What I'm confused about though is what makes current AI evaluations a bubble.
Bubbles usually exists when future speculation outpaces productivity: eventually some realization leads the market to no longer believe in that future speculation, causing devaluation which triggers a mass sell-off.
However, AI companies currently have very high revenues and are growing extremely fast. Their valuation is backed by actual commerce. I can't imagine that there is any room for a bubble, as it is very clear where the market is at, and why demand for AI is so high.
Now, certain specific companies I can imagine losing a lot of valuation, but only contingent on the fact that they serve a middle-man role in the market that improvements in the underlying AI models will solve, which would likely only mean more revenue for the frontier labs, and thus less reason for a bubble.
Is it?
Just because of an invention is useful and world changing doesn’t mean it won’t cause a bubble.
This is not discussed publicly and is covered up for by raises, because there is growth and the hope that at some point the economics could work out. Which remains to be seen.
It's a variant on a Ponzi scheme. Investor hope is that at some point someone invents a way to stop losing money.
If at any point investors start to lose faith that this is going to be the case, the bubble pops.
Yet, thanks to our times, at least one major company appears to be thought-bubbling. It appears to hope (if it's not just window-dressing) that fusion will suddenly appear in the next 2 years ... to avoid driving regional electric rates sky high.