Is The AI Hype Just Hot Air?

Wall Street seems to be getting tired of all the AI hoopla. We've been bombarded for months with statements from tech giants touting artificial intelligence as the key to future revolutionary advances. The investors now want real action, the million-dollar question being when we'll ever start seeing some hard cash from this AI investment.

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These huge organizations have been spending billions left and right on data centers and semiconductors. What for? So far, we have fancy chatbots that seem to be unable to turn a profit, AI-powered search engines, sometimes just making things up, and on the other end of the scale, a load of cost-cutting measures which don't really sound very "game-changing."

It's a tech bubble ready to burst, and I'm starting to feel that way. We've seen this song and dance before: remember when everything was going to be blockchain? Or how about the metaverse being the next big thing? Can't help but be majorly, massively skeptical that AI's really gonna live up to all its hype.

What's really raising my eyebrows is the kind of timeline these companies are talking about. Microsoft's CFO out here saying their AI investments will pay off within the next 15 years. Fifteen years! That's like a lifetime in the tech world. I mean, think about all that we've done in the last 15 years, the iPhone was barely a toddler then, and TikTok wasn't even a twinkle in ByteDance's eye.

Not just Microsoft, even Meta says not to hold any expectations for any "meaningful" revenue emanating from their generative AI products next year. It's as if they're asking us to stick around patiently and give them all our trust while they go through billions of cash like there's no tomorrow.

These companies are so flush with cash from their core businesses that they can afford to play the game, at least for now. They're all trying to one-up each other, scared to death of missing out on the next big thing. It's a high-stakes game of chicken; nobody wants to be the first to blink.

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's all smoke and mirrors with AI.

I personally believe that it does hold potential to change the world in pretty amazing ways. However, after reflecting on this, I am starting to think that we probably need to tap the brakes a little on our expectations. Rome wasn't built in a day, and quite honestly, this so-called AI "revolution" may actually take a little more time than many have been hoping for.

Posted Using InLeo Alpha