I heard that there would be a new Great Depression.
I’ve also heard a lot of different theories, and one of them interested me: after the bursting of the bubble, AI will not disappear anywhere, is it in vain that so many data centers were built? AI will be embedded everywhere, people won’t even be able to test how it works, “it works somehow, great!” because all human workers will be fired, not at once, of course, but gradually, In a few years, about 2-7 years to be exact(depending on the industry). And because of this, AI systems will begin to get out of control, this will cause incorrect diagnoses, failures in the banking system, arresting or killing innocent people by drones, and so on.
The reason I’ve explained this so poorly is because, in the first place, the topic of AI and the debate around it is terribly infuriating to me, and it’s obvious that the harm from AI won’t be able to compensate for the little benefit it will bring. Secondly, I use a translator, so my text may seem crooked, unnatural, or silly.
It’s already happening. A lot of services and free tiers got cut in the last months, and paid tiers got more expensive.
It’ll not completely vanish, if you’re a sane human being you probably know it has a few usages here and there.
But once you start using it for real work you’re done, it’s just a matter of time for the chaos.
I think we’re in the stage of people slowly realizing that AI work isn’t worth the price compared to a real human work. Because it’s expensive for a not so well done job. While real worker do a solid job, with consistency, for the same or less price.
The irony, given that machines always did jobs faster and more consistenly (like a calculator). But this case here we’re talking about a machine that try to mimic humans work without a well defined behavior.
LLM models are evolving very little these past months, very few improvements every new release. And so far no solid proof that it can do things well as humans do.
That Anthropic attempt on making agents build a C compiler was catastrophic, an insane amount of money for a thing filled with flaws. But proved it can’t do anything true valuable and trustworthy.
This is a good summary.
One thing I will add though, I don’t think AI is going away any time soon. The hype and saturation will probably fade a bit (hopefully). But what we are also seeing right now is a move to more self-hosted AIs due to price increases in things like Copilot.
I wish some if my coworkers would realize the limitations and hazards of over-using AI. Too many of them are still deep-throating all things AI, pushing for it to be used for every single little thing.
It can’t burst, it can’t burst! I bet all of my bit coin on this! What are we going to do!? I’ll get a bail out. Yeah that’s it a fucking bail out! Heidi get me my cocaine I have a scheme to plot! Oh it’s right here good. Good.
If it bursts. It might slowly deflate for a bit before more air is pumped into it.
I will finally upgrade my PC.
What’s more interesting is that the AI fueled replacement of human labor is happening along side the largest global rebalancing of trade and finances in history. It could be argued that the U.S. is entering a phase of readjusting to not controlling all of the international trade and being able to run endless debts by doing it. At the end of WW2, the U.S. was able to set the terms for many countries. The contrast between these changes in reduced funding to social welfare programs, which the eventual collapse of the U.S. bond market will force as there will be no money to pay for much besides an outdated military and the interest on the debt. To keep the party going they massively hyped up AI and dumped even more imaginary dollars into it, hoping to be able to replace the need for workers. Creative ways of keeping the bond market bubble going crossed over between these two issues. One example is how tethered currency to the dollar for things like USDT have behind the scenes been funding an increasing share of Treasury debt. It’s all one big interconnected house of cards where at the root of it is an idea based off having exorbitant privilege with a reserve currency. Where you can create this imaginary private company called the Federal Reserve which has magic balance sheets that can act as a second unlimited treasury, while feeding the debt issued by the primary treasury. All of this money just moves around causing inflation and higher interest payments. A system like this will have to collapse at some point and with all the international finanace changes happening, it’s only a matter of time.
I heard that there would be a new Great Depression.
let it frame it to you in a different way.
when was the last time there were too many workers and not enough jobs? what happened then?
the depression will start before the pop. the pop will be the middle of the story.
AI is being pushed as a way to engineer an economic apocalypse that has never been seen before. it drives employees out of high paying jobs, which starves local governments of tax spanning from state income tax to individual sales tax. all of these governments are completely unaware of this happening because they’re too occupied on saving themselves a slice of the pie. before they realize it, it will be too late.
the goal is to reduce the amount of high paying jobs to increase executive profits. these highly educated and paid workers will need to learn to subsist on low wage salaries. likely working in manufacturing or distribution facilities, though those jobs are dwindling too.
it all ends with a wealth gap not seen since the industrial revolution, the “golden age”.
AI won’t replace everyone. Have you seen those police robots? At the end of the day, it will be a regular old cop arresting you for making trouble, don’t worry.
People will loose money, the poor will get poorer, the rich will get richer. Some countries will become more fascist, others might become more sane. People will die, people will commit atrocities, people will fall in love and make more people, and the wheel keeps on turning.
It will be a great time to invest in the stock market.
People forget the 2008 crash. In March, 2009, before Obama policy was passed, the DOW bottomed out at 6,547.05.
It’s currently at 49,704.34.
If you had invested in an index fund back then, you would have earned 7.59x your money.
People mention the AI bubble popping because the rest of the American economy is already shit. The housing market is already seeing prices drop from Covid highs. Most major brands are going up-market because the typical consumer market is tapped out. Almost all non-AI tech is on the right side of the S curve, limiting growth.
The only thing good about the market right now is a bubble that keeps blowing up.
I think it’ll liquidate the kinda little bougie nest eggs of housing and 401’s that are still out there. All this is happening on the major indexes.
The seventies kinda got the durable assets, like most property and such.
If it is as fucked up as it looks like, new law will be written because of it.
And this law, of course, will annoy ordinary people the most, such as total control under the guise of safety.
