From boom to burst, the AI bubble is only heading in one direction

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/13/from-boom-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-is-only-heading-in-one-direction

19 12 2 years ago

Jimmc414• 2 years ago

“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law' becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s” - Paul Krugman 1998

Avshalom• 2 years ago

While that sounds ridiculous. I would point out that between about 2000-2009 was the age of the phpbb and weblog. It wasn't until the 2008 financial crisis and a decade of zirp, a decade of "unicorn" companies losing a billion a year for a decade, that "the internet" as a financial concern was anything more craigslists, ebay, google-adwords and a selection of e-catalogs.

latexr• 2 years ago

What’s your point? One person made a wrong prediction in the past, thus an different person commenting on an unrelated subject is also wrong?

What if instead of that quote you had posted one of a correct prediction, such as a claim that NFTs were a fad? Would that then mean that this article is right?

pcwalton• 2 years ago

Out of curiosity, I did a search through HN from a few years ago, and, just as I expected, people were bringing out that quote to argue against the cryptocurrency skeptics. Of course, the cryptocurrency skeptics were right all along.

Anyway, the original article is probably correct, but it's missing the whole story. Very likely, the future AI panic will be followed by a gradual recovery to a sustainable level of investment, as we as an industry learn what generative AI is actually good at and what it's bad at. In other words, the article is consistent with the upcoming "trough of disillusionment" part of the Gartner hype cycle around generative AI. But the trough of disillusionment won't last forever, and I certainly think that generative AI has its uses (for example, automatically moderating the most vile content so that human moderators aren't at risk for PTSD).

Veedrac2• 2 years ago

Given Bitcoin is at an all-time high, Ethereum is close, and if one held on to Bitcoin bought in most of 2019 they'd be up 10x, it seems not that obvious to me that the crypto skeptics were more correct than the crypto believers. Certainly not so much more right that the crypto believers should act as some cautionary tale.

htss2013• 2 years ago

I'm baffled by how someone can say crypto is a scam in 2024, at least for Bitcoin. But I'm grateful that it is taking many people so long to adjust to the new reality. Their stubborn skepticism is keeping the early(ish) adopter window of opportunity open way longer than I would've imagined.

akeck• 2 years ago

I'm going to say "downish" but not "burst". I and a lot of other people I know are getting a lot of benefit from using LLMS to sketch and refine code more quickly.

Veedrac2• 2 years ago

You're late to this party.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17184054

But seriously, there's nothing in this article to debate, it is completely devoid of arguments for its position.

system16• 2 years ago

It wasn’t so long ago that sleazy business types and serial entrepreneurs convinced the media that everything needed to be in the blockchain. Once that fizzled, everything needed to have AI. This too will settle, and the tech will keep trucking along.

From boom to burst, the AI bubble is only heading in one direction

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