the software industry as a whole is all-in on AI (LLMs in particular).
makers are trying to stuff it into every nook and cranny they can find.
As noted, the costs are enormous. So using AI everywhere is the only prayer of actually making any money from it.
And for non-AI software companies, it's a matter of not looking like they are less than cutting edge. It's folly, except in a few narrow cases. But here instinct is powerful in the industry.
the software industry as a whole is all-in on AI (LLMs in particular).
makers are trying to stuff it into every nook and cranny they can find. from Adobe using it so Photoshop can produce image content for you on demand (instead of you needing to use stock photos), to phones using it to automatically manipulate your photos in real-time, to audio apps using it to handle routine things like sound mastering all the way to vocal generation, to programming environments using it to analyze and correct your code for you, to apps like the one i work on using it to take over 'help' and data search/analysis features ("how many tables in this library use address data?"). if there's a place a company thinks people will want to type their desires in natural language, they're trying to use AI to make it happen.
YouTube recently rolled out a feature where, if you are already a content producer, it will look at your channel and try to figure out what kind of content you make. then it will suggest a list of related topics for you to produce new videos on. if you pick one, it will give you a list of 'hooks' to use to make the video sizzle. it will give you detailed outlines for a script. and it has AI-generated thumbnails ready to choose from. and at every stage, you can use AI prompting to fine-tune the suggestions. it's literally doing everything but speaking. and i don't see any reason why they haven't automated that part, too.
so, the big players are definitely over-inflated. but the whole industry is using their products now.
His Orangeness probably wishes that Epstein had de-filed all the evidence and sooner or later will try to get Bondi to do it for him (and then claim that Hillary did it).
During a recent interview with podcaster and OpenAI investor Brad Gerstner, Altman lost his cool when he was asked outright how it all adds up.
“How can a company with $13 billion in revenues make $1.4 trillion of spend commitments?” Gerstner asked him. “You’ve heard the criticism, Sam.”
“If you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer,” a taken-aback Altman replied curtly. “Enough.”
Surprised by the confrontation, Gerstner let out a laugh in response.
“I think there’s a lot of people who talk with a lot of breathless concern about our compute stuff or whatever that would be thrilled to buy shares,” Altman said, digging in his heels. “We could sell your shares or anybody else’s to some of the people who are making the most noise on Twitter about this very quickly.”
The problem is that there needs to be a starting event to pop, and that might happen tomorrow, next month, next year or in 2 or 3 years. So until then, we just watch and wait.
In comments echoing those made by US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in 1996, warning of "irrational exuberance" in the market well ahead of the dotcom crash, Mr Pichai said the industry can "overshoot" in investment cycles like this.
"We can look back at the internet right now. There was clearly a lot of excess investment, but none of us would question whether the internet was profound," he said.
In the middle part of the interview he muses about the huge energy costs of AI, only to conclude that new energy sources are going to be necessary to avoid constraining the economy. The environmental cost seems already to have been written off as a concern there. No doubt that will be taken care of automagically by the power of The Singularity.
As for the jobs thing:
AI will also affect work as we know it, Mr Pichai said, calling it "the most profound technology" humankind had worked on.
"We will have to work through societal disruptions," he said, adding that it would also "create new opportunities".
"It will evolve and transition certain jobs, and people will need to adapt," he said. Those who do adapt to AI "will do better".
So if it works it's going to suck up tons of energy and put people out of jobs, and the irrationality surrounding its growing pains will crash economies and ruin small investors and a lot of the less secure AI firms.
And once the survivors finally get AI off the ground we can look forward to them enshitifying it as thoroughly as they have the internet, which was probably at its best in the brief moment just before every idiot with an MBA and an in with a venture capitalist kicked off the boom with a fuzzy business plan and a dream of early retirement.
I've been reading about this for a little while. I already moved a good chunk of my retirement holdings from stock funds to bond and money-market funds. I was already up well enough and am getting closer to retirement, so it wasn't too radical a step.
Even without the bubble speculation, the indices were staring to make my spidey senses tingle. The AI-bubble stuff I've been reading just pushed me out of complacency.
Brighter minds than mine will surely chime in to explain why this is not a matter of concern.
I think what you mean is, more credulous minds than yours.
At current valuations AI would have to bring in $400 per year per US resident for the AI companies to produce a decent return on investment. Which isn't happening in the foreseeable future.
"Bubble" is exactly what we're looking at. The question is when, not whether, it will pop. And how big an impact that will have on the economy overall. Personally, I'm going nowhere near stock in any company which is big into AI. But then, I've been avoiding bitcoins like the plague, too.
Carole Cadwalladr has been on this for a while, and posted about Thiel and Nvidia yesterday. Many of her informant techbros are seriously sounding the alarm about the imminent pop....
