Not just the tech industry. A huge proportion of the US economy is made up of betting on AI. Like the crash of 2008 (but worse, some predict) it will hurt everyone but the richest, who will become even richer.
There are a number of simultaneous bubbles at the moment, the AI one being a lot like the Internet bubble of the late 90s but possibly worse (bigger share of GDP and it seems there is actually less value in most of the tech invested in as “AI” than on the Internet-relate tech) and at the same time there is a financial debt bubble like in 2007 (in the US mainly around loans for car purchase, but more in general overall consumer indebtness has reached the 2007 levels), a worldwide realestate bubble (measured in terms of house-price to income ratios) and a stockmarket bubble measured in terms of P/E ratios, just to mention the biggest ones.
The risk is that one blows the rest blow by contagium: something the 2008 Crash showed us is that in modern markets when there are sudden large losses on a asset class it pulls money over to cover them from all other asset classe to cover it creating downwards price pressure in those other asset classes which in turn might cause price collapses there with large losses which in turn pull more money from yet other asset classes. IMHO assets classes with historically high valuation not backed by fundamentals (for example stocks with P/E which are 10+ times the historical average) are likely to be far more likely to collapse when money gets pulled away from them to cover losses elsewhere. Also there is the panic factor: fearing exactly what I describe, many investors will preemptivelly sell their assets in those assets classes they feel as more speculative - i.e. less supported by fundamentals - possibly creating the very problem they fear in those markets by starting a stampede to the exits.
Going by inflation adjusted market cap values, it certainly looks like the financial facet of the AI companies alone are bigger than both those events… This is going to be beyond messy…
floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Not just the tech industry. A huge proportion of the US economy is made up of betting on AI. Like the crash of 2008 (but worse, some predict) it will hurt everyone but the richest, who will become even richer.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
There are a number of simultaneous bubbles at the moment, the AI one being a lot like the Internet bubble of the late 90s but possibly worse (bigger share of GDP and it seems there is actually less value in most of the tech invested in as “AI” than on the Internet-relate tech) and at the same time there is a financial debt bubble like in 2007 (in the US mainly around loans for car purchase, but more in general overall consumer indebtness has reached the 2007 levels), a worldwide realestate bubble (measured in terms of house-price to income ratios) and a stockmarket bubble measured in terms of P/E ratios, just to mention the biggest ones.
The risk is that one blows the rest blow by contagium: something the 2008 Crash showed us is that in modern markets when there are sudden large losses on a asset class it pulls money over to cover them from all other asset classe to cover it creating downwards price pressure in those other asset classes which in turn might cause price collapses there with large losses which in turn pull more money from yet other asset classes. IMHO assets classes with historically high valuation not backed by fundamentals (for example stocks with P/E which are 10+ times the historical average) are likely to be far more likely to collapse when money gets pulled away from them to cover losses elsewhere. Also there is the panic factor: fearing exactly what I describe, many investors will preemptivelly sell their assets in those assets classes they feel as more speculative - i.e. less supported by fundamentals - possibly creating the very problem they fear in those markets by starting a stampede to the exits.
jj4211@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Going by inflation adjusted market cap values, it certainly looks like the financial facet of the AI companies alone are bigger than both those events… This is going to be beyond messy…
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 23 hours ago
Is there anything a normal person can do to insulate against it to any degree?
Koarnine@pawb.social 21 hours ago
Assets are more valuable than money is now, consider what can maintain fundamental value regardless of the economy