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In which ways the dot com craze of the late 90s and the current AI market differ? In which ways are the same phenomena? (lemmy.world)
submitted 21 hours ago by expatriado@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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[–] Coopr8@kbin.earth 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

The biggest difference is that the Dot Com bubble was strongly focused on tech companies going public and pumping small cap stock prices up.

The AI bubble on the other hand is almost entirely being built by private equity, with the largest players all privately held but with large cap stock companies holding substantial stakes. Rather than a bunch of small companies getting pumped up stock prices of many multiples of their debut price then falling to zero, instead we have large cap stock companies bumping up their value substantially, but not by major multiples, while the actual value of the biggest players in AI are all speculative and can't be invested in by retail investors.

This is all by design, the financiers of the AI boom are well aware that a public stock oriented rush into AI for retail investors would lead to massive speculation and an inevitable crash, instead with all the retail money going into large cap stocks they hope to capture that value and funnel the money into buying long term gains by making sure that those big companies have some stake in the "winning" private companies. When the first big AI companies go bust, they will be consolidated into their investor groups and harvested for innovation to transfer over to the winners.

Overall this strategy seems sound to avoid a major retail stock bust, but isn't wothout its own risks, for example if open source AI ends up winning out and the biggest private players fall flat they could become toxic assets and drag down the large cap stocks, and thereby the Indexes and Index funds in favor of leaner players. In the current landscape, that would mean Microsoft going down with OpenAI while Apple goes up, Apple is waiting on the sidelines with a huge cash warchest, ready to buy.

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago

best answer so far, thanks

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 33 points 20 hours ago

They differ in one major way: the economy was straight booming in the late 90s, and not in just a "rich people passing more money around amongst themselves" way. That dot com boom did end with a bunch of startups going bust, but it was also part of the process of building the internet we have today. Lots of hardware, lots of cabling, lots of towers, lots of people employed in making, installing, configuring, maintaining. In the end, the dot com boom created something.

This "AI" thing is a lot more "pouring barrels of money into literal incinerators".

[–] vane@lemmy.world 11 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

90s dot com boom was about getting rich with stupid ideas. Government was working, technology companies were not in charge. Ex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp. from 1998. 90s bubble was caused by people. Today bubble is caused by governments around the western world supporting monopolies and global corporations. There are only handful of companies today that are in cartel that rules the world. It will be worse. People are addicted to those company products, they use them everyday and some of them can't live without it. You have population of junkies.

[–] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 14 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Depends what you mean by AI...

...but I guess currently the main difference is that the dot-com boom basically was the internet. It was huge but we thought it was small.

The AI boom is small, but we think it's huge.

We think it's going to replace, invade, and take over everything all at once. It's not. The models take work to be constrained. The training data takes time to find and cleanse. The applications and use cases have to be married to good data sets and modeled to functional outcomes.

We thought the internet was just people with journals, blogs, and geocities pages... It turned out to be ebay, youtube, reddit, instagram, tiktok, Facebook, Amazon.

Right now we think AI will be in everything doing everyone's jobs ...but it will probably be a bunch of smaller tools. Translators, cancer finders, copy editors, face scanners, better security cameras, better search engines...

The applications are still uncertain, but seem kind of smaller than we first thought. Ubiquitous (probably) but not larger than life.

The dot com boom was larger than life.

But I think the biggest difference is that AI will most likely need the internet. The dot com thing WAS the internet.

"AI" is kind of subordinate, or seems smaller in some sense. It's more like lots of small changes. They'll each make life a little easier, but it will all feel separate rather than some giant face in the sky that speaks intelligence into society or controls the world.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 6 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

This is spot on.

And on the apparently contradictory "AGI" development, I'll add the Big Tech kingpens like Altman/Zuck/Musk are hyping that while doing the exact opposite. They say that, turn around, cut fundamental research, and focus more on scaling plain transformers up or even making AI 'products' like Zuck is. And the models they deploy are extremely conservative, architecturally.

