Part of me feels the fact that EVERYONE is saying that there’s a huge AI bubble makes me wonder if there’s actually a possibility there isn’t an AI bubble. Because I was around for the dot com and GFC bubbles and no one (not really) saw those coming. Also, China is pretty much doing everything right these days, and they seem to believe in AI too.
And I’m not against AI in any and all forms. Like, I think there’s huge potential in translating foreign languages. I think it would be cool if people could talk in their native languages but have AI translate things perfectly - which I understand is something AI can do. There are some simple functions in my job (like searching through and summarizing things from our very massive list of policies). But even thinking about the absolute best case scenarios for AI, I can see how the current expectations are even close to what the reality can be.
So what is the argument that we’re not in a bubble, even if we don’t actually believe it?
not what you asked, but we still have websites after the dot com bubble. we still have crypto after the bubble. we will still have ai after the bubble. the fact that ai will continue to be a tool doesnt mean it isnt a bubble.
to me the fact that 99% of websites are shoehorning in ai is proof that we’re in a bubble.
I was at a manufacturing technology conference recently and one of the fucking CAM system vendors is trying to shoehorn a LLM chatbot into their flagship product. They’ve invested a substantial amount of marketing resources into this if they are out hyping it at trade shows (and even more money pissed away on “consulting” and development, surely). No interactive demo though. Just a handful of slides showing how you can prompt an LLM and it spits out a Python script using their APIs.
It could be worse. They could just have an LLM trying to write G-Code directly with no constraints at all, but either way this is a thing that absolutely nobody in the industry is asking for. This is not how industrial design works. This is not how mechanical engineering works. This is not how contract manufacturing works. This is not how product lifecycles are managed. This is not how designs are specified and communicated between firms. Nobody is trying to fucking vibe code their multi-million dollar precision industrial robots. These things can take over a year to procure, install, and validate. One mistake is all it takes to start a fire or launch a projectile through the operator (or just fuck up months worth of bespoke fixtures and tooling on top of a $80,000 repair bill from the machine vendor). Just unknowable amounts of money being set on fire here for a manufacturing product which will never be applied to the actual production of commodities. Which will never make money either for the end user or even the vendor.
It is like they are trying to create a product with the sort of novelty a hobbyist with a 3D printer (and no money) might appreciate, but are targeting companies with millions of dollars of fixed capital with complex contractual obligations and stringent requirements for process and document control, where the liabilities for quality control and potential recalls are a matter of life and death for the firm.
Oh look, a leftist that actually understands how labor gets shit done instead of calling everything a bullshit email job
Use this knowledge wisely! There’s potential for huge profits by investing against the capitalists. And taking money from capitalists is objectively praxis