This article is a great example of the Strawman Fallacy. I suppose it's a method to generate traffic but I would argue a key aspect of servant leadership is being transparent that you are in a role that should collectively support and lead to enable and expand the team.
I feel attributing any sort of parental concepts belittles the meaning here.
Me as well! I would love to see a teams client in the terminal, or even a vs code extension might be cool to see! Thanks for the link! I will have to check out the project!
I appreciate the author trying to address this. The only issue is the author didn't define what 'pops' in the bubble.
The 'what' that pops, probably, IMHO, is the investment and resources ecosystem dumped, poured, thrown, redirected, etc. to AI.
Just like the .com boom, the costs and money thrown at AI are outsized and will 'pop" as it matures. A 'pop" and leveling down to something perhaps not so outrageous is coming.
As the author states, .com popped but left the Internet still around and expanding. AI is exactly that kind of bubble.
Im not convinced at the comparison to the .com boom of the internet, its intellectually lazy.
The internet was always going to disrupt the way we think about the discovery and purchase of goods and services at the bare minimum. Some saw that the role of the personal computer was evolving from just computation to communication and so on.. this stuff was obvious early on. Irrespective of the equity bubble at that time, the potential was real. It was just too early.
There is nothing of this sort happening with LLMs. Where do they fit? Nobody has a clear answer and I don't see a clear one emerging any time soon. If someone has a very clear and direct answer, please feel free to reply :=)
I think what pops is the Ponzi-like financial structure underlying the huge investments. The projected profits simply don't come fast enough to justify incremental investment, and the pyramid runs out of incoming money. Yes, AI is huge. But the Internet was also huge. And it still couldn't sustain the levels of investment that were being made in 1999 and 2000, even in the big players.
Then you're inventing your own term. Bubble is shorthand for the Economics term "speculative bubble" or "economic bubble" and has described the behavior of many markets over the centuries. What collapses is asset prices, not ideas. It's definitional...just ask your friendly neighborhood economist.
Edit: Here, I went and found the origin for you (via wikipedia). The South Seas bubble spawned the term:
"The metaphor indicated that the prices of the stock were inflated and fragile – expanded based on nothing but air, and vulnerable to a sudden burst, as in fact occurred."
A financial bubble has a clear definition. You're just changing the meaning to be a different strawman so you can refute that. Are there lots of companies that are overvalued because of their AI offerings, and will those companies fail when they don't provide acceptable returns? If yes, bubble.
Okay - that is too extreme of a "bubble" definition for me. False dilemma.
So, then, I guess, nothing is a bubble for you. For me, a more reasonable definition is a large build-up of capital that, at some point, snaps or pops, then sits at a level much lower than the original.
If you take something like that approach of the "bubble" then you can have a more charitable discussion. The AI bubble discussion then is about if the current levels of investment and capital being dumped into AI will stay at the same levels or have a more dramatic dip to be more of the future run-rate, then you can see how people see the parallels of other "bubbles" and actually have more of a discussion I think.
My sense is most view this concept of the "bubble" as the assumption.
That's great that you have your own definitions of a bubble. However, we are generally talking of a financial/economic bubble, which is pretty clearly defined: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble for quite some time.
One just need to ask one question: "is there a big amount of companies in a specific sector that are valued far above their returns". If that answer is yes, that means we are in a speculative bubble. The current insane valuations of unprofitable companies point to the largest speculative bubble ever to exist. I can't wait for it to pop faster already so there are less articles like this.
"is there a big amount of companies in a specific sector that are valued far above their returns". If that answer is yes, that means we are in a speculative bubble."
I like and appreciate the authors points but just wish they would have done more with the connection of the two.
You might be valued because you are many things. You might not be valued because of many things. If you are able to be useful and valued, while also being fulfilled and happy personally and professionally -- that's great.
But, there is normally not a direct and clear situation like this in organizations. If there is, enjoy it while you have it. Normally, it's not as direct and clear to assess and understand. You are also part of this equation. The dynamics in an organization are normally not consistent.
Dynamics in organizations can shift quickly. Culture can also mean you could be doing all you can but the situation is no longer good for you for a variety of reasons or good for the organization.
Informed re-evaluation of your own value in your situation, at reasonable points, is vital. You may be not as great as you think you are, you might not be able to feel valued or useful in a changed or toxic environment. You may not care about that stuff. The organization may be incapable of providing any of that validation but, ultimately, it's up to you to decide what you are able to live with and why. How the organization provides whatever for you to contemplate is part of the calculation that must rest on your shoulders -- and that effort is ongoing and important.
I would suggest you should be the person you would want as a resource and help but to others. Do it to genuinely be helpful and not transactional.
Others will notice and you will build a personal network.
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