separate from this article, I don't have a very high opinion of the author. he has an astonishing record of being uninformed and/or just plain wrong in everything I've ever heard him write about.
but as far as this article, the "tech capex as a percentage of GDP growth" is an incredible cherrypicking of statistics to create a narrative... when tech became a boodbath starting in 2022, the rest of the economy continued on strong. all the way until 2025, the rest of the economy was booming while tech layoffs and budget cuts after covid were exploding. so starting that chart in early 2023 when tech had bottomed out (compared to the rest of the economy) is misleading. tech capex as a percentage of the overall GDP has been consistently rising since 2010 - https://gqg.com/highchartal-paper-large-tech-capex-spend-as-...
this is obviously related to the advent of public cloud computing more than anything. why this chart appears to clash with the author's chart is the author's chart specifically calls out just percentage of GDP growth, not overall GDP. so the natural conclusion is that while tech has been in borderline recessionary conditions since 2022, it is now becoming stable (if not recovering) while the rest of the economy that didn't have the post-covid pullback (nor the same boom during covid, of course) is now having issues largely due to geopolitics and global trade.
is there an AI bubble? who cares. it's not as meaningful to the broader economy as these cherrypicking stats imply. if it's a bubble, it represents maybe .3% of the GDP. no one would be screaming from the mountain tops about a shaky economy and a bubble if that same .3% was represented by a bubble in the restaurant industry or manufacturing. in fact, in recent years, those industries DID have inflationary bubbles and it was treated like a positive thing for the most part.
I think a lot of this overanalysis and prodding for flaws in tech is generally an attempt at schadenfreude hoping that tech becomes just another industry like carpentry or plumbing. in particular, hoping for a scenario where tech is not as culturally impactful as it is today. because people are worried and frustrated about the economy, don't understand the value of tech, and hope it stops sucking up so much funding and focus by society in general.
they're not 100% wrong in being untrusting or skeptical of tech. the tech industry hasn't always been the best steward of the wealth and power it possesses. but they are generally wrong about valuations or impact of tech on the economy. like the people spending all this money are clueless. the stock market fell 900 points on friday, wiping out over $1 trillion in value over the course of a couple hours. yet the hundreds of billions invested in datacenters is a sign of impending economic doom.
is the economy good? I don't think it's doing great. but it has little to do with AI one way or another. "AI" is just another trend of making technology more accessible to the masses. no more scarier, complicated, or impactful than microcomputers, DSL, cellular phones, or youtube. and while the economy crashed in 2008, youtube and facebook did well. yet there was none of this dooming about tech specifically at the time simply because the tech industry wasn't as controversial at the time.
He is a partisan hack. During the election last year he consistently posted that gdp growth was real, the economy was booming, and it was all thanks to Biden/Harris. I called him out on it on Twitter, and he was unabashed about being a partisan propagandist. Not surprisingly, now that the politics have changed, the history changes.
Anything he says on any topic should be treated as suspect, and probably best ignored.
The person you're replying to also acknowledged GDP was growing despite the tech layoffs. Is your assertion that GDP wasn't growing in 2024? If so, I'd love to see any evidence.
I’m a little baffled by your question. I think perhaps you are making the common and understandable mistake of assuming that every reply is a counter argument to the post it is replying to?
TFA is asserting that non-AI growth is negative, which is contrary to the authors claims during the election last year. This supports the post I was replying to.
I figured you were agreeing with your parent comment. What I find baffling is you seemingly agreeing with gp in distrusting author of TFA, but supporting your position with a statement in direct conflict to the content of gp's comment.
How I read the thread (paraphrasing)
> Itsnowandnever: author has a questionable reporting record... GDP growth has been consistent since 2022...
>> adastra22: Agreed, an absolute partisan hack! Author even dishonestly claimed GDP grew in 2024.
since 2022, there's been many times a recession has been declared but commentators have said it was all "vibecession" and the economy was strong. now that the same commentary is happening under a new administration, the messaging is that the sky is falling.
There's a lot of people who can only process their own failures by assuming that everyone and everything must also, eventually fail; that anything successful is temporary and "not real". And there's a lot of down people in the tech industry right now; we're in a recession, after all.
There's also a significant number of people (e.g. Doctorow) who have made their entire brand on doomerism; and whether they actually believe what they say or have just become addicted to the views is an irrelevant implementation detail.
The anti-AI slop that dominates HackerNews doesn't serve anything productive or interesting. Its just an excuse for people to not read the article, go straight to the comments, and parrot the same thing they've parroted twenty times.
