AI, or fungi, genetically modified disease, antibiotic resistant bacteria, nuclear weapons, alien invasions. Extinction events abound but talking about them is fun and cathartic. We live on a thin margin daily anyway. Why not pontificate? It makes for fun reading and great games. The end comes one way or another, but it will be interesting at least!
sad times, but i still enjoy the ones we got instead. seems weāre just doomed to be earthboundā¦cant even hover ![]()
I know someone who likes to say, āteaching sand to do math was a mistake.ā
More like enslaving the 1% of sand tbh
Hey if we canāt laugh at the existential nature of existence then we would go insane.
To be honest I would love to be wrong. Iām also looking forward to an odd future where we have old datacenters being converted into retail and housing 40-60 years from now
Not if we genetically engineer lobster DNA into ourselves! ![]()
Trying to predict how AI usage will play itself out today is like trying to predict the winner of a baseball game by watching the first-inning.
Nah we can predict a bit it just isnt a bright future for us the consumer. In 2022 silver was $20 it is now over $70, silver is needed for ai and China starting on the Jan first is reducing the amount they send to the world market. On the other side ram has already shot up 10-100x along with one of the biggest ram developers leaving the consumer market to aim at ai, along with Nvidia for graphics card they will be limiting their consumer cards as well. So while ai and itās advancements are unpredictable, we the peasants can predict that ai is slowly stripping our abilities to build computers affordability.
I canāt predict the short term but I can tell we are in a bubble like every bubble before. How long the bubble will go is anyoneās guess but itāll eventually deflate in some form with winners and losers mostly the consumers being the losers.
Itās the 08 housing market and 00 internet boom all at once . History doesnāt repeat but it sure does rhyme
Surging silver prices is a sure sign of a commodity bubble forming in precious metals. Saying āsilver has real usesā is the oldest excuse for silver prices appreciating in the history of smelted metals. Yes, silver actually has more industrial uses than many other precious metals. BUT; and this is a big ābutā, there is significantly more silver than there is gold on this planet.
The build-out occurring in AI in not a bubble. It is a race to determine is hyper-scaling will lead to increased AI-model performance; especially in the area of AI-reasoning. Until these large AI installations are built and tested, no one knows whether more chips equals more intelligence. If larger networks do not lead to better performance, then the build-out of AI centers will slow dramatically. Researchers will then focus on optimization and efficiency as well as new software solutions for adding reasoning capability to the AI models. To me; this seems like a years-long, iterative process to achieve AI that can be trusted to complete tasks autonomously.
You just described the bubble sir. If Building AI datacenters dramatically slows then the companies that have dedicated billions/ trillions to build that infrastructure will crash and those companies atm are propping the world economy and US GDP. Literally the top 5 stocks increase in the US and globally are all chip makers⦠itās all AI driven and if the exponential growth stalls or stutters itāll have a domino effect across the global economy because nearly everything is hedged on the bet that whoever leads this race is the winner. Honestly at this point chinaās mass investment into energy production makes the most sense to me and will probably result in eventually their winning this race I donāt think American exceptionalism will prove successful this time around and thatās honestly fine there isnāt anything particularly different about our nation besides being lucky over the last 100 years and coasting into complacency. Prove me wrong. Pleaseā¦
I think we are talking about labels here. To me a bubble is when people make speculative investments hoping to make short-term returns. They often do not understand the investment; only care about quick returns. This AI build-out is something that must be tested by actually doing it. Everyone knows that and understands the risks. The sheer magnitude of the investment almost precludes a bubble since most players cannot participate. The people who are bearing the risk are the lenders. They are all quite sophisticated and are demanding higher and higher returns for this investment. To me this is not a bubble; it is a calculated risk.
When I see true innovation from China; I will be fearful of their dominance.
Yeah there is silver but the problem is chips and AI are vastly exceeding mining supply, we canāt keep up.
I mean you could say the same thing about the housing crash but in the end it was a bubble where the markets bet on raising housing and the crash wiped people out.
Keep in mind half the market is automated investing on behalf of the retirement funds of the majority of working participants. 401ks are blindly invested into the S&P 500 and the magnificent 7 who are all but apple heavily invested in AI are the majority of the pie chart in those investors portfolio. A drop even 10% would devastate everyone and anyone who looks at their retirement funds as their nest egg or wealth will stop spending during that drop which will domino effect. It hits harder when we are in such a K shapped economy where majority of spending is happening at the top 10% earners so if those folks feel uneasy about spending that will have material impact on retail.
Itās a house of cards that looks very similar to every other economic bubble Iāve lived through. Like I said history doesnāt repeat we wonāt crash due to sub prime (or maybe we will cause thatās a whole can of worms that got re opened this year for some god awful reason) donāt get me wrong I expect if things slow federal subsidies or backstops will be thrown out to stop the bleeding instantly. The federal reserve cutting the rates rapidly is another one of those signs of fear of market stability shifting. Heck the 50 year mortgage and other housing stuff being floated and going forward are other signs of cracks.
Iām happy to be wrong. I donāt really want to live through another downturn but Iām very much prepping myself for what Iām expecting to be the end of being able to kick the can.
Idk Iām just cautious and see lots of indicators that scream bad times ahead but there are plenty of mechanisms still that can be used to keep this ship upright through potential the rest of my natural life so that itās my kids who get to cleanup the mess.
I get daily surveys at work and half of them are mccarthyism style witch hunts about AI. Does your manager support AI? Does your manager give you the resources to use AI? Do your coworkers use AI to the best of their abilities? I have thoughts but I probably canāt even share them on a yoyo forum safely anymore.
Have fun screaming about bubbles for the next decade. Recessions arenāt allowed anymore. They just keep printing more money.
Speaking of the impact of AI on retirement plans, how long should I hold my old RAM modules?


