The AI boom is on borrowed time
The hype around the AI boom could be on its way out – but why?

In San Francisco “it is taken as read” that artificial intelligence (AI) “will transform” the world, says The Economist. But for all the hype, the technology has so far had “almost no” discernible impact on business practices or productivity. There are signs of a “backlash” to the AI boom, says Neil Shearing of Capital Economics.
Recent investment analysts’ notes have highlighted “the technology’s shortcomings”. Such a period of disillusionment was inevitable. New technologies always see a lag between introduction and wider economic effects. IT developed in the 1980s and early 1990s didn’t raise US productivity until the late 1990s.
“The boost to productivity from AI will be substantial”, but it could be a few years yet before that feeds through to corporate earnings and GDP. Just as during the “railway mania” of the 1840s, “investors are attempting to capture the benefits of new technologies ahead of them fully materialising in the real economy”.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Is AI overrated?
At the peak of 19th-century railway mania, investors were pouring the equivalent of “around 7% of Britain’s national income” into rail projects, says Edward Chancellor on Breakingviews.
As today, there was much grand talk of technology advancing “human civilisation”. Overcapacity and resulting losses were “large and largely foreseeable”. There were, for example, “three separate lines connecting Liverpool with Leeds”. The boom ended with a financial crisis in 1847. Yet the parallel between AI and rail is not perfect. By the 1840s steam locomotives were a fairly mature technology.
By contrast, the “hype over self-teaching computers” appears much more exaggerated. ”Daron Acemoglu of MIT argues that AI buzz 'obscures the reality of what is really a quite limited technology',” says Andrew Orlowski in The Telegraph. By his estimate, “just 4.6% of tasks can be reliably automated”. That makes AI more comparable to an Excel spreadsheet than the harbinger of a “fourth industrial revolution”.
AI uses pattern recognition to guess the right response to a query, but an “intrinsic feature” of such machines is that they confidently “make stuff up” when they can’t find a reliable answer (a problem known as “hallucination”). This renders AI “useless for many potential use cases”. Previous technology bubbles left us with Victorian railways and internet fibre infrastructure.
But today’s tech firms are “spending $1 trillion on data centres” that will soon become outdated as new chips hit the market. “This is capital incineration on a vast scale.” Financial “bubbles can take a long time to burst”, so there is reason to stay invested for now in the beneficiaries of the AI spending splurge: the “chip manufacturers, utilities and other companies exposed to the coming buildout of the power grid”, says Jim Covello of Goldman Sachs.
AI is hardly the first Silicon Valley “tech hype cycle. Virtual reality, the metaverse and blockchain” also attracted huge investments, but still have few real-world applications. Covello thinks that “if important-use cases” for AI “don’t start to become more apparent in the next 12-18 months”, then investors’ enthusiasm “may begin to fade”.
This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.
Sign up for MoneyWeek's newsletters
Get the latest financial news, insights and expert analysis from our award-winning MoneyWeek team, to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019.
Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere.
He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful.
Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.
-
8 of the best lakeside properties for sale
The best lakeside properties – from a house on the southeastern shore of Loch Lomond, to a 15th-century hall overlooking a lake in King’s Lynn, Norfolk
-
Gold’s allure and why you should never 'pay a premium for graded coins'
It is easy to become distracted by the beauty of gold, but remember why you buy it, says Dominic Frisby
-
Investment opportunities in the world of Coca-Cola
There is far more to Coca-Cola than just one giant firm. The companies that bottle and distribute the ubiquitous soft drink are promising investments in their own right.
-
Streaming services are the new magic money tree for investors – but for how long?
Opinion Streaming services are in full bloom and laden with profits, but beware – winter is coming, warns Matthew Lynn
-
The next phase of the AI boom
The technology is about to become far more widespread, says Dan McEvoy. Here’s how to profit
-
'Pension funds shouldn't be pushed into private equity sector'
Opinion The private-equity party is over, so don't push pension funds into the sector, says Merryn Somerset Webb.
-
The strange world of quantum computing
If we can harness the potential of quantum physics, modern computers may come to seem like plodding calculators in comparison with the machines of the future
-
Greg Abel: Warren Buffett’s heir takes the throne
Greg Abel is considered a safe pair of hands as he takes centre stage at Berkshire Hathaway. But he arrives after one of the hardest acts to follow in investment history, Warren Buffett. Can he thrive?
-
Who will be the next Warren Buffett?
Opinion There won’t be another Warren Buffett. Times have changed, and the opportunities are no longer there, says Matthew Lynn.
-
Will Comstock crash – or soar?
Opinion The upside for Comstock, a solar panel-recycling and biomass-refining group, dwarfs the downside, says Dominic Frisby.