They've spectacularly failed three times in the past few years. Cryptocurrency, then NFTs, now AI. That's against a backdrop of every other tech thing either stagnating, being underwhelming, or being an outright scam like Tesla. The technofuturism of the 2010s is increasingly passe as things get worse and the people most obnoxiously pushing it are Malthusian freaks that have spent the past decade becoming popular targets for hate. During that boom cycle they invested everything in stock buybacks, the latest hype cycle, and going public at the expense of ratfucking their service for its users. The sector is facing layoff waves even before the crash. They're starting this cycle in a much worse position even if they're in "too big to fail" territory.
They have to go bigger. In 2007 it was "wow you can be totally connected to everything at all times", in 2015 it was "wow we can stop climate change and every car can drive itself", in 2018 it was "wow we can reinvent economics and achieve the Ron Paul Utopia", in 2020 it was "wow we can reinvent creativity and democratise art", and in 2023 it was "wow we built a superbrain that is about to replace most human workers". Each time they've had to go bigger to maintain the same hype. How do you go bigger than "we put god in a machine" without it sounding implausible from the people who couldn't put god in a machine or replace money or solve climate change or do something new with a smartphone in over a decade? Blockchain won't do it, wearable tech won't do it, internet of things won't do it, decentralised <X> won't do it. Unless they have some completely new buzzword in the pipeline, everything they could latch onto next that's even bigger than AI like fusion power is already poisoned by the same hype economy. Whatever they do have, we can be almost certain that it will create the same ecosystem of grifters and scammers who immediately ruin its reputation.
It's hard for me to gauge based on two things:
They've spectacularly failed three times in the past few years. Cryptocurrency, then NFTs, now AI. That's against a backdrop of every other tech thing either stagnating, being underwhelming, or being an outright scam like Tesla. The technofuturism of the 2010s is increasingly passe as things get worse and the people most obnoxiously pushing it are Malthusian freaks that have spent the past decade becoming popular targets for hate. During that boom cycle they invested everything in stock buybacks, the latest hype cycle, and going public at the expense of ratfucking their service for its users. The sector is facing layoff waves even before the crash. They're starting this cycle in a much worse position even if they're in "too big to fail" territory.
They have to go bigger. In 2007 it was "wow you can be totally connected to everything at all times", in 2015 it was "wow we can stop climate change and every car can drive itself", in 2018 it was "wow we can reinvent economics and achieve the Ron Paul Utopia", in 2020 it was "wow we can reinvent creativity and democratise art", and in 2023 it was "wow we built a superbrain that is about to replace most human workers". Each time they've had to go bigger to maintain the same hype. How do you go bigger than "we put god in a machine" without it sounding implausible from the people who couldn't put god in a machine or replace money or solve climate change or do something new with a smartphone in over a decade? Blockchain won't do it, wearable tech won't do it, internet of things won't do it, decentralised <X> won't do it. Unless they have some completely new buzzword in the pipeline, everything they could latch onto next that's even bigger than AI like fusion power is already poisoned by the same hype economy. Whatever they do have, we can be almost certain that it will create the same ecosystem of grifters and scammers who immediately ruin its reputation.