I am split on this, this is definitely a bubble but I don’t know if it’s going to crash or wipe out countries. The problem here is the tech is real and has great promise. This is not AGI but llms can make the promise of robots real, by it may take a long time for it to materialize just like with self driving cars. So the hype can subside but it needs an impetus to slide. It may or may not happen and even if it does, not sure when
I think this is a very large overstatement. Many large problems still exist in robotics which can not be papered over with LLMs. I’m familiar with problems in manipulation and affordable sensing, which will not be solved via llms, and are fundamentally necessary for reliable and safe interaction with the real world. I’m confident there are many others. LLMs probably will help with high level planning. But that’s a subset of the many problems that keep robots from becoming mass market products.
I think people are excited about robotics because of the many demo videos that have been coming out of various companies. However, almost all of these videos are smoke and mirrors. If you ask somebody who works on those demos, they will unashamedly tell you all the ways they worked around their technical limitations to get just the right footage. The PR departments are less upfront with that info.
This was very true of the dotcom bubble. The entire "web" was new, and the promise was everything you use it for today.
Pets.com was a laughing stock for years as an example of dotcom excess, and now we have chewy.com, successfully running the same model.
Webvan.com, was a similar example of "excess" and now we have Instacart and others.
I looked up webvan just now--the postmortem seems relevant:
"Webvan failed due to a combination of overspending on infrastructure, rapid and unproven expansion, and an unsustainable business model that prioritized growth over profitability."
The impetus is that 90% of our country is in recession and the rest are soon to follow. Delinquencies are rising fast and not just in subprime. Layoffs are at levels not seen since 2008. Crypto, tech stocks and many housing markets have already peaked or are already in bear markets. The crash is here and it's inevitably going to get worse.
Some have realized that LLMs don’t really reason and that LLMs may not be as amazing as the claims. However, I think LLMs plus agents, plus advances that are likely to come may very well prove to be more valuable than anyone can foresee. It’s very difficult to predict the future profitability of tech.
There's a lot of manipulation going on. Attempts to pop the bubble artificially, prematurely. There's a lot of impatience and illusion of control out there. You can bet that when a real bubble bursts, we won't be seeing articles about it on Wired in the run up.
You're in the disbelief phase, it sounds like you are overinvested and defensive about your position. The Nasdaq and crypto already peaked, housing is peaking as well, we're in the middle of the crash.
During most of the dot-com boom, there was not a broad consensus that a bubble existed, whereas today’s AI boom is widely accompanied by media warnings about an AI bubble, making public awareness much higher than it was in the late 1990s. I don't think a single person hasn't heard the "circular financing" talking points from multiple people who think they're being insightful. Or Burry who thinks a GPU should be trashed after 2 years. Doesn't sound like irrational euphoria.
This time, "AI" has been hyped up more than tech in 1999 by the media. The media has just reversed course in 2025 because they found out that most people hate "AI". in 2023-2024 it was mainly hype.
There is better awareness of everything bc of the internet, you are just in the disbelief phase even though markets have already peaked and insiders are heading for the exits.
There was, at least towards the end. FED chair at the time described it as 'irrational exuberance'. Warren Buffett made an excellent speech in front of most Silicon Valley titans at the time - telling them that their wealth is about to be blown up.
This isn't rocket science - do anybody sane believe that OpenAI will spend what, 1.5 Trillion $ they project ? Quite a big chunck of Oracle, Nvidia and others projections are based on this 1.5 Trillion $. They are loosing money and their revenue is 1% of this figure.
If it’s a bubble because some large and small companies will collapse, then yes, there is a bubble waiting to burst.
OpenAI, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, etc. obviously won’t collapse.
The money being thrown around is mind boggling. However, we’ve been throwing this type of money around for a handful of years now.
