alt.hn

2/21/2026 at 11:15:14 PM

Ask HN: If the "AI bubble" pops, will it really be that dramatic?

by moomoo11

2/23/2026 at 7:41:56 PM

The AI bubble won't really "pop because it isn't a bubble in the traditional sense.

AI isn't being speculated on nearly as bad as crypto was in 2021, or housing was in 2007, or dotcom era businesses were in 2000.

Revenues are ballooning like crazy for AI providers. There is insane demand for AI compute, meaning valuations are justified by revenue, not chasing hyper-speculation.

What may happen is that regulatory environments make the next generation of models unviable for release (because they are too dangerous to release and no AI company wants to deal with the liability), which would lead to lower API revenues and thus a sell-off. However any API that's too dangerous to release would be extremely powerful as something the AI companies use on their own to push products/research forward, which would still increase their revenue.

by atleastoptimal

2/21/2026 at 11:39:39 PM

Well, the Great Fiscal Crisis did not result in mass starvation, so in some sense, it "wasn't all that dramatic". But, it was a big deal in comparison to a normal downturn. So, it depends on what you mean.

Medium term, I think it would release a lot of resources (skilled workers, productive capacity, energy) to use on something more productive. But then, I kind of hoped for that after the GFC, also...

by rossdavidh

2/22/2026 at 12:13:02 AM

No the economy doesn’t tumble. All of the major public tech companies have real businesses that were profitable before AI and will be profitable after AI. All except Amazon are spending money out of their own revenues.

Businesses aren’t going to stop growing because of AI, the only public company really dependent on AI are NVidia and Oracle. Oracle because it is borrowing money to support build out for OpenAI.

by raw_anon_1111

2/22/2026 at 12:36:28 AM

lol @ “all except amazon are spending their own revenues…”

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/02/12/alphabet-100-year-bond-d...

by bdangubic

2/22/2026 at 1:28:35 AM

Apple also borrowed money - pre AI when it had plenty of cash, have you checked Google’s last year earnings and cash on hand?

by raw_anon_1111

2/22/2026 at 3:39:26 AM

> all except Amazon are spending money out of their own revenues.

so apple and google and amazon and…? :)

earnings and cash on hand are not relevant, they are all borrowing like crazy to fund the ai

by bdangubic

2/22/2026 at 3:45:45 AM

Apple was borrowing like crazy before AI. How much money do you think Apple is spending on AI aside from the $1 billion they are paying for Gemini? That’s less than 1% of their profit and hell that’s less than 5% of what Google pays them.

by raw_anon_1111

2/22/2026 at 5:09:26 PM

I didn’t think we debating whether or not they are spending but whether they are borrowing (you said only amazon is) - and they are borrowing, not just amazon

by bdangubic

2/23/2026 at 1:35:30 AM

I’m saying only Amazon is borrowing because it doesn’t have the cashflow to fund its expenditures. Apple wasn’t borrowing to spend money in 2018…

by raw_anon_1111

2/22/2026 at 8:21:33 PM

A pop hurts valuations, not demand for useful software.

by lyaocean

2/22/2026 at 4:30:54 AM

The distinction nobody makes is between the AI infrastructure bubble and AI utility. The infrastructure spending is clearly overheated - the capex numbers are insane relative to actual revenue. But the underlying technology genuinely works for specific use cases. I use LLMs daily in production pipelines and they save me hours of work that would otherwise require hiring. The bubble popping would mean GPU prices crater, API costs drop further, and the actual useful applications become cheaper to run. That's not a catastrophe for builders - it's a gift. The people who get hurt are investors in pure-play AI companies with no real moat and NVIDIA's stock price.

by umairnadeem123

2/22/2026 at 12:20:59 AM

[dead]

by TesterVetter