I'll push back against most of the points in your comment.

    > The demand for AI is currently overwhelming. As in, can't build data centers and GPUs melting overwhelming, companies growing 3x in a month while already at multi-billion revenues.

This isn't a sign of a successful, sustainable business; it's what a bubble looks like. Between the aggressive marketing (including astroturfing!) that LLM companies are engaged in, the perceived stock market advantage companies can gain by shoving LLMs into their offering, and the missile-gap-style approach that many businesses are taking around this, this centre cannot possibly hold.

    > The models get better and better, Chinese open source is falling further and further behind American companies

American companies are, to be fair, flaunting safety and ignoring the wider social impacts of this technology, and both the US federal and state governments seem to be more than willing to go with the flow on that, probably at least partly because of a recognition that the LLM industry is propping up a significant part of the US economy.

    > The productivity gains are, at this point, obvious

They are, emphatically, not. For me and my peers (most of us, individual contributors in software -- and emphatically, those of us working at companies who haven't fully leaned into vibe coding), our jobs have become babysitting claude agents and spending most of our time cleaning up its messes and doing code review. Short-term, sure, this might lead to some productivity gains, but long-term, this is going to lead to mass burnout.

    > The best talent works (or wants to work) in America and get compensated obscene amounts, the most capital flows through America, this is still by far the best place to start a technology business in the world

Unfortunately, the US is in the midst of cracking down on immigration, and the international perception of the country is increasingly that it is an unsafe one.

    > I think American technology was on the decline for the past few years before LLMs, but for the foreseeable future as long as American companies control the talent flywheel I think the new world of tech is going to be much more American than before.

What I see in the US's LLM-backed economy is what I see in many businesses in this same economy, increasingly: the blanket of AI is being used to paper over serious, systemic issues in the organization, but this clearly won't hold. In a world where we have an ounce of responsibility for what we produce, and where customers care about the quality (notably, quality as in correctness) of what's being delivered, this will eventually collapse.

▲ vanuatu 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Thank you for your perspective!

I think it's obvious that demand is overwhelming supply right now. I agree that we don't know how much of the demand is due to perception, perverse incentives, or poor management, and how much of the demand is 'real'. I personally believe that the demand is mostly real and will continue to go up, but I don't have a crystal ball.

I also acknowledge that the productivity gains are highly dependent on your specific company's implementation and the work that you're doing. I think the role of a technical IC (which I am as well) is going to be managing fleets of agents, and many people who aren't suited to that type of work will leave the industry (and many people who are will join).

I generally agree with you on the points about American politics, I don't think the way they are cracking down on immigration is very wise.

As for correctness - it's a nontrivial problem to deploy AI in prod that works and doesn't blow up over millions of runs+. Hence why the initial value has accrued to the intelligence layer (labs) but the bulk of the remaining value will accrue to the applied layer in my opinion.

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harimau777 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So the people who "aren't suited" just get thrown out with the trash. I'm sure that will help with public perception of AI.

	▲	_verandaguy an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The other side of this is that they're replaced with people who aren't qualified to evaluate the work output of the LLMs.

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datadrivenangel 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I will buy your entire supply of money for $0.50 per dollar.

Our demand for compute and software is infinite, but our price sensitivity is also high.