So, for some context, I work at an accounting company that provides tech services to banks. Really tiring shit but it was the only thing where they didn’t ask you for 100 years of previous experience to enter an entry-level position.
A couple of days ago the CEO came for an annual visit and gave a conference, which was 2 hours of generic corporate crap in the world’s most uncomfortable chairs (the only one that probably benefited from that meeting was the local chiropractor). I’m pretty sure the word “growth” was said at least 20 times, and I’m starting to genuinely hate that word.
The interesting bit is that, at the end, the guy answered some questions that were send beforehand by the employees’ and other bosses. One of them was if he saw the benefits of using AI.
He fucking admitted he did not see those benefits, but then said immediately afterwards that the company had to use it because the competitors were using it.
Thankfully the project I work at is such a mess that they don’t have the time to add AI to the workflow.
The benefit is vc funding. It’s not a real thing.
He fucking admitted he did not see those benefits, but then said immediately afterwards that the company had to use it because the competitors were using it.
I just realized the entire Ai bubble - and, by extension, the US economy, and then other linked economies in spill-over - is hoisted up on c-level FOMO.
That’s it? We’re fucked.
It’s because of the suicidal growth obsession that’s been baked into corporate culture. When you’ve already monopolized your industry, there isn’t much room left for growth, and companies wrung all the fat out years ago. There’s nothing left to cut. AI at least has the theoretical potential to keep growth going, so C levels cling to it like a drowning man clings to a life preserver.
Were you around for the big internet boom in the 90s where everyone, even your corner gas station, felt the need to have a website? All of these execs and media types were saying how everyone needed an “internet presence”. Then you had all of these people rushing to get “web certified”. It collapsed but some survived the storm.
I remember!
Like dung beetles to shit.
A couple years ago my boss asked if we had “an AI.” When I told him we didn’t, he says we should get one. I asked him for what, and he just shrugs and says, “I don’t know, shouldn’t we?”
“But we are a diner.”
“I’m tired, boss”
Just like the restaurant scene in The Big Short with the fund manager.
Market’s built on a foundation of bullshit and blind confidence. Only a matter of time before someone big enough blinks.
It’s not FOMO, it’s just stock price inflation. Even if temporary. Everyone knows it’s a bubble too, but it’s circular investing. Investor see line go up, so invests, and then line go up more. That’s the extent of the thought process driving the AI bubble.
Just like the Tesla stock except on a bigger scale. Not that Tesla is small
something somthint tech progression fights back inflation and unemployment, we are reliant on the lie
I heard NVIDIA is shoveling money into a toilet and lightning it on fire.
We’d better join in, we don’t want to be left behind
Much like an high-up-the-tree manager at IBM once said "we are outsourcing work to india. The competition does it too so it is a good decission "
AI= always indian anyways. When amazon was training thier amazon go store prices, it was actually indian employees constantly checking what people buy
I’m looking for a job in cybersecurity after being laid off and I had a round of interviews where nobody said ‘AI’. I’m liking that company.
I saw a job ad recently for a cyber security position and the description was all “how do we use AI without leaking patient data, and also do it ethically and train it to replace our workforce… ethically” it was the most insane thing I’ve seen yet and I’m sure an AI wrote it as part of a plan to take over.
This is how the whole AI bubble works. There is minimal value in AI but every company currently needs to be seen to be into AI to be perceived as cutting edge and modern.
The sensible counties will just market themselves as being into AI and not spend a penny on stuff they don’t need. The majority of dumb companies are wasting money on AI and getting little for their return.
The AI stock bubble is going to pop as valuations get more and more divorced from reality of revenues and profit. We’re already at the point that Nvidia is valued at $5trillion on revenues $130bn. That revenue is inflated by a rush to stockpile chips for data centres that don’t even exist yet as big tech companies fear being left behind.
Nvidia is massively over valued - it made a profit of 44bn last financial year, that’s a price to earning ratio of 113x. That means the share price is 113x for $1. It’s profits will be up this year but still won’t justify that ratio. And some of it’s deals now are stock and equity swaps to sell goods (such as a recent deal with OpenAI).
The p/e for the stock market fluctuates but 10- 20x is about long term. The nasdaq is on a recent high of market is at 31x, which is a decline from a recent high. Nvidia is at 113x. Madness and this bubble is going to burst. When it does, nvidias order book will disappear, as will it’s share price.
A lot of people are going to get burnt by this bubble.
Idk theres decent value, but that comes from training and selling the ai itself for different usecases where workers use it, not much value in actually replacing workers
“Everyone else is sticking a log into their bike wheels, so we should too!”
Yes! This person gets it.
If someone didn’t put a stick in their spokes they’d have an unfair advantage. It’s only right we do it too.
Sir, that is a stick, not a log.
You still have to have a human check AI because you can’t blindly trust AI’s output. Just because it can crank out code you’d be an idiot if you just used it without having someone who understood it reviewing it. I’ve tried it and constantly find issues with it.
Maybe we can replace CEOs with AI. Would save a lot more money.
Heh! Good one
The benefits are in the stock prices.
I work at an accounting company that provides tech services to banks. Really tiring shit but it was the only thing where they didn’t ask you for 100 years of previous experience to enter an entry-level position.
Unrelated but you’ve got that on your resume. And it sounds interesting field tbh.
I work in a similar field and, even though we also use AI for real benefit internally, customers seem to have (a lot of) special budget earmarked for ”ai tools” so if we can offer them something that’s vaguely AI then we can charge more
Look, I have my share of frustrating experiences with AI every day because we’re being pushed to use it at work and for most tasks it’s… umderwelming.
But people do use it. Be it for doing stupid memes, planning their days, life coaching or searching the web. And as a company you want to be where your customers are. AI companies are basically just trying to push usage, now, by spending huge amounts of cash. That’s why they do big talks about AGI but they are all creating freaking AI browsers.
Once AI becomes the de-facto standard way people consume information, your company wants to be visible by AI, their products to be recommended by AI and purchasable from AI. Some companies might actually benefit from it, most will not (like it happened when everyone had to have an ecommerce site and shitty mobile app) but that’s what I see happening.
Having a hard time figuring out what you do. Are you techs or accounts? Or is the tech a spinoff division of the accounting firm?
I guess more on the “tech” side, we mostly just solve requests from banks, most of them are repetitive tasks or fixing some weird incident. I call it “customer support without seeing the customer”.
I bet they use Excel really well, but hide it behind a pretty web portal.
I can imagine accounting companies that get brought in as business consultants, then use the opening to upsell technical solutions.
