this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
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Fuck AI
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And this absolutely will not change the course of AI investment whatsoever because it still driving a huge amount of profit.
The only thing that will finally change the course of AI investment is when the bubble finally burst which will cause the collapse of our economy because, by that point, so much money will have been invested in it. There will be no other possible result.
And why? Because these assholes only care about one thing: short term results at any cost.
Too big to fail, too big even to jail - it's worked before, they seem to be counting on it working once more.
But I could be giving them too much credit - perhaps they really do believe in it.
What's failing or jailing?
Like, I'm not defending AI here but using a lot of power, and building software tools people buy is not illegal.
We can argue it's a bit of a scam in the sense that many objectives purported are not accomplished, but that's a tale as old of time with software.
We can also argue the copyright issue, I think that's the most relevant topic.
But in general this is just software 2024 MEGA EDITION. Everything sucks, everything is just executives moving money around.
You think it's too big to fail now, wait until they start wondering what they built all of those extra data centers for.
“profit” is gonna need some qualifiers there.
Firing the staff & reporting “earnings”? Goosed stock price on the above + hypey garbage? Enforced “features” no one wants? AI hardware makers? Okay, that one’s legit, but ironically not AI.
I wish i knew of a good way to profit off of this bubble. I could work for a company in the AI space, but I think it would be well above my “executives hyping the smell of their own farts” threshold. And shorting Google and Microsoft is a dangerous game.
If you knew of a good way, you probably already would be.
Also, you probably wouldn’t have a soul
You got me thinking a bit on this one. One possibility is if you want to make a bet on it failing to deliver value in the near future, look at the companies whose stock prices have fallen on the fear of AI putting them out of business. For example, Concentrix does call center outsourcing and their stock is down significantly from their 2022 peak, partially on the expectation that AI is going to take business from them. Now, their profit margin is tiny and they don't seem to be growing much, so I don't know that they are a great investment, but there could be upside if the negative cloud of AI is removed. There are probably better examples out there, this one just came to mind.
Note: I have not done any research on this idea or on Concentrix and don't know if this is a good idea, but at least less risky than shorting the AI hype.
The thing is... this type of "risk" is already priced into the value of shares like Concentrix. There's a phrase... "the market is always perfectly priced", which means that if all information is available to everyone then the price you pay is the correct price, adjusted for risk.
To say the same thing another way, the current price for Concentrix shares is the price they would be if the AI bubble popped, less an adjustment for the risk that the bubble doesn't pop.
We're not there yet. Remember, tech is not the whole of the economy. The recent tech layoffs have had Silicon Valley screaming, "The sky is falling!!" and the rest of the planet going "huh? You guys hear something? Must've been a fly"