Tons of layoffs, homelessness, corruption, unemployment, difficulties for everyone to find a job, the incoming SNAP meltdown, government shutdown and the mess it’s going to cause for a while. None of it makes sense. It’s pure crazy because everything should have imploded by now. The tech layoffs and government layoffs alone should be causing a shitstorm of misery out there, but it’s hidden somehow.
AI isn’t going away. It’s here to stay. It has already become embedded into so many core things we do everyday. So many jobs are affected by it. Like, marketing, graphic design, writing, so many jobs in hollywood, like storyboarding and voiceover work, and the creative process of so many things. So many scenes today in movies are CGI and it’s hard to tell, like 3-second scenes, or CGI overlays. All of that will be created with a prompt in the next couple of years. Sure, some editing will be needed for the generated scenes, but with far less staff. The key takeaway here is that this equates to millions of jobs vanishing rather quickly. Core jobs that people of all ages based their careers on.
Don’t get lost in the details of AI generating garbage or not. The remaining companies that survive will continue to make it better. Don’t think for a second there will be a resurgence in these jobs coming back because everyone thinks a human can do it better.
All those data center GPU buildouts will not go waste. We’re headed for a dystopia that’s even worse than the one we’re living in right now.
Wait until a few people are killed by police for stealing food from a grocery story because they are starving and need to feed their families. It will be the first time we get close to a civil war becoming a reality.
Its amazing what the invention of the transformer architecture has achieved; even if the above doesn't come to the past it has sparked discussion of the above possibilities. For a simple idea/algorithm to have changed the world or at least people's future outlook to bleak dystopia; to create mass stock valuations, to justify the business layoffs that have happened and more is definitely significant and much more than I would of imagined just a few years ago.
I'm amazed at the sheer volume of resources allocated to the above so quickly for example; more than any other boom I've seen. Society can raise trillions quickly if it means not employing people I guess? Knowing basic economics I don't buy the utopia case with AI for the majority of people, particularly the middle class. To be clear most people I meet anecdotally (especially outside the tech space) are net negative on the changes AI is doing to their lives, even if they are in jobs like trades.
It has had a profound impact; probably much more (no matter which camp wins the argument, bulls or bears on AI) than its inventors ever thought it would. It makes me think of whether the people who invented this, once they see the end result, will be happy with their invention and the changes it will create in the world. If they aren't happy in hindsight it says something about the unfortunately all too common naivete of the techie in general and the impact of their work on society/economics/etc until it does eventually occur.
Recently, I came across a short video on YouTube where Jeff Bezos referred to AI as an industrial bubble rather than a typical financial bubble that we often associate with bubbles.
Its silly to talk about a bubble when all of the major AI companies just recieved 3-5yrs runway in VC. I normally hate the term FUD, bit in this case it's proveably true. Even if these companies collapse in 5 years, thats a lifetime away in tech years, not an immediate bubble.
I don't think it's particularly silly when the rest of the economy is by all indications in a deep recession. If the tech market is literally the only thing holding up the market then you have to ask how and why.
yalogin|3 months ago
pinkmuffinere|3 months ago
I think this is a very large overstatement. Many large problems still exist in robotics which can not be papered over with LLMs. I’m familiar with problems in manipulation and affordable sensing, which will not be solved via llms, and are fundamentally necessary for reliable and safe interaction with the real world. I’m confident there are many others. LLMs probably will help with high level planning. But that’s a subset of the many problems that keep robots from becoming mass market products.
I think people are excited about robotics because of the many demo videos that have been coming out of various companies. However, almost all of these videos are smoke and mirrors. If you ask somebody who works on those demos, they will unashamedly tell you all the ways they worked around their technical limitations to get just the right footage. The PR departments are less upfront with that info.
ericb|3 months ago
This was very true of the dotcom bubble. The entire "web" was new, and the promise was everything you use it for today.
Pets.com was a laughing stock for years as an example of dotcom excess, and now we have chewy.com, successfully running the same model.
Webvan.com, was a similar example of "excess" and now we have Instacart and others.
