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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'

#421

Post by Ekaros »

thewebguyd wrote: post #151
n8cpdx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're big enough that we'd be screwed without you then take whatever risks you like with impunity". I know financially it will be bad because number not go up and number need go up. But do we actually depend on generative/agentic AI at all in meaningful ways? I’m pretty sure all LLMs could be Thanos snapped away and there would be near zero material impact. If the studies are at all reliable all the programmers…

> I’m pretty sure all LLMs could be Thanos snapped away and there would be near zero material impact. I mostly agree, but I don't think it's the model developers that would get bailed out. OpenAI & Anthropic can fail, and should be let to fail if it comes to that. Nvidia is the one that would get bailed out. As would Microsoft, if it came to that. I also think they should be let to fail, but there's no way the US GOV…

Why would Nvidia need bail out? They have 10 billion debt and 60 billion of cash... Or is it finally throwing any trust in the market and just propping up valuations? Which will lead to inevitable doom.

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

#422

Post by watwut »

kamaal wrote: post #416
amy_petrik wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a simple catch-22 - women don't want to leave the workforce because one salary cannot support a family - yet women remaining in the workforce, since single-salary is infeasible, thusly doubling supply of workers, lowering salaries, which itself makes it infeasible to single-income a family Not to pick on women, as a feminist if you ask me, all modern men should have to be houseboys to serve their feminine master…

Well that's the point, men are refusing to suffer. There is little incentive to walking in a contract, where you are working all the time, no appreciation, love, gratitude or even a thank you. All the time being made to feel like you are not measuring up. And they'd rather be with somebody else apart from you. That done, you also come back from work and do all the chores you would if you remained single. And if a few…

Except that it is men who complain constantly about wanting to marry and have kids while women are much more content being single and have friends.

You dont have to pay alimony of the wife worked thw whole time. That complain is funny in the comtext of men demanding to return back to time where alimony arrangement was necessary protection.

Even in marriage, it is more of women who initiate divorce are report higher hapiness after the divorce. Men report lower hapiness and are more likely yo want to marry again.

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

#423

Post by globalnode »

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #336
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…

i like this reason, and the 'dont do nothing' sibling comment. both make sense to me.

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

#424

Post by hgomersall »

devsda wrote: post #396
raincole wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know which product you're even talking about. If you mean AI Overview, you really need to cite the source of this claim: > seeing that it drives consumers away from your product Because every single source I can find claims that Google search grew in 2024[0]. HN is not a good focus group for a product that targets billions of people. [0]: For example https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-growth-39040.htm…

One can also interpret the growth as a failure from product p.o.v though it drives views. With AI summaries being hit or miss, we may say users now need to do 20% more searches to find what they are looking for. Numbers aren't always a good proxy for customer satisfaction.

This was literally their policy. Make the searches worse so people search more.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/

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

#425

Post by mittensc »

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…

> 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 wasn't true in the rest of the world.

The US had a unique position due to ww2 that was bound to errode.

I find it funny to compare horror stories from my parents/grandparents to this...

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

#426

Post by kergonath »

rockemsockem wrote: post #338
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.

> Clearly lots of people derive enormous value from AI.

I don’t really see this. Lots of people like freebies, but the value aspect is less clear. AFAIK, none of these chatbots are profitable. You would not see nearly as many users if they had to actually pay for the thing.

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

#427

Post by f1shy »

jaredklewis wrote: post #341
uniq7 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have seen it all across the EU. Is pretty doable (granted, you have a University title). But you can absolutely buy a home and have a couple of children which will have absolute all they need.

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

#428

Post by duskdozer »

rockemsockem wrote: post #360
eCa wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m probably an outlier: I use chatgpt/gemini for specific purposes, but ai summaries on eg google search or youtube gives me negative value (I never read them and they take up space).

I agree about the summaries! I think AI is applied in a lot of bad ways ATM although TBH I've heard some people like the summaries

I can't say I find them 100% useless - though I'd rather they not pop up by default - and I understand why people like them so much. They let people type in a question and get a confident and definitive answer all in natural language, which is what it seems like the average person has tried to do all along with search engines. The issue is that they think whatever it spits out is 100% true and factual, which is scary.

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

#429

Post by f1shy »

jitix wrote: post #164
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.

Thanks for pointing out this skewed view of economic history common in North America. The short period of boom in 50s/60s US and Canada was driven by WW2 devastation everywhere else. We can see the economic crisis' in the US first in the 70s/80s with Europe and Japan rebounding, then again in 90s/00s with China and East Asia growing, and now again with the rest of the world growing (esp Latin America, India, Indonesi…

> It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs.

Are you aware of the plan Marshall?

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

#430

Post by brainwad »

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.

Eastman Kodak tried your implied proposed strategy, of ignoring technological developments that undermine their core product. It didn't go so well. Naturally technology companies have learned from this and other past mistakes.
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