Also treating this as an open thread: this is an piece from today's NYT, about the Tucker Carlson - Nick Fuentes interview and more importantly the Heritage Foundation's reaction, and on to Vance's response to so much of what has been happening around the tolerance of Nazi/fascist opinion among the right:
The Larry Summers thing is interesting. First, he can go piss up a rope for all I care (or, as my mother used to say, "sh*t in his hat"). I have no interest in defending him. That said, in his communications with Epstein after Epstein's conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor, he told Epstein he didn't want to be within a million miles of Donald Trump.
Because Summers worked for two Democratic presidents, was president of Harvard, and was a fellow at the Center for American Progress, he's easily associated with Democrats and "The Left." That likely will make him a target for Trump, the GOP, and MAGA.
The wrinkle is that he preferred associating with a known pedophile than with Donald Trump. That's not exactly flattering.
Maybe she could be put on the next case:
According to the administration the rise in beef prices is due to illegal immigrants smuggling herds of sicks cows into the US. Somone has to go to the bottom of that (all the BS should make enough of a stink to make it easy).
I understand that this is the first time the assigned DOJ attorney has ever done a prosecution.
Well, as I understand it, the reason she got assigned is that DOJ professionals looked at the case and concluded that there was nothing to it. So they declined to prosecute. The Attorney General had to find someone inexperienced enough (or foolish enough) to try to take the case forward.
This from the magistrate judge’s findings in the Comey case. If it weren’t a Trump-directed prosecution, my gob would be comprehensively smacked.
I understand that this is the first time the assigned DOJ attorney has ever done a prosecution. Her previous experience appears to have been as a real estate lawyer who did work for Trump previously. What would be more surprising would be if she was wonderfully competent and didn't make any procedural errors.
Treating this as an open thread, because there always is one:
"the Court is finding that the government’s actions in this case – whether purposeful, reckless, or negligent – raise genuine issues of misconduct, are inextricably linked to the government’s grand jury presentation, and deserve to be fully explored by the defense."
This from the magistrate judge's findings in the Comey case. If it weren't a Trump-directed prosecution, my gob would be comprehensively smacked.
On “Pop!”
the software industry as a whole is all-in on AI (LLMs in particular).
makers are trying to stuff it into every nook and cranny they can find.
As noted, the costs are enormous. So using AI everywhere is the only prayer of actually making any money from it.
And for non-AI software companies, it's a matter of not looking like they are less than cutting edge. It's folly, except in a few narrow cases. But here instinct is powerful in the industry.
"
the software industry as a whole is all-in on AI (LLMs in particular).
makers are trying to stuff it into every nook and cranny they can find. from Adobe using it so Photoshop can produce image content for you on demand (instead of you needing to use stock photos), to phones using it to automatically manipulate your photos in real-time, to audio apps using it to handle routine things like sound mastering all the way to vocal generation, to programming environments using it to analyze and correct your code for you, to apps like the one i work on using it to take over 'help' and data search/analysis features ("how many tables in this library use address data?"). if there's a place a company thinks people will want to type their desires in natural language, they're trying to use AI to make it happen.
YouTube recently rolled out a feature where, if you are already a content producer, it will look at your channel and try to figure out what kind of content you make. then it will suggest a list of related topics for you to produce new videos on. if you pick one, it will give you a list of 'hooks' to use to make the video sizzle. it will give you detailed outlines for a script. and it has AI-generated thumbnails ready to choose from. and at every stage, you can use AI prompting to fine-tune the suggestions. it's literally doing everything but speaking. and i don't see any reason why they haven't automated that part, too.
so, the big players are definitely over-inflated. but the whole industry is using their products now.
On “Your quest begins now!”
His Orangeness probably wishes that Epstein had de-filed all the evidence and sooner or later will try to get Bondi to do it for him (and then claim that Hillary did it).
"
Why not simply call him a girl defiler?
On “Pop!”
I've been listening to a lot of podcasts about this and they emphasize it is not just an Nvidia bubble, but a problem with the whole industry. A couple of them point to this exchange with Altman
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-loses-cool-revenue
The problem is that there needs to be a starting event to pop, and that might happen tomorrow, next month, next year or in 2 or 3 years. So until then, we just watch and wait.
"
From the BBC: Google boss says trillion-dollar AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'
In the middle part of the interview he muses about the huge energy costs of AI, only to conclude that new energy sources are going to be necessary to avoid constraining the economy. The environmental cost seems already to have been written off as a concern there. No doubt that will be taken care of automagically by the power of The Singularity.
As for the jobs thing:
So if it works it's going to suck up tons of energy and put people out of jobs, and the irrationality surrounding its growing pains will crash economies and ruin small investors and a lot of the less secure AI firms.
And once the survivors finally get AI off the ground we can look forward to them enshitifying it as thoroughly as they have the internet, which was probably at its best in the brief moment just before every idiot with an MBA and an in with a venture capitalist kicked off the boom with a fuzzy business plan and a dream of early retirement.
