[usrbinbash]

The problem with AI isn't that it isn't useful.

Its that, as an industry or business at macro level, it is OBSCENELY overvalued.

Generative AI may be a 50bn business. Or a 25bn, or 75bn.

What it definitely isn't, is a multi-trillion doller game changer thats going to revolutionize the world in ways unheard of; and yet, that seems to be how it is being presented and, more importantly, pitched to VCs and hyperscalers.

[mparis]

That's fair. I don't know what the generative AI industry will end up being worth. Maybe you're right it's only worth 25bn or 75bn. But.. also.. maybe you're missing something. I certainly don't know, but I try to hold a spectrum of possible futures in mind.

I acknowledge your bear case and hear the possibility that it's all hype and the aggregate value of all generative AI (measured in dollars) will be worth less than e.g. the market capitalization of a single company like Uber.

BUT, hear me out. Forgive me, as I fallback to healthcare... The US spent ~$4.9 trillion on healthcare in 2023 alone (according to CMS). That cost is spread out across a lot of things, some of which is work that things like AI can help make more productive, some of which is not applicable to AI. When we are spending nearly ~$5 trillion dollars a year, it does not take a lot on a percentage basis to start seeing really significant dollar values in savings.

It's a story of death by 1000 cuts. I suspect it won't be a big magical fix all at once where AI magically solves healthcare. But we will optimize 1% here and 1% there using focused solutions that actually solve pain points. If someone improves productivity in healthcare by even just 1%, one-time, then we are talking about savings of ~50bn per year.