As the AI market continues to balloon, experts are warning that its VC-driven rise is eerily similar to that of the dot com bubble.

323 points

Just a reminder that the dot com bubble was a problem for investors, not the underlying technology that continued to change the entire world.

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196 points

That’s true, but investors have a habit of making their problems everyone else’s problems.

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23 points

Not that you’re wrong per-se but the dotcom bubble didn’t impact my life at all back in the day. It was on the news and that was it. I think this will be the same. A bunch of investors will lose their investments, maybe some adventurous pension plans will suffer a bit, but on the whole life will go on.

The impact of AI itself will be much further reaching. We better force the companies that do survive to share the wealth otherwise we’re in for a tough time. But that won’t have anything to do with a bursting investment bubble.

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93 points

Lots of everyday normal people lost their jobs due to the bubble. Saying it only impacted the already rich investors is wrong.

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47 points

The dotcom bubble was one of the middle dominos on the way to the 2008 collapse, the fed dropped interest rates to near zero and kept them there for years, investor confidence was low, so here come mortgage backed securities.

In addition, the bubble bursting and its aftermath is what allowed the big players in tech (Amazon, Google, Cisco etc) to merge to monopoly, which hasn’t been particularly good

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42 points

Good for you. But perhaps fuck off, because some of us lost jobs, homes, and financial stability.

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5 points

Yeah. Note how we’re having this conversation over the web. The bubble didn’t hurt the tech.

This is something to worry about it you’re an investor or if you’re making big career decisions.

If you have a managed investment account, like a 401(k), it might be worth taking a closer look at it. There’s no shortage of shysters in finance.

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1 point

In Canada, a good example is cannabis industry. Talk about fucking up opportunities.

Why would it be any different with tech?

It’s about the early cash-grab, imo.

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160 points

The best way to make money in the gold rush was selling shovels.

Same idea here. Nvidia is making bank.

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49 points

And that’s before you even point out that they were also making bank from the last gold rush

Good time to be in the GPU business

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14 points

If nvda selling shovels, what is tsmc?

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22 points

selling steel

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4 points
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Deleted by creator
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7 points

Cutting trees

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2 points

shovel making equipment

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1 point
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they are the shovel

metaphors

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6 points

Heard of something similar in the past. “Be the Arms dealer”

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123 points

This kind of feels like a common sense observation to anyone that’s been mildly paying attention.

Tech investors do this to themselves every few years. In literally the last 6-7 years, this happened with crypto, then again but more specifically with NFTs, and now AI. Hell, we even had some crazes going on in parallel, with self driving cars also being a huge dead end in the short term (Tesla’s will have flawless, fully self-driving any day now! /S).

AI will definitely transform the world, but not yet and not for awhile. Same with self driving cars. But that being said, most investors don’t even care. They’re part of the reason this gets so hyped up, because they’ll get in first, pump value, then dump and leave a bunch of other suckers holding the bags. Rinse and repeat.

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31 points

I also don’t know why this is a surprise. Investors are always looking for the next small thing that will make them big money. That’s basically what investing is …

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3 points

Indeed. And it’s what progress in general is. Should we stop trying new things? Sometimes they don’t work, oh well. Sometimes they do, and it’s awesome.

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2 points

Great point.

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1 point

You’re conflating creating dollar value with progress. Yes the technology moves the total net productivity of humankind forward.

Investing exists because we want to incentive that. Currently you and the thread above are describing bad actors coming in, seeing this small single digit productivity increase and misrepresenting it so that other investors buy in. Then dipping and causing the bubble to burst.

Something isn’t a ‘good’ investment just because it makes you 600% return. I could go rob someone if I wanted that return. Hell even if then killed that person by accident the net negative to human productivity would be less.

These bubbles unsettle homes, jobs, markets, and educations. Inefficiency that makes money for anyone in the stock market should have been crushed out.

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9 points

The transformation will be subtle and steady. The hype will burst and crash.

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2 points

Great write-up, thanks.

I want a shirt that just says “Not yet, and not for awhile.” to wear to me next tech conference.

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0 points

but not yet and not for awhile. Same with self driving cars.

Bingo. We’re very far from the point where it’ll do as much as the general public expects when it hears AI. Honestly this is an informative lesson in just how easy it is to get big investors to part with their money.

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57 points

It’s starting to look like the crypto/nft scam because it is the same fucking assholes forcing this bullshit on all of us.

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35 points

As someone that currently works in AI/ML, with a lot of very talented scientists with PhD’s and dozens of papers against their name, it boils my piss when I see crypto cunts I used to know that are suddenly all on the AI train, trying to peddle their “influence” on LinkedIn.

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10 points

never heard boil my piss before

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8 points

I said the same thing. It feels like that. I wonder if there’s some sociological study behind what has been pushing “wrappers” of implementations at high volume. Wrappers meaning, 90%+ of the companies are not incorporating Intellectual Property of any kind and saturating the markets with re-implementations for quick income and then scrapping. I feel this is not a new thing. But, for some reason it feels way more “in my face” the past 4 years.

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6 points

NFTs in their mainstream form were the most cringe-worthy concept imaginable. A random artist makes a random ape which suddenly becomes a collectible, and all it happened to be was an S3 url on a particular blockchain? Which could be replicated on another chain? How did people think this was a smart thing to invest in?! Especially the Apes and rubbish?!

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3 points
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cryptonft is shit though. At least “A.I” have actual tech behind it.

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23 points

What they are calling “ai” is usually not ai at all though…

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1 point

yeah i know hence “ai”

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6 points

Crypto had real tech behind it too. The reason it was bullshit wasn’t that there wasn’t serious tech backing it, it’s that there was no use case that wasn’t a shittier version of something else.

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2 points

yeah “real tech”. crypto/nft is not real as in it is useless. as of now. it is useful to criminal though.

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2 points

A broken clock is right twice a day. The crypto dumbasses jump on every trend, so you still need to evaluate it on its own merits. The crypto Bros couldn’t come up with a real world compelling use case over years and years, so that was obviously bullshit. Generative AI is just kicking off and there are already tons of use cases for it.

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50 points

The AI bubble can burst and take a bunch of tech bro idiots with it. Good. Fine. Don’t give a fuck.

It’s the housing bubble that needs to burst. That’s what’s hurting real people.

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11 points

Hey, some of us have very real friendships with Mr GPT. Dawg, always got my back.

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2 points

i wonder what the average age is for owning a house is nowadays, for gen x / millennials

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2 points

The housing bubble will never burst. Enough of it is owned by multinationals that can swallow the losses. We’re 2 generations away from basically everyone becoming renters.

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1 point

Who can afford rent?

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