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I get your point about oil but I don't think it particularly applies to AI. Oil is a resource that runs out, we deplete it as we use it. AI would never run out in a similar fashion, in the worst case it would just stop being improved. And I highly doubt it would ever fully stop getting improved, as I presume there's basically always at least a few people working on any given field even in sectors that aren't hot. So with AI it's really just a question of will it live up to the expectations people have for explosive near-term improvements.
It's hard to really say whether AI is really intelligent. It's certainly a facsimile of intelligence, but whether it's actually "thinking" or just a stochastic parrot is an unresolved debate. If LLMs never evolve beyond next-token-predictors then AI may never reach human-level intelligence in most areas.
I fully agree that AI looks like it's in a bubble right now, as most investment is driven out of FOMO, not clear returns. It's just a question of 1) will intelligence scale near to actually give returns, and 2) if it doesn't, does a crash in valuation doom AI progress for a decade, or will it be like the dotcom bubble like you said?
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