Could be a big OUCH!!

Manhattan-sized data centers are getting set to power AI social video fluff. Soaring valuations for startups with TBD products. If you’re looking for anecdotal signs of an AI bubble, there are plenty.

In fact, three out of three historians asked agree: The economy is indeed in the grips of a major bubble around this technology.

“History suggests that it’s extremely likely that, yes, we are in an AI bubble right now,” David Sicilia, associate professor of economic history at the University of Maryland, said.

While the dot-com boom might be the most reached-for analogy to the current moment, the history of business and technology is sprinkled with these sorts of tech-fueled investor frenzies, from railways in the 1840s to radio in the 1920s.

“It’s not inevitable that bubbles are going to develop around just any old new technology,” Lee Vinsel, associate professor of tech and society at Virginia Tech, said. “What seems more inevitable is seeing bubbles develop around technologies that are dubbed in the public understanding as ‘transformative’ from the get-go.”