Jeff Bezos Confirms AI Bubble: Will Lead to ‘Gigantic’ Societal Gains
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has acknowledged that the Artificial Intelligence (AI) market is currently experiencing a bubble, but he views this phenomenon as having a positive outcome. Speaking at the Italian Tech Week in Turin, the entrepreneur likened the current scenario to an “industrial bubble.”
Bezos stated that the high-flying excitement around AI is fueling an investment rush that funds both brilliant and poor ideas, echoing patterns observed during previous periods of technological euphoria. Nevertheless, he believes that in the long run, society will reap significant benefits from these ventures.
AI is an ‘Industrial Bubble,’ Says Bezos
According to the executive, the fundamental difference between the current wave of investment and purely financial bubbles lies in the productive impact.
“When people get very excited—as they are today with artificial intelligence, for example—every experiment gets investment, every company gets investment, both the good ideas and the bad ideas. Investors have a hard time, in the midst of all that excitement, discerning between the good ideas and the bad ideas,” said the Amazon founder.
He recalled that during the peak of the biotechnology boom in the 1990s, many companies failed, but the period also led to life-saving medicines.
“This is a kind of industrial bubble, different from financial bubbles. It may even be a good thing, because when the dust settles and we see who the winners are, society benefits from those inventions.”
This assessment mirrors the defense of other sector executives. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently stated he would rather “spend badly a few hundred billion dollars” than arrive late to the race for super AI.
Billion-Dollar Valuations
Enthusiasm for AI has inflated the value of companies at all stages of development. Tech giants like OpenAI and infrastructure providers, such as the so-called “neoclouds”—which offer computing power and specialized chips—are receiving billions in investment before even presenting finished products.
The creator of ChatGPT recently reached a valuation of $500 billion (approximately R$ 2.6 trillion, in direct conversion) in a secondary share sale. Meanwhile, BlackRock is reportedly negotiating the purchase of Aligned Data Centers for about $40 billion (R$ 212 billion), according to Bloomberg.
Despite the similarities to the late 1990s “dot-com” bubble that spurred the rise of big tech, Bezos believes the result now will be more productive. He argues that while some invested capital will be lost, the resulting innovations will offset the losses.
“When the dust settles and we see who the winners are, society will benefit from these inventions. That’s what’s going to happen here too. This is real. The benefits of artificial intelligence for society will be gigantic,” he concluded.
Information sourced from Fortune.
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