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A bubble that knows it's a bubble

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Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#91

Post by AbstractH24 »

rwmj wrote: post #76
dijit wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The half-life of iron is pretty low too, the advantage of the rail system is what it allowed us to do when it was cheap enough. All the investment in AI should help bring infrastructure up to a higher level, power distribution and cooling for example are at a much higher level than would have otherwise been. Who knows what use that might have if it suddenly becomes incredibly cheap. (this is my silver lining thinking…

The lasting infrastructure of railways was the rights of way and the stations, and I think you're hinting that building them in the 1840s allowed us to do that when no one cared very much about NIMBYs or bulldozing through the countryside. What's the corresponding infrastructure of AI? The major cost - the GPUs - are effectively obsolete after 3-5 years. The physical location of the datacenters, power, cooling and fi…

I’d look to the lasting infrastructure improvement from the dotcom era. Such as laying fiber.

A big ones here may also be increased technological literacy, the rise of a new UI paradigm (chat with a non-human) and the structuring so much data in the world that while it previously existed was hard to meaningfully leverage because it was unstructured.

And, last but not least, lowering the barrier to entry to starting tech companies by eliminating and launching a new generation of SMB-like tech startups that don’t need to take VC-money and scale to survive. And as a result can can solve problems facing niche industries (not to be confused with things like Wix or Etsy that lowered the barriers business selling real world products to create an online presence)

If nothing else, mainstreaming AI will have the same impact mainstreaming spreadsheets did.

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#92

Post by pydry »

benrutter wrote: post #52

> Here’s what’s never happened before: everyone knows the script. I'm don't think this is unique, most bubbles historically as far back as the South Sea bubble have had a lot of people aware of the irrationality, but investing in an attempt to profit from it. I'd even go so far as to say, this is exactly what makes bubbles so volatile as opposed to normal "market corrections". If the dotcom boom had been all people w…

Greater fool theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#94

Post by ModernMech »

ehnto wrote: post #6
LarsDu88 wrote: post #4

I had the same thoughts as much as 2 years ago on how this will play out. Unlike with railroads and fiber optic cable however, the core infrastructural asset of GPUs tends to become rapidly obsolete after about 5 years. Commoditization of this scale of compute is definitely going to be a boon for many fields of research. Unfortunately fundamental public research is exactly what is being cut right now in the US. Long…

I think the allure of humanoid robots is that they are drop in replacements for agents in a world desgined for humans. If you want your robot to be a helper around the general populations houses for example, you would aim to make a general purpose bot capable of stairs, ladders, lying down, reaching high, stepping over things, holding awkward weights and loads while doing all of the above. Pinch, twist, push, pull, i…

The allure of humanoid robots is they don't have human rights while being able to replace humans. If it turns out that they end up being conscious, their lack of humanity will be all humans need to justify enslaving them. See: animals.

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#95

Post by computerphage »

Lionga wrote: post #59
aurareturn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t Anthropic worth hundreds of billions by now and their revenue is doubling every 6 months?

5.6 billion loss in 2024 on $918 million in revenue. When you are selling a 5 dollars for 1 dollar doubling revenue is easy. It just creates more losses, same with OpenAI

So, how would you do it?

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#96

Post by mikewarot »

The thing is, this is a financial bubble, not a capabilities bubble.

If you're worried about money, this is horrible news. If you just want to get shit done, it's great news, only if you can avoid losing personal agency long enough to survive the crash.

We're headed towards the hockey stick in terms of what people using AI can do. I'm rapidly learning that even ChatGPT5 can get confused, and lose sight of goals, but not in the hallucination variety, just the bog standard way people end up trapped in rabbit holes. I'm learning how to talk to it and get it back on track.

AI really can be productive, but it still needs guidance to be really useful.

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#97

Post by cantor_S_drug »

hahahacorn wrote: post #9

I recently gave an unprompted tirade about bubbles creating pockets of fake economic activity with no “real” economic output or value creation tied to them, and how sometimes, the circulatory systems in those bubbles feed into themselves. E.g. someone borrowing against their higher property value(s) to put a down payment on another property. Leverage is the amplifier. And I don’t see many self-circulating capital flo…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq9EOLdTf0E

Here's the mechanism in simple terms:

When US manufacturing jobs moved to China in the 2000s, American workers saw their incomes drop dramatically - like a factory worker going from $30/hour at Ford to $12/hour at Walmart. Instead of accepting lower living standards, the system created an alternative solution through housing and credit.

As home prices rose rapidly (often 10-15% annually), workers could borrow against their home's appreciation through equity loans and refinancing. A worker whose house went from $150,000 to $300,000 could borrow $50,000 to maintain their lifestyle - buying trucks, boats, and continuing to consume as if their income hadn't dropped.

This created a win-win illusion: China got manufacturing jobs, US companies got higher profits from cheap labor, Americans got cheaper goods at stores like Walmart, and workers felt wealthy despite earning less. Nobody complained because everyone seemed to benefit in the short term.

The system worked as long as home prices kept rising, allowing people to keep borrowing against appreciation. But when housing prices stopped climbing around 2005, the illusion collapsed - workers were left with lower wages, massive debt, and no way to keep borrowing.

This mechanism essentially allowed America to maintain consumption by borrowing against future wealth rather than addressing the fundamental problem of job losses. The 2008 financial crisis was the inevitable result when this unsustainable system finally broke down.

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#98

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

isoprophlex wrote: post #87
pjc50 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The half-life of metallic iron is apparently 2.6 million years, so I'm not sure what you mean there.

For some radioactive isotope probably. Uranium 235 half life is, what, > 500 million years? That would make iron significantly hotter. Normal Fe is effectively around forever.

On long enough timescales, the most stable thing in the universe is the iron isotope 56Fe. All heavier atoms will decay to 56Fe, and all lighter atoms will eventually combine to form 56Fe via quantum processes, even at zero temperature. 10^15000 years from now, there'll be iron stars comprised almost entirely of 56Fe.

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#99

Post by tarsinge »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #4

I had the same thoughts as much as 2 years ago on how this will play out. Unlike with railroads and fiber optic cable however, the core infrastructural asset of GPUs tends to become rapidly obsolete after about 5 years. Commoditization of this scale of compute is definitely going to be a boon for many fields of research. Unfortunately fundamental public research is exactly what is being cut right now in the US. Long…

What’s the intersection between the current LLM driven bubble and robotics? Apart from Tesla’s PR?

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#100

Post by rurp »

aurareturn wrote: post #79
Lionga wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5.6 billion loss in 2024 on $918 million in revenue. When you are selling a 5 dollars for 1 dollar doubling revenue is easy. It just creates more losses, same with OpenAI

What is their gross margins? Is the loss just because they have to keep competing at an ultra competitive race? On a software focused forum like HN, I’m surprised people still don’t understand the grow at all cost until you are the top 2 or 3 left model. There has been dozens of examples of tech companies losing money for years just to become highly profitable after. People are still not getting that big tech is inve…

> There has been dozens of examples of tech companies losing money for years just to become highly profitable after.

Sure, but there have been thousands of tech companies that lost money year over year and went bust. Odds are that any given AI company will end up losing a lot of money. Maybe the asymmetric potential payoff is worth the risk in certain cases, but it's not crazy to be skeptical about Anthropic or any other hot company.

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