Going on public statements from all three, I think their technical knowledge is pretty poor and they may be drinking some of their own kool-aid. They might believe scaling up transformers infinitely will somehow birth more generalist 'in the sky' intelligence, when in reality it's fundamentally a tool like you describe, no matter how big it is.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 15 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Allegedly Google, early in this craze:

“We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”

https://semianalysis.com/2023/05/04/google-we-have-no-moat-and-neither/

Ultimately the dotcom fantasy kind of panned out. A few tech companies have massive control over society now, with what is essentially cloud/internet business. They have a moat.

…But with the AI bubble, I think folks are underestimating how fast and low the “race to the bottom” is.

As random examples:

These are both literally from the past day.

And all this is accelerating. Alternate attention is catching on (see: Qwen 80B, Deepseek experimental, IBM Granite, probably Gemini). bitnet is already proven and probably next, and reduces the cost of matrix multiplication by an order of magnitude or two.

In other words, AI as a “dumb tool” is rapidly approaching “so cheap, it’s basically free to run locally on your phone,” and you don’t need all these megacorp data centers for that. There’s no profit in it. It’s all fake planning, and the ML research crowd knows it. That’s much more extreme than the dotcom hype, where cloud hosting/dev cost is kind of a fundamental thing.

[–] garth@sh.itjust.works 11 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The .com craze was a gold rush to a land with proven reserves. It was clear there was a huge opportunity to get rich. The question was which companies would find the right approach and succeed. Amazon lived, other retailers like Pets.com didn't. Kozmo and Webvan failed but their general business ideas later succeeded at other companies. And so on.

AI feels more like a gold rush based on rumors and hype. It isn't clear (at least to me) that a market opportunity exists to justify the massive spending going on.

[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 4 points 16 hours ago

Tying into this, I feel like in the late-’90s/early-’00s there were a lot of people using the internet every day and some of the benefits and potential were already obvious. Office jobs were extensively starting to use email already and many people at home were checking email at least once a day and looking at online news. E-commerce was basically an improved mail-order catalog, but the improved selection, availability, and prices really were an improvement. Instant communication was an immediate benefit and digital media was showing obvious promise.

I don’t feel like I see nearly the same widespread use of “AI” today. Some of the things that are getting big money don’t really seem like they have a lot of practical application. I don’t think many people have a daily need to generate images or videos. A lot of the things that seem more promising, like improved translation or voice to text, also might not be very profitable, as in people probably won’t want to pay much for them, and they definitely won’t be unless the astronomical resource costs currently projected come way down.

I think where they’re very similar is there are a lot of companies rushing to slap the craze into their business, transform the business for the craze, or create a new business capitalizing on the craze, whether or not it actually makes sense to do so and whether or not the technology is actually useful for the stated purpose yet.

[–] fubarx@lemmy.world 9 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

The unbridled enthusiasm is the same.

In the dotcom era, I had friends working at e-commerce startups selling items you could easily find at a store. They even had to buy from the same wholesale suppliers, and try to undersell retail, even though they had additional shipping cost (offset a little by not having to pay local sales tax). So they ate the losses because VCs told them they had to show the only metric was positive customer growth (not profit). All business ideas were "add e-commerce to X."

In the 2008 crash, even though it was triggered by real-estate debt, a lot of the same tech dynamics were at play, except "add mobile to X."

A lot of present day AI companies are following the same path. "Add AI to X."

What's different this time is that there's a lot more hardware involved, in the form of GPU and data center expansion. After dotcom, we were left over with a lot of fiber, telco, and home internet expansion which was still usable. This time, it's not clear what the data centers will be good for if AI crashes out. Maybe crypto-mining.

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago

it's not clear what the data centers will be good for if AI crashes out. Maybe crypto-mining.

not very useful for society neither

utility companies are also taking a risk, many people isn't aware how expensive is to build the infrastructure to supply electric power to the new data centers

[–] db2@lemmy.world 10 points 21 hours ago

Similar: it's being controlled and profited from by goofy waste of skin tech bros

Different: the tech bros are also really stupid people this time

[–] PorradaVFR@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

My layperson opinion is that it's more panic than bubble. There will ultimately be one or two dominant players and the technology can and has changed some businesses/industries. For example accurate and FAST medical analysis for diagnostics. That could be a massive change with clear benefits to society.