There is good anti-AI content. I love reading articles concerning AI's limitations and the negative externalities of a world where we're increasingly outsourcing thought, and maybe even taste and authority, to unfeeling, soulless, unaccountable computers. What does wealth disparity look like in a world of billion dollar infrastructure rollouts?
"HackerNews AI Slop" is not that. HackerNews AI Slop (tm) is "Dropbox won't succeed because its just a wrapper around SFTP". It is low-effort drivel written by people who know a lot about one domain (software), and that gives them authority to speak on all domains (marketing, macroeconomics).
I read and appreciate articles that leave a mark on my heart; that raise novel viewpoints, or that are researched extraordinarily well. Yapping for the sixteenth time "they spend so much money markets crashy crashy bad bad" is so deeply boring, just another parroting voice in the echo chamber of ideas that everyone already knows. Challenge yourself. Be original. An AI could have written this article.
but it is strange that people have bought into the Sam Altman AGI marketing so much that this moderately useful but (in my opinion) not revolutionary tech we're calling AI is so controversial. it'll all good and well to talk about pros and cons of industry initiatives but we've gotten to a stage of hyperbolic paranoia right now that's coming from this, in my opinion, duality of anti-tech broader society contrasting with the carpetbagger AGI hype
You are way too nice with the author, if I were you I’d omit the fake empathy which dilutes your substantial points. The author is hallucinating worse than AI.
So what if other people downvote you for being too critical.
ha I honestly don't have that strong of an opinion of the author because the few tidbits I've seen I didn't even read all the way because the info on the surface was so flawed. this was the first article I've actually read. so I can't say they're malicious or hallucinating because I haven't looked into why they have the opinions they do. but I'm definitely not inclined to trust them, which was why I had to say that I've recognized the pattern of "Noah Smith" (I don't know who they are, where they work, nothing) seems to just ship out their own copy/paste of whatever trendy (and flawed) opinion is hot at the moment
but as far as this article, the "tech capex as a percentage of GDP growth" is an incredible cherrypicking of statistics to create a narrative... when tech became a boodbath starting in 2022, the rest of the economy continued on strong. all the way until 2025, the rest of the economy was booming while tech layoffs and budget cuts after covid were exploding. so starting that chart in early 2023 when tech had bottomed out (compared to the rest of the economy) is misleading. tech capex as a percentage of the overall GDP has been consistently rising since 2010 - https://gqg.com/highchartal-paper-large-tech-capex-spend-as-... this is obviously related to the advent of public cloud computing more than anything. why this chart appears to clash with the author's chart is the author's chart specifically calls out just percentage of GDP growth, not overall GDP. so the natural conclusion is that while tech has been in borderline recessionary conditions since 2022, it is now becoming stable (if not recovering) while the rest of the economy that didn't have the post-covid pullback (nor the same boom during covid, of course) is now having issues largely due to geopolitics and global trade.
is there an AI bubble? who cares. it's not as meaningful to the broader economy as these cherrypicking stats imply. if it's a bubble, it represents maybe .3% of the GDP. no one would be screaming from the mountain tops about a shaky economy and a bubble if that same .3% was represented by a bubble in the restaurant industry or manufacturing. in fact, in recent years, those industries DID have inflationary bubbles and it was treated like a positive thing for the most part.
I think a lot of this overanalysis and prodding for flaws in tech is generally an attempt at schadenfreude hoping that tech becomes just another industry like carpentry or plumbing. in particular, hoping for a scenario where tech is not as culturally impactful as it is today. because people are worried and frustrated about the economy, don't understand the value of tech, and hope it stops sucking up so much funding and focus by society in general.
they're not 100% wrong in being untrusting or skeptical of tech. the tech industry hasn't always been the best steward of the wealth and power it possesses. but they are generally wrong about valuations or impact of tech on the economy. like the people spending all this money are clueless. the stock market fell 900 points on friday, wiping out over $1 trillion in value over the course of a couple hours. yet the hundreds of billions invested in datacenters is a sign of impending economic doom.
is the economy good? I don't think it's doing great. but it has little to do with AI one way or another. "AI" is just another trend of making technology more accessible to the masses. no more scarier, complicated, or impactful than microcomputers, DSL, cellular phones, or youtube. and while the economy crashed in 2008, youtube and facebook did well. yet there was none of this dooming about tech specifically at the time simply because the tech industry wasn't as controversial at the time.