I wonder if there’s such a thing as MAGA fatigue. By that, I don’t mean the fatigue that I would guess most of the people commenting here feel after dealing with all the bullsh*t the MAGAts produce. I mean fatigue among the MAGA faithful.
I suppose they are more Heritage-faithful than actual MAGA-faithful. But quite a few of the negative rulings lately seem to be coming from judges who were appointed by Trump. Which probably mostly speaks to the level of incompetence of the new bozos at DoJ.
Josh Marshall thinks that the MBS/Khashoggi issue will play badly in the light of Vindman's intervention because it will demonstrate that Trump outright lied to the press and public in that oval office meeting. I hope he's right, but personally I doubt it. Trump's well established as an outright liar, and I can't see, even if the call were to prove that MSB conceded to him that he knew about the murder, that MAGA or Trump's base would give a damn. And it really looks like that's all that Trump cares about.
Even making the heroic assumption that the various fabs are not severely damaged or destroyed.
It seems insane to me, but if China were to decide that if they can't have 3nm chips -- and Biden certainly leaned on Taiwan and countries that might act as intermediaries to block access -- then no one can have 3nm chips... well, a dozen ballistic missiles with big enough HE payloads (and sufficient accuracy) puts TSMC out of that business. TSMC is building a very large campus and production lines in Arizona, but has consistently said they don't plan on ever locating their leading edge processes there.
They screw up and, in trying to fix or cover up their screw-up, they screw up even further. But I suppose it all starts with Pro Bono's "And, separately, the whole case is a crock," which is the original screw-up.
On another somewhat related subject, I wonder if there's such a thing as MAGA fatigue. By that, I don't mean the fatigue that I would guess most of the people commenting here feel after dealing with all the bullsh*t the MAGAts produce. I mean fatigue among the MAGA faithful.
Being in that state of mind has to be exhausting, doesn't it?
I guess what happened is that the Grand Jury indicated it had voted, narrowly, for two of the three counts, and Halligan assumed she could just replace the three-count indictment with a two-count one, without checking back with the whole Jury. If so, it's a procedural error rather than actual fraud. But still, I guess, sufficient to get the indictment thrown out.
It seems the indictment should fail also because Halligan misrepresented the law to the Jury. And, separately, because her appointment was invalid.
And, separately, the whole case is a crock.
There's a general sense that the Trump mob think they can do anything they want, and the far-right six on SCOTUS will make it work. Not, I think, this time.
Nvidia designs chips. All of their chips are fabricated by TSMC in Taiwan.
Another potential issue here. If China decides to forcibly reunite Taiwan, all that chip production is no longer secure. (Even making the heroic assumption that the various fabs are not severely damaged or destroyed.)
That would, I suspect, bring AI expansion to an abrupt halt. With obvious massive disruption to any business (not just AI providers) which has reorganized and restructured their operations to depend on it.
During a hearing in federal court in VA, prosecutors confirmed that the operative indictment in the case against James Comey was never shown to or voted on by the entire grand jury before it was presented in open court.
Defense counsel argued that’s a complete bar to further prosecution
Should have added, the various companies that have decided to design their own chips for AI -- Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, probably some others -- also depend on TSMC for fabrication.
Nvidia, of course, manufactures the chips preferred by AI data centers.
Nit-picking... Nvidia designs chips. All of their chips are fabricated by TSMC in Taiwan. Earlier this month Nvidia's CEO said publicly that he had asked TSMC to increase their 3nm fab capacity because of the volume of new orders Nvidia was receiving.
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:
On “Your quest begins now!”
I wonder if there’s such a thing as MAGA fatigue. By that, I don’t mean the fatigue that I would guess most of the people commenting here feel after dealing with all the bullsh*t the MAGAts produce. I mean fatigue among the MAGA faithful.
I suppose they are more Heritage-faithful than actual MAGA-faithful. But quite a few of the negative rulings lately seem to be coming from judges who were appointed by Trump. Which probably mostly speaks to the level of incompetence of the new bozos at DoJ.
"
Josh Marshall thinks that the MBS/Khashoggi issue will play badly in the light of Vindman's intervention because it will demonstrate that Trump outright lied to the press and public in that oval office meeting. I hope he's right, but personally I doubt it. Trump's well established as an outright liar, and I can't see, even if the call were to prove that MSB conceded to him that he knew about the murder, that MAGA or Trump's base would give a damn. And it really looks like that's all that Trump cares about.
On “Pop!”
It seems insane to me, but if China were to decide that if they can't have 3nm chips -- and Biden certainly leaned on Taiwan and countries that might act as intermediaries to block access -- then no one can have 3nm chips... well, a dozen ballistic missiles with big enough HE payloads (and sufficient accuracy) puts TSMC out of that business. TSMC is building a very large campus and production lines in Arizona, but has consistently said they don't plan on ever locating their leading edge processes there.
On “Your quest begins now!”
I wonder if there’s such a thing as MAGA fatigue
doesn't look like it: https://ustvdb.com/networks/fox-news/
the faithful remain observant
"
They screw up and, in trying to fix or cover up their screw-up, they screw up even further. But I suppose it all starts with Pro Bono's "And, separately, the whole case is a crock," which is the original screw-up.
On another somewhat related subject, I wonder if there's such a thing as MAGA fatigue. By that, I don't mean the fatigue that I would guess most of the people commenting here feel after dealing with all the bullsh*t the MAGAts produce. I mean fatigue among the MAGA faithful.
Being in that state of mind has to be exhausting, doesn't it?
"
Pro Bono: FYLTGE
"
I guess what happened is that the Grand Jury indicated it had voted, narrowly, for two of the three counts, and Halligan assumed she could just replace the three-count indictment with a two-count one, without checking back with the whole Jury. If so, it's a procedural error rather than actual fraud. But still, I guess, sufficient to get the indictment thrown out.
It seems the indictment should fail also because Halligan misrepresented the law to the Jury. And, separately, because her appointment was invalid.
And, separately, the whole case is a crock.
There's a general sense that the Trump mob think they can do anything they want, and the far-right six on SCOTUS will make it work. Not, I think, this time.
On “Pop!”
we need a mega-sized-CHIPS Act, not a Trump-branded one.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/what-is-the-chips-act-why-does-trump-want-to-change-it/ar-AA1C7yH1
"
Another potential issue here. If China decides to forcibly reunite Taiwan, all that chip production is no longer secure. (Even making the heroic assumption that the various fabs are not severely damaged or destroyed.)
That would, I suspect, bring AI expansion to an abrupt halt. With obvious massive disruption to any business (not just AI providers) which has reorganized and restructured their operations to depend on it.
On “Your quest begins now!”
speaking of reckless prosecution:
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:t4x2ruk2qmob2b2cx55h4v7r/post/3m5yoqty6k22w
DOJ straight up lied to the court about what the GJ said
On “Pop!”
Should have added, the various companies that have decided to design their own chips for AI -- Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, probably some others -- also depend on TSMC for fabrication.
"
Nvidia, of course, manufactures the chips preferred by AI data centers.
Nit-picking... Nvidia designs chips. All of their chips are fabricated by TSMC in Taiwan. Earlier this month Nvidia's CEO said publicly that he had asked TSMC to increase their 3nm fab capacity because of the volume of new orders Nvidia was receiving.
"
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.
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