What is the probability that the U.S. AI industry (including OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google, and others) is in a financial bubble — as determined by multiple reliable sources such as The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, or The Economist — that will pop before January 1, 2031?
I’m not exactly sure about the operationalization of this question, but it seems like there’s a bubble among small AI startups at the very least. The big players might be unaffected however? My evidence for this is some mix of not seeing a revenue pathway for a lot of these companies that wouldn’t require a major pivot, few barriers to entry for larger players if their product becomes successful, and having met a few people who work in AI startups who claim to be optimistic about earnings and stuff but can’t really back that up.
I don’t know much about small AI startups. The bigger AI companies have a problem because their valuations have increased so much and the level of investment they’re making (e.g. into building datacentres) is reaching levels that feel unsustainable.
It’s to the point where the AI investment, driven primarily by the large AI companies, has significant macroeconomic effects on the United States economy. The popping of an AI bubble could be followed by a U.S. recession.
However, it’s a bit complicated, in that case, as to whether to say the popping of the bubble would have “caused” the recession, since there are a lot of factors, such as tariffs. Macroeconomics and financial markets are complicated and I know very little. I’m not nearly an expert.
I don’t think small AI startups creating successful products and then large AI companies copying them and outcompeting them would count as a bubble. That sounds like the total of amount of revenue in the industry would be about the same as if the startups succeeded, it just would flow to the bigger companies instead.
The bubble question is about the industry as a whole.
I do think there’s also a significant chance of a larger bubble, to be fair, affecting the big AI companies. But my instinct is that a sudden fall in investment into small startups and many of them going bankrupt would get called a bubble in the media, and that that investment wouldn’t necessarily just go into the big companies.
I’m not exactly sure about the operationalization of this question, but it seems like there’s a bubble among small AI startups at the very least. The big players might be unaffected however? My evidence for this is some mix of not seeing a revenue pathway for a lot of these companies that wouldn’t require a major pivot, few barriers to entry for larger players if their product becomes successful, and having met a few people who work in AI startups who claim to be optimistic about earnings and stuff but can’t really back that up.
I don’t know much about small AI startups. The bigger AI companies have a problem because their valuations have increased so much and the level of investment they’re making (e.g. into building datacentres) is reaching levels that feel unsustainable.
It’s to the point where the AI investment, driven primarily by the large AI companies, has significant macroeconomic effects on the United States economy. The popping of an AI bubble could be followed by a U.S. recession.
However, it’s a bit complicated, in that case, as to whether to say the popping of the bubble would have “caused” the recession, since there are a lot of factors, such as tariffs. Macroeconomics and financial markets are complicated and I know very little. I’m not nearly an expert.
I don’t think small AI startups creating successful products and then large AI companies copying them and outcompeting them would count as a bubble. That sounds like the total of amount of revenue in the industry would be about the same as if the startups succeeded, it just would flow to the bigger companies instead.
The bubble question is about the industry as a whole.
I do think there’s also a significant chance of a larger bubble, to be fair, affecting the big AI companies. But my instinct is that a sudden fall in investment into small startups and many of them going bankrupt would get called a bubble in the media, and that that investment wouldn’t necessarily just go into the big companies.