Bubble bubble toil and trouble

A great deal has been said about the promise of AI. Its rapid development is gobbling up investment at a ravenous rate and data centres are doing the same thing to the environment thanks largely to AI’s insatiable demand for energy. All well and good then, not least for those who are betting on this bubble to burst, as seems highly likely. I don’t blame the technology for the current ‘AI mania’ which resembles the 19th century railway mania experienced in the world’s then most technologically developed country—Britain. Then as now there were scoundrels who despite themselves helped construct the vastly expanded connectivity of society. Who is today’s ‘Railway King’ George Hudson? Many railway schemes died a death in the boom and bust history of the railway manias, but after each one a resurgence of speculation kept things going. I won’t suggest that the AI mania will in decades from now meet its own nemesis in a Dr Beeching. No, not decades from now. Much sooner than that. I predict a lot of people are going to get burnt in this bubble if that’s not a mixed metaphor too far.