The AI tech bubble finally bursting is going to be both catastrophic and very funny.
Like it’s going to be wild, it’s already starting to hit NVIDIA stock. The chain reaction will hit tech giants and everyone depending on them.
Line goes down.
It really is the perfect example of a bubble.
- Budding new technology shows the potential for promising new applications.
- Under late-capitalism, short-term profit always takes precedence over long-term gains because the assumption is that you can take the cash upfront and choose to A.) reinvest it into the original idea to make it a more viable investment, both by funding R&D and pulling more investors B.) run.
- Technology gets advertised, bought, and sold before any reliably useful applications can actually be developed. Pushing money into an unfinished technology does not mean it gets developed before investors want their return.
- Consumers and investors realize that without any viable applications, it’s a scam and they fell hard for it. The bubble deflates as investors try to minimize their losses. Those who took the money and ran reap massive profits from the misfortune they pushed on everyone else.
The nature of ai was ESPECIALLY seductive to investors because it promised to be the capitalist holy grail:
- Just like crypto, it’s too new to have any sort of government oversight. Right-wing clowns are still convinced this is a good thing (“Why won’t the police help me retrieve my stolen jpeg?”).
- Your “labor” would follow orders to the letter. You, wise, exalted executive, would never have your untrained artistic talent or unsolicited advice questioned again.
- Most importantly, you could have employees you don’t have to pay. Paint the backdrop for a cinematic masterpiece with only a prompt! Use ai to ghostwrite a new romance novel seven days a week! Lay off your entire customer service department! The possibilities are endless!
The ai bubble wasn’t just a representation of its own overpromised potential, it also inflated every major tech corporation as they all expectantly awaited their first financial quarter with a 95% reduction in labor costs. Some of them prepared to lay off significant chunks of their workforce, expecting a fully automated replacement any day. But customer service chatbots are giving away free flights, some lethally unreliable books on mushroom foraging got published on amazon, and the wonka spectacular guy practically got a public stoning. It’s apparent (and more so every day) that the ai hatchling was pushed out of the nest without any feathers.