Lovely.
On “Your quest begins now!”
How enlightening, Charles. Sheesh...
On “Pop!”
I've been reading about this for a little while. I already moved a good chunk of my retirement holdings from stock funds to bond and money-market funds. I was already up well enough and am getting closer to retirement, so it wasn't too radical a step.
Even without the bubble speculation, the indices were staring to make my spidey senses tingle. The AI-bubble stuff I've been reading just pushed me out of complacency.
On “Your quest begins now!”
The wrinkle is that he preferred associating with a known pedophile than with Donald Trump. That’s not exactly flattering.
To be perdatic, Epstein wasn't a pedophile. His thing was underage teenage females, not preteen females.
On “Pop!”
Brighter minds than mine will surely chime in to explain why this is not a matter of concern.
I think what you mean is, more credulous minds than yours.
At current valuations AI would have to bring in $400 per year per US resident for the AI companies to produce a decent return on investment. Which isn't happening in the foreseeable future.
"Bubble" is exactly what we're looking at. The question is when, not whether, it will pop. And how big an impact that will have on the economy overall. Personally, I'm going nowhere near stock in any company which is big into AI. But then, I've been avoiding bitcoins like the plague, too.
"
Carole Cadwalladr has been on this for a while, and posted about Thiel and Nvidia yesterday. Many of her informant techbros are seriously sounding the alarm about the imminent pop....
On “Your quest begins now!”
Also treating this as an open thread: this is an piece from today's NYT, about the Tucker Carlson - Nick Fuentes interview and more importantly the Heritage Foundation's reaction, and on to Vance's response to so much of what has been happening around the tolerance of Nazi/fascist opinion among the right:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/opinion/tucker-carlson-trump-groypers-fuentes.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2E8.dcFB.iS10t8lip43s&smid=url-share
On “Stewart Lee”
i dig it.
he's very clever.
On “Your quest begins now!”
The Larry Summers thing is interesting. First, he can go piss up a rope for all I care (or, as my mother used to say, "sh*t in his hat"). I have no interest in defending him. That said, in his communications with Epstein after Epstein's conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor, he told Epstein he didn't want to be within a million miles of Donald Trump.
Because Summers worked for two Democratic presidents, was president of Harvard, and was a fellow at the Center for American Progress, he's easily associated with Democrats and "The Left." That likely will make him a target for Trump, the GOP, and MAGA.
The wrinkle is that he preferred associating with a known pedophile than with Donald Trump. That's not exactly flattering.
"
Maybe she could be put on the next case:
According to the administration the rise in beef prices is due to illegal immigrants smuggling herds of sicks cows into the US. Somone has to go to the bottom of that (all the BS should make enough of a stink to make it easy).
On “Weekend Music Thread #06 Kile Smith”
Thank you for sharing your friend. A life well lived--and still being lived.
On “Your quest begins now!”
Her previous experience appears to have been as a real estate lawyer who did work for Trump previously.
Well, sure, but she looked really good doing it. That's the most important thing.
"
I understand that this is the first time the assigned DOJ attorney has ever done a prosecution.
Well, as I understand it, the reason she got assigned is that DOJ professionals looked at the case and concluded that there was nothing to it. So they declined to prosecute. The Attorney General had to find someone inexperienced enough (or foolish enough) to try to take the case forward.
On “Spelunking for fun and profit”
LJ channeling Atrios, interesting!
lol. I am large, I contain multitudes.
On “People and poliltics”
Unintended post.
On “Your quest begins now!”
This from the magistrate judge’s findings in the Comey case. If it weren’t a Trump-directed prosecution, my gob would be comprehensively smacked.
I understand that this is the first time the assigned DOJ attorney has ever done a prosecution. Her previous experience appears to have been as a real estate lawyer who did work for Trump previously. What would be more surprising would be if she was wonderfully competent and didn't make any procedural errors.
"
Treating this as an open thread, because there always is one:
"the Court is finding that the government’s actions in this case – whether purposeful, reckless, or negligent – raise genuine issues of misconduct, are inextricably linked to the government’s grand jury presentation, and deserve to be fully explored by the defense."
This from the magistrate judge's findings in the Comey case. If it weren't a Trump-directed prosecution, my gob would be comprehensively smacked.
"
every PDF i open is some kind of encyclopedic article with short bios of rich and powerful people.
"
Is the client list no longer on Pam Bondi's desk? Or was it never there, which is why she never actually said it was (wink, wink)?
Is it still a Democratic hoax? Or does it incriminate a slew of prominent Democrats and their donors? What if it it's BOTH? That would be wild!
"
Does this mean Marjorie Taylor Greene is no longer a traitor? And is Cambodia no longer at war with Albania?
Any explanation which depends on Trump's having a cunning plan is unlikely to be right, unless he's hired Baldrick as his latest advisor.
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