As originally reported by Robert Dougherty of Defence Connect, CBA chief economist Luke Yeaman said that while the bubble is concerning, its not a repeat of the dotcom bubble of the ’90s.
“There are reasons to be concerned,” he said.
“Forty artificial intelligence companies account for half the US stock exchange. That is a big concentration of risk.”
However, Yeaman said that while AI valuations are currently inflated, they are likely to be corrected, and that the technology has real value for the future.
“Traditional valuations of AI are high. We do expect to see some corrections over time. But at CBA, we don’t think this is dotcom 2.0. Fundamentally, they look solid. We think there is real value in artificial intelligence over the next few years,” he said.
“Importantly, there is big upside in AI. If adopted well, we could see productivity lift of 1 per cent a year is entirely plausible, optimistically 2.5 per cent or pessimistically 0.5 per cent.”
Concerns over the AI bubble are widespread, with economists at the European Central Bank (ECB) earlier this month expressing worry over the economy, regardless of whether the technology does well or not.
“If AI overdelivers, it will impact financial stability. If AI underdelivers, it will impact financial stability,” said Apollo Global Management’s Torsten Slok at one of the main panels during the annual meet in Portugal.
A successful AI could result in major unemployment and create major instability in the economy, as nobody can afford to spend anymore. However, if AI fails, the major investments in it will also fail, creating economic issues.
The ECB meeting also compared the AI bubble with the dotcom bubble.
“The internet proved to be better than anybody imagined, created whole new businesses, but we still got the dotcom bubble,” said Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem.
“It doesn’t mean there can’t be a period where the market gets ahead of itself, and you see an entrenchment.”
Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh said that it was early days for the technology, and we can’t even predict where it will take us in the future.
“This is the biggest time of consequence to each of our economies, I think, in our lifetime,” he said.
“Who knew when the internet was born that the internet was going to create a million and a half jobs as Uber drivers? We are in the first to second inning of this revolution.”
In terms of profitability, AI is hemorrhaging money for its creators. According to the website isaiprofitable.com, $1.5 trillion has been spent on AI, while only $769 billion has been made. By the time you read this article, both of those numbers will have increased.
The only company making any money is the one selling the hardware – NVIDIA. The company has spent $228 billion, but has a revenue of $516 billion, meaning it has more than doubled its investment.
In comparison, Amazon, which has spent the most, with a $331.1 billion investment, has made a comparatively tiny $22 billion.
Of course, it’s early days for the technology, and money needs to be spent to make it back.
The developer of the site, however, believes that we will have an answer on the AI bubble in just a few years.
“AI is still moving faster than anyone predicted, and I firmly believe we’ll have an answer as to whether the bubble will pop by 2030, as that is effectively the deadline the industry has set itself,” the developer said.
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