and will 'pop" as it matures. A 'pop" and leveling down to something perhaps not so outrageous is comin…
Hi, I tried to address that in the video version. I think what pops is the false belief. .com -> going online will save you AI -> adding a chatbot will save you To me, those are what qualify as bubbles. And the other stuff is just overheating, disruption, and other effects.
Okay - that is too extreme of a "bubble" definition for me. False dilemma.
So, then, I guess, nothing is a bubble for you. For me, a more reasonable definition is a large build-up of capital that, at some point, snaps or pops, then sits at a level much lower than the original.
If you take something like that approach of the "bubble" then you can have a more charitable discussion. The AI bubble discussion then is about if the current levels of investment and capital being dumped into AI will stay at the same levels or have a more dramatic dip to be more of the future run-rate, then you can see how people see the parallels of other "bubbles" and actually have more of a discussion I think.
My sense is most view this concept of the "bubble" as the assumption.
Re: The AI bubble argument misunderstands both bubbles and AI
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi, I tried to address that in the video version. I think what pops is the false belief. .com -> going online will save you AI -> adding a chatbot will save you To me, those are what qualify as bubbles. And the other stuff is just overheating, disruption, and other effects.
I think what pops is the Ponzi-like financial structure underlying the huge investments. The projected profits simply don't come fast enough to justify incremental investment, and the pyramid runs out of incoming money. Yes, AI is huge. But the Internet was also huge. And it still couldn't sustain the levels of investment that were being made in 1999 and 2000, even in the big players.
Totally, I think this is more of what the general population are speaking around in discussions of "bubbles"