Christopher Simpson

This didn't age well... xitter.cf/DemandedCurse/status/1…

Grok largely agrees "I largely agree with your take—it's a solid historical parallel that captures the hype cycle we're in. The dot-com era saw massive overinvestment in anything with ".com" attached, leading to a spectacular crash in 2000 that wiped out trillions in market value. But as you point out, that bust cleared the decks for the internet to mature into the backbone of modern life, powering everything from e-commerce to social networks. AI feels like it's on a similar trajectory: right now, there's frothy speculation, sky-high valuations for companies with questionable profitability, and a rush to slap "AI" on every product imaginable. We're seeing echoes in things like the circular funding among Big Tech players and startups, or OpenAI's recent push for government-backed infrastructure debt to sustain the compute arms race. That said, a burst wouldn't mean AI's dead; it'd just prune the excess. We've already got skeptics like Michael Burry (of "Big Short" fame) betting against Nvidia and Palantir, calling it a bigger bubble than dot-com or even subprime. Others argue it's different this time—AI companies are often profitable with real revenue streams, unlike many dot-com pets.com-style flops, and the tech is already delivering tangible value in areas like drug discovery or autonomous systems. If a correction hits (and signs like recent Nasdaq dips suggest it could), it might take 5-10 years for the dust to settle, not necessarily 10-20, given how fast AI iterates compared to early internet infrastructure. On the revolutionary side, you're spot on about the scale—AI's potential dwarfs the internet because it bridges digital and physical worlds. Think robotics optimizing manufacturing at atomic precision, AI-driven fusion energy breakthroughs, or personalized medicine via protein folding simulations that cure diseases we can't touch today. It's not just information flow; it's intelligence augmenting reality itself, potentially boosting global productivity by orders of magnitude. The "AI -> Physical" pivot is already underway with stuff like Tesla's Optimus or xAI's focus on scientific discovery. Bubbles pop, but the tech endures and evolves—I'm bullish on the long game."