But there's a LOT of throwing stuff at the wall hoping for a revelation costing tons of resources and money that will almost certainly be wasted.

We're in the figuring out stage and nobody wants to miss the hype train because the few winners will likely be the next Google.

[–] eatCasserole@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

I agree with the "panic, not bubble" assessment, and although the medical applications are pretty cool, I don't think there's actually anyone who's going to be "the next google".

The only big opportunity I see here is the possibility of replacing humans with machines em masse, and I think there's a certain kind of person who has a ton of money and is absolutely drooling all over this possibility.

But I don't believe that's where this is going at all. To replace a significant number of workers, they would need actual artificial general intelligence, but bigger and bigger LLMs are not a path to that. They're smoke and mirrors that can look smart, but fundamentally are not and never will be.

I'm not immersed in this, so maybe I'm missing something, but as far as I can gather from listening to people who do know what they're talking about, the the whole "AI" craze is basically a dead end, and the sooner investors figure this out, the better, because all of this money has been thrown into a furnace and is just gone.

[–] OhmsLawn@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago

From what I understand, the AI bubble is compounded by an affordability crisis. The price of assets (housing, stocks, gold, etc.) has been increasing far faster than wages and consumer prices. The upswing in prices of everything is likely to support the AI bubble longer than expected.

Here's a video on the subject.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuXYXih0wVA

[–] shittydwarf@piefed.social 4 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

The AI craze seems to be much more disconnected from reality. There is absolutely no functional product there, no real use, nobody wants it, and there is no way to turn a profit. This one is also using exponentially more resources, electricity and freshwater. Deutsche bank is warning that it propping up the American economy. Feels like the dot com bubble on steroids

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

My daily use of said tool disagrees with your assertion.

[–] shittydwarf@piefed.social 7 points 20 hours ago (1 children)
[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -1 points 20 hours ago

"For essay writing task"

I'm not using it to write essays. I've been programming far beyond my normal capabilities.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 19 hours ago

Main difference to me is jobs. Tech jobs were going like gang busters right up to the crash wereas the tech job market has been pretty aweful for awhile.

[–] Tramort@programming.dev 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

https://www.derekthompson.org/p/this-is-how-the-ai-bubble-will-pop

[–] Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago

Paywalled.

[–] zxqwas@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago

Pretty much the same as any other bubble. Everyone knows its a bubble but putting a million into a 1% chance to make a billion makes sense for anyone who can afford it.

AI will probably be useful for something. Noone knows exactly what so there is a huge amount of risk taking.

I'm not old enough to remember the sentiment during the dotcom bubble but it seemed more optimistic.

[–] RockBottom@feddit.org 2 points 20 hours ago

At the end three high rises collapsed. not again

[–] Little8Lost@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

I have to life through it

[–] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world -4 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

You're asking Lemmy about AI is like asking /the_donald about antifa. They have no idea it's just years of circle jerking about this topic disconnecting the community from reality. Your answers here will be vastly different then normal spaces

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 6 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

There are ML hobbyist/tinkerers here. I’ve seen it on zip, db0, itjust.works.

But it all gets downvoted, and I think those folks (me included) tend to keep their heads down on “AI” topics.

You don’t see a lot of true AI bros here, but they honestly don’t know squat and wouldn’t give a good answer either.

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

so, what's the truth?

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

I said it in too many words, but everything's magnified. ‘AI’ is an extremely useful tool, yet the current overhype is even more insane, and has muddied everything. It’s like a caricature of the dotcom bubble, but real.

[–] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world -4 points 20 hours ago

Lemmy users will tell you both AI is useless while also saying it's a threat to multiple industries.

It's similar in that there's hype and speculation. What isn't similar is that the Dot Com era didn't have as much advancement and use cases as these companies do today.

But Lemmy had some weird Afro turfing early on. A few users really made it there mission to post all the worst yellow biased articles they could find and that became self feeding as other users only saw crazy doom and gloom that it's coming fer yet yer jobs or assaulting your women.