I looked up webvan just now--the postmortem seems relevant:
"Webvan failed due to a combination of overspending on infrastructure, rapid and unproven expansion, and an unsustainable business model that prioritized growth over profitability."
diamond559|3 months ago
vrighter|3 months ago
jbritton|3 months ago
fl7305|3 months ago
Do you have a test for this?
Or is it based on the presumption that reasoning skills cannot evolve, it can only be the result of "intelligent design"?
spking|3 months ago
bentt|3 months ago
jrflowers|3 months ago
diamond559|3 months ago
bofadeez|3 months ago
bgwalter|3 months ago
https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/a...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/1999/dec/20/nasdaq.efin...
This time, "AI" has been hyped up more than tech in 1999 by the media. The media has just reversed course in 2025 because they found out that most people hate "AI". in 2023-2024 it was mainly hype.
diamond559|3 months ago
jbs789|3 months ago
It’s reasonably obvious that there are some very high expectations baked in to certain equity valuations.
Leave it to the reader to take a view on whether it makes sense.
techblueberry|3 months ago
TheAlchemist|3 months ago
This isn't rocket science - do anybody sane believe that OpenAI will spend what, 1.5 Trillion $ they project ? Quite a big chunck of Oracle, Nvidia and others projections are based on this 1.5 Trillion $. They are loosing money and their revenue is 1% of this figure.
iJohnDoe|3 months ago
OpenAI, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, etc. obviously won’t collapse.
The money being thrown around is mind boggling. However, we’ve been throwing this type of money around for a handful of years now.
Tons of layoffs, homelessness, corruption, unemployment, difficulties for everyone to find a job, the incoming SNAP meltdown, government shutdown and the mess it’s going to cause for a while. None of it makes sense. It’s pure crazy because everything should have imploded by now. The tech layoffs and government layoffs alone should be causing a shitstorm of misery out there, but it’s hidden somehow.
AI isn’t going away. It’s here to stay. It has already become embedded into so many core things we do everyday. So many jobs are affected by it. Like, marketing, graphic design, writing, so many jobs in hollywood, like storyboarding and voiceover work, and the creative process of so many things. So many scenes today in movies are CGI and it’s hard to tell, like 3-second scenes, or CGI overlays. All of that will be created with a prompt in the next couple of years. Sure, some editing will be needed for the generated scenes, but with far less staff. The key takeaway here is that this equates to millions of jobs vanishing rather quickly. Core jobs that people of all ages based their careers on.
Don’t get lost in the details of AI generating garbage or not. The remaining companies that survive will continue to make it better. Don’t think for a second there will be a resurgence in these jobs coming back because everyone thinks a human can do it better.
All those data center GPU buildouts will not go waste. We’re headed for a dystopia that’s even worse than the one we’re living in right now.
Wait until a few people are killed by police for stealing food from a grocery story because they are starving and need to feed their families. It will be the first time we get close to a civil war becoming a reality.
throw234234234|3 months ago
I'm amazed at the sheer volume of resources allocated to the above so quickly for example; more than any other boom I've seen. Society can raise trillions quickly if it means not employing people I guess? Knowing basic economics I don't buy the utopia case with AI for the majority of people, particularly the middle class. To be clear most people I meet anecdotally (especially outside the tech space) are net negative on the changes AI is doing to their lives, even if they are in jobs like trades.
It has had a profound impact; probably much more (no matter which camp wins the argument, bulls or bears on AI) than its inventors ever thought it would. It makes me think of whether the people who invented this, once they see the end result, will be happy with their invention and the changes it will create in the world. If they aren't happy in hindsight it says something about the unfortunately all too common naivete of the techie in general and the impact of their work on society/economics/etc until it does eventually occur.
bicepjai|3 months ago
johntennessee93|3 months ago
NedF|3 months ago
[deleted]
whydoineedthis|3 months ago
BriggyDwiggs42|3 months ago
fzeroracer|3 months ago