Ask HN: When will the AI bubble burst?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40259289

by roschdal • 2 years ago

14 25 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

When will the AI bubble burst? What will trigger it? What do we really need LLMs for that humans can't?

There are, and have been, very few real bubbles in human history. AI is not a bubble, its a continuation of a technology trend

resource0x• 2 years ago

We will know it was a bubble when it bursts. It might be followed by another AI bubble 20 years down the road. There's no contradiction between "technology trend" and periodic bubbles. Those who lose $$$ along the way may console themselves with thinking about technology trends. :-)

verdverm• 2 years ago

I agree here. There might be a lot of funding going into AI, and there will be high-profile companies that go bust, but both business and non-technical users are paying because they get value.

- consumers using chat & image gen

- devtools buying, and users leveraging, tools like kapa.ai

- RAG definitely provides ROI

- medical imaging & drug discovery

- robotics like Stanford Aloha

- ecosystem for day-2 problems in LLM based systems

The applications are only going to grow

_akhe2• 2 years ago

If you lived in San Francisco in ~2014 there was a definite startup/social media bubble. So many calendar apps. So many email apps. So many ways to "share with friends" that made no money. Millions and millions invested (wasted) lol A lot of us laughed back then and we were ultimately right about it being a funding bubble. But this is just how it works. Something is successful, everyone copies it but is usually not successful - but sometimes there is some success. So they cast a wide net, scoop up what works, leave everything else behind. It's bubbly behavior but that's how the economy "breathes" by expanding and contracting. It ultimately adds growth.

There was also a real estate bubble in the early 00s with their 0-money-down loans, infinite refis, the "good faith estimate" - they were throwing money (houses) at people because middlemen could make a lot of money off selling loans. We all know about the burst, but few talk about the fact that the big banks took over those businesses, forcing them to shut down and acquired all their assets - they scooped up what worked and left everything else behind.

It seems like every presidential cycle there's some industry or space getting all the focus and funding. This current one - Trump/Biden - was the weirdest one, we had a brief crypto bubble, but it's been mostly Old Money paying themselves through government and politics (covid, wars, "keep the government running by printing $1T" type bills). I imagine the next president will "save us" from the political bubble and embrace technology, in particular AI/LLMs. The major corporations have to get a handle on AI, so I predict a lot of money will be thrown at AI/LLMs - we're just getting started. I think we have 8 years of AI bubble ahead of us.

talldayo3• 2 years ago

The AI venture-capital bubble is destined to burst (eg. Humane and Rabbit are going nowhere) but the incumbents like TSMC and Nvidia are probably going nowhere anytime soon.

Ekaros• 2 years ago

As companies not going anywhere. Their valuations specially Nvidia could realistically track back a lot. Drop to half seems reasonable, third realistic and almost eight not impossible.

Remember Cisco. Still not above the peak.

talldayo3• 2 years ago

Nvidia's value is inflated today, but an eightfold drop would be a pretty shocking undervaluation. Half maybe, but someone else would have to displace a large amount of the value Nvidia provides. AMD is chronically incapable of building vertically, and Apple has been plugging their ears ignoring the datacenter market for almost a decade now. Until someone finally funds a proper CUDA-killer, I don't think Nvidia is going to feel the hurt. Their hardware has demand, their software has market-fit.

devops0002• 2 years ago

After Apple will relase a new iphone with ChatGPT-style integrated. Outside our bubble chat gpt is not much used, but everybody talks about it is the future. So when they are tired repeating "AI is the future"

roschdal2• 2 years ago

When will Apple release an iPhone with a LLM? How will this effect the Apple stock price?

devops0002• 2 years ago

Next sept. Rumors have already pushed stock prices up. They have also announced a buyback.

david9272• 2 years ago

When will the AI bubble burst?

This year

What will trigger it?

World events affecting all markets

What do we really need LLMs for that humans can't?

LLMs are fantastic and are a huge boon. We'll be using them to our collective advantage for a long time to come. But the AI bubble is more a reflection of capital movement than technological promise.

roschdal2• 2 years ago

Which world events?

david9272• 2 years ago

Just a hunch. Things are crazy and getting crazier at an accelerated clip.

anoy8888• 2 years ago

It will be known as the great US-China war that destroyed 30% of humans .Dozens of countries got dragged into it. .

sabrina_ramonov• 2 years ago

The next GPU shortage

frompdx• 2 years ago

  What do we really need LLMs for that humans can't?

I would argue that it's not about whether or not we need something that humans can already do, it's that we don't want a human to do those things because a machine might be able to do it better, faster, cheaper, etc.

A human can operate a lathe, I used to do it, but the CNC lathe I also operated could do any thing I could do much, much faster with just as much accuracy.

JSDevOps• 2 years ago

Tuesday it’s always on a Tuesday

ChildOfChaos• 2 years ago

AI is not going away.

The bubble might burst though when there are big break throughs by someone like OpenAI or google, as right now money is being thrown at anything with AI in the name, when those startups fail to deliver the bubble will burst and all the spoils will go to a few that actually are able to deliver, making the rest irrelevant.

_akhe2• 2 years ago

I'm convinced those who think LLMs are just hype haven't used them, or don't know how outdated most back office processes are, and don't realize how limited we are in terms of content. I would say the bubble is just barely forming, not about to burst for several more years.

Reasons:

- OpenAI lobbying trying to get open source competition banned

- Apple releasing the M4 with those hardware specs

- Big brands like Adobe finding early success

- Industries are ripe for disruption: Medical, legal, procurement, communications of various kinds especially around documentation, support, summarizing, education, media, art, music, film and other entertainment, I can imagine a lot of disruption.

What would this do to Netflix:

  render a 100-hour Harry Potter film that follows every detail of the books exactly

Or:

  render a Tom Cruise sci-fi movie starring Sigourney Weaver in her prime and Bruce Willis as the villain

How could Netflix or even YouTube keep up with scripts that render any video you can imagine? They'll have to offer it too, or go the way of Blockbuster. I imagine record labels and film studios will sue and try to get certain models banned that imitate celebrities or film styles, but people will just illicitly share models with torrents. There's going to be a whole era, I think, because the tech will need to be captured by the big boys but it's not there yet - so part of that is letting the market come up with ideas before they absorb it all then burst the economy.

Our search engines and websites will have LLMs imbued into their functionality, smartphones will have them, kiosks IRL will have them, SaaS will use them to replace representatives and online order forms.

IMO AI models are potentially more disruptive than social media and crypto because it's not just the sharing of content unrestricted, it's the unrestricted creation of content and information itself - giving basically anyone the ability to do it.

romerocarlos• 2 years ago

It is difficult to predict with certainty when or if an “AI bubble” will occur. Some factors to consider would be investment bubble, unrealistic expectations and/or security and reliability issues.

Ask HN: When will the AI bubble burst?

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