Evidence is growing that the boom in Large Language Models (LLM) is about to bust.
A new study from Upwork, meant to boost Artificial Intelligence in the workplace, finds 47% of workers have no idea how to achieve the productivity gains with AI their bosses expect. As developer Baldur Bjanason notes, 77% say it has negatively impacted their productivity. These are incredibly bad numbers for a tool that’s been in production for almost two years. Especially in one that tech companies are spending trillions to implement.
There are people who can talk more rationally about this than I can, like Gary Marcus. I would like to focus on the larger implications of this failure.
I call the problem Techbro GroupThink. All the bros saw how cool ChatGPT would be, so they all got together to push it in unison. There were no dissenting voices, and now they’re all going to pay the price.
This isn’t the first time Silicon Valley has gone off the deep end, led by its VCs, almost all of them men from a small subset of elite colleges. They did it in the last decade with Web 3.0, they did it with Bitcoin, and they did it with SPACs.
It’s true groupthink is profitable, in the short term. It creates a wave, and riding the wave leads to glorious profits. You don’t want to miss the wave. The trouble is, waves crest, then they crash. Everyone loses. Those who bought into the hype are ruined, and never invest again.
Avoiding TechBro Groupthink
We’re seeing groupthink in other areas, because of the tight-knit nature of Internet communities. We’re seeing it in politics, in sports, and in entertainment. The bandwagon effect is fine in those areas.
In business, however, it costs money. In tech, it can cost a lot of money.
Groupthink has been behind every boom-and-bust cycle of this century. It was behind the dot-bomb, and the mortgage mess. Not to mention Web 3.0, Bitcoin, WeWork and Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse.
It’s not useful for everyone to agree. It’s not useful to shut out dissenting voices. It’s not useful to ignore the warnings in the dark. It’s not useful for TechBros to hang together, all nodding in agreement like Beavis & Butthead.
The best CEOs, the best investors, and the best tech leaders know how to discount groupthink. That’s not the same thing as cynicism. It’s understanding the nature of waves. You want to buy low and sell high, even while analysts are screaming you should do the opposite.
That’s why, for the last few weeks, I’ve been slowly backing away from my AI investments, focusing on areas built around interfaces or real productivity. Over one-third of my retirement account is even tied to government bonds. While government debt is exploding, the yield on such instruments is falling, which means the value of bonds is rising.
I don’t think this is a long-term plan, but while Techbro GroupThink controls the markets, it’s a natural way to fade it.
