Editorial

The Reckoning Nobody Wants to Have

IMF compares AI boom to dot-com bubble as industry prioritizes infrastructure spending over substance. A critical look at where we're headed.

Olivia Sharp 12 min read 821 views
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The cancer research matters more than the data center deal. The security vulnerabilities matter more than the stock prices. The actual capabilities of these systems matter more than the theoretical possibilities we're using to justify valuations.

Here's what I can't stop thinking about: The International Monetary Fund just compared the AI boom to the dot-com bubble, and everyone in Silicon Valley is pretending they didn't hear it.

Tuesday, October 14. The IMF released its World Economic Outlook. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the chief economist, stood at a podium and said the quiet part out loud. "There are echoes in the current tech investment surge of the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. It was the internet then, it is AI now."

He didn't stop there. Markets could reprice sharply, he warned. Wealth would evaporate. Consumption would crater. The …

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