> After looking at Nvidia's orderbook, it's a reasonable conclusion that nothing bad will happen for at least another year. In which case Ed Zitron is off by at least a year.

Zitron is fairly clear that nothing is going to happen for a year or so — he says himself that he thinks there's another round of funding possible for both OpenAI and Anthropic.

▲

minimaltom 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Idk about that. A bunch of his wrong predictions were predicated on things turning sour sooner than a "year or so" than now.

▲

dofm 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Right, but you know the thing. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Predicting the medium future is hardest.

Markets don't just pre-plan their behaviour three years earlier and act it out lock-step. Other circumstances can change. By now, the world's financial press has covered some of the scariest aspects of this, and the situation has evolved.

There are other moves (the OpenAI/Blackrock AI debt securitization idea for one) that could delay it even further.

Zitron, I get the impression, has moved on to talking about the horsemen of the bubble apocalypse — talking about banner events that would need to happen for his predictions to be true. This is safer ground for a forecaster, because every forecast affects the future.

His shorter term predictions have not all failed by any means: he described Oracle's woes before the ratings agency downgraded them specifically because of OpenAI.

But most of his predictions will be irrelevant if the insane securitization plan happens. Because it will stop being about an AI bubble then; the worst risk will be the collapse of the entire US economy. It will need a different kind of analyst.

Me, I don't really care either way. I'm not on the cloud AI hype train, I don't work for a YC company, I'm not an American taxpayer so I will not be directly on the hook, and as Americans like to point out, the UK economy is behind on the whole AI thing so (unlike Ireland, which the USA will 100% leave to fail) we are ironically insulated. Maybe a couple of small British investment banks will fail and a pension fund or two will default.

For the most part we'll just watch the flames.

I do enjoy watching a Brit — albeit an ex-pat — upset a bunch of po-faced AI evangelists. It’s like “Itanic” all over again.

I think he is directionally correct. My own impression is that the bubble will burst at the worst time, and so my assessment is that, given the way this is entangled with the functioning of the USA as an economic power and with the future of the US political hard right, it will therefore darkly but poetically burst sometime around Labor Day 2028, which is the worst possible time.

▲

minimaltom 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I agree he is directionally correct, or at least is a vessel to raise important points and valid criticisms.

But predictions need to be specific and falsifable. If not, its just rag-chewing over a beer (luv that shit, but i aint predicting on taco tuesday). If they arent falsifable, then its not a prediction.

I think a lot of the HN comments generally can be described as one camp which cares about and enforces the rigor of predictions and trying to direct limited ear-time to voices which tend to get predictions right, vs the other camp that puts more weight towards directional accuracy.

▲

beepbooptheory 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Why would one ever predict anything at all if it was always falsifiable? Do you mean like eventually falsifiable? Like, I don't know about you, but I tend to go ahead and do any falsifying of something first if possible, before I resort to predicting.

Can you give an example of what a good/proper prediction might be, even in a hypothetical universe, in this schema? Does one "predict" when they play blackjack? Or is there a different concept for that kind of thing?

▲

minimaltom 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Falsifiable means able to be correct or incorrect. So if i said that my stepmom was kinda whelp, that wouldnt be falsifable, because like what does that even mean. But if I said my stepmom is going to be on her third marriage by the end of the decade, that is, because in 2030 someone can yell at me either way.

This is a spectrum of course: a prediction that OAI will collapse is probably right as _eventually_ all companies come to an end, but under that interpretation, the prediction is useless. It's more signal / useful / falsifable to say OAI is going to collapse around/at <year> due to <thesis>.

Anyway thats my two cents. Its fine to outline forces and trends, but when you make predictions there are useful (better, falsifiable) and useless.

	▲	beepbooptheory 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The first example is not a prediction at all?

▲

emp17344 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I honestly don’t understand why you care so much about the “rigor of predictions”. Short-term predictions are almost always at least somewhat inaccurate, no matter who’s doing the predicting. Directional accuracy strikes me as far more important.

▲

minimaltom 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Take a look at the thread below yours, but basically if the prediction has to be wishy-washy or just interpreted as 'direction', theres way more noise and way less signal. Why not just state the underlying trend/forces instead? Why lean into the online culture of predictions and do it badly.

Bad (form) prediction: OAI is gonna be wobbly in a bit Good (form) prediction (could be totally wrong): OAI as we know it today is going to collapse due to running out of money around/at 20xx.

And sure we can be pedantic about detail, but the litmus test is: is the prediction useful if you had a crystal ball and you could know if it was true/false a priori?

▲

emp17344 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Who cares about predictions to this extent? They’re practically always incorrect or flawed in some way, and most people understand and accept that. No need to be so neurotic about it.

	▲	minimaltom 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That’s the crux of it!! You don’t have to agree but people do care, and I think (ignoring the obvious partisans) that’s the two dominant camps of commenters on this thread. One pony’s trash is another pony’s treasure, so I guess here one persons pedanticism is another persons hobby.