Technology

Two things can be true. AI is here to stay, and we're in a bubble. Look at the dot com crash, the bubble super popped, yet we still have the web.

Its not the AI tech thats gonna die, it's its extreme overvaluation.

Really? Companies are going to keep building datacenters that need entire nuclear reactors to themselves without any of that converting into revenue? This is going to keep going forever in your mind?

Shit like this is here to stay

Of course. Just like VR, AR, the Metaverse, NFTs, cryptocurrency, and hundreds of other boom-and-bust, hype-cycle remnants. "AI" is a bubble. "AI" will burst. The tech will continue, just without the hype and the cohort wildly over-funded moonshot start-ups.

I look forward to the day when ROI-focused tech executives aren't trying to cram non-intelligent LLMs into roles where they do not excel. Let people find their own uses, on their own terms for these things. Perhaps someday people will train bespoke, subject-specific ML tools on their laptops in a matter of minutes with a single click, and it will be an unremarkable part of their day. I'd like to see that.

"Nvidia had good sales in the last 3 months" doesn't necessarily conflict with whatever drove those articles last week...

"A technology got more useful in the past" isn't a compelling reason to argue something else will get more useful...

Use your critical thinking skills lol

Well it's "here to stay" I agree. But there are some real economic indicators that it is also a bubble. First, the number of products and services that can be improved by hamfisting AI into them is perhaps reaching critical mass. We need to see what the "killer app" is for the subsequent generation of AI. More cool video segments and LLM chatbots isn't going to cut it. Everyone is betting there will be a gen 2.0, but we don't know what it is yet.

Second, the valuations are all out of whack. Remember Lycos, AskJeeves, Pets.com etc? During the dotcom bubble, the concept of the internet was "here to stay" but many of the original huge sites weren't. They were massively overvalued based on general enthusiasm for the potential of the internet itself. It's hard to argue that's not where we are at with AI companies now. Many observers have commented the price to earnings ratios are skyhigh for the top AI-related companies. Meaning investors are parking a ton of investment capital in them, but they haven't yet materialized long-term earnings.

Third, at least in the US, investment in general is lopsided towards tech companies and AI companies. Again look at the top growth companies and share price trends etc. This could be a "bubble" in itself as other sectors need to grow commensurate to the tech sector, otherwise that indicates its own economic problems. What if AI really does create a bunch of great new products and services, but no one can buy them because other areas of the economy stalled over the same time period?

I disagree so hard words wont do justice.

The internet and computers has value, ai doesn't. It already is unprofitable to run and newer models consume even more power. So wont turn into more profit all of a sudden.

It will crash if it doesnt turn useful to actually MAKE money.

There is 0 use cases other than it being a funny entertainmentbox that still summatizes shit wrong in almost 10% of cases.

You may say agents might replace humans at some point but again nobody has done it yet profitable. It cant do tasks because it cant think. It can repeat what someone tells it to do but guess what thats what programming was in the first place.