Posted on 02/09/2026 7:12:18 AM PST by Twotone
Why the artificial-intelligence advertising spree could be the last hurrah - like the dot-coms in 2000
OpenAI and Anthropic are losing enormous amounts of money, yet are given valuations as if they were real companies making real profits.
During Super Bowl XXXIV on Jan. 30, 2000, 14 of the 61 television advertisements were for internet startups. Perhaps they should have heeded the advice offered by E-Trade's "Waste of Money" ad that year, which featured a dancing monkey and ended with the on-screen punchline: "Well, we just wasted $2,000,000. What are you doing with your money?"
That Super Bowl was played just before the dot-com bubble burst. Fast-forward to 2026: This year's Super Bowl ads are heavily promoting AI, which may be the only indicator you need of whether AI is a bubble about to burst.
We have been writing about the limitations of artificial-intelligence systems since 2018:
Artificial intelligence is not at all like the real intelligence that comes from human brains. Computers do not know what words mean because computers do not experience the world the way we do. They do not even know what the real world is. Computers do not have the common sense or wisdom that humans accumulate by living life. Computers cannot formulate persuasive theories. Computers cannot do inductive reasoning or make long-range plans. ... In the age of Big Data, the real danger is not that computers are smarter than us, but that we think computers are smarter than us and therefore trust computers to make important decisions for us.
(Excerpt) Read more at morningstar.com ...
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The biggest systematic flaw I see in AI is its reliance upon “peer reviewed” data, as if the peerage has a monopoly on truth when that form of information aggregation has been showed to be terribly flawed due to academic groupthink and indolence.
Worse, once I show the bot the flaw in its reasoning to the point that it is admitted, it shows no capability of learning from session to session, which becomes a reliability liability.
AI has been useful to me in terms of reducing the time it takes me to look up a reference, but not much more.
Folks,
Think about the REPEATED message. How this is a created influence by media? All the media are discussing this.
When the media is pushing an idea one needs to look closely at the message.
I do not like AI and don’t invest in it but when the media pushes an idea, what is their agenda?
AI is going to fundamentally transform our world
The problem is that it is tough to say how long it will take to reach a profitable equilibrium and AI companies have a cash burn rate that is staggering
When the Dot Com bubble burst around 2000, it wiped a bunch of companies off the map. But the internet didn’t go away. It just kept getting bigger despite the bubble bursting.
If the AI bubble bursts, it will wipe a bunch of companies off the map. But AI isn’t going away. AI today is the dumbest that AI will be. It will only get better.
Ask it in every situation. Always.
The biggest systematic flaw I see in AI is its reliance upon “peer reviewed” data, as if the peerage has a monopoly on truth when that form of information aggregation has been showed to be terribly flawed due to academic groupthink and indolence.
It relies on the information you give it, it’s not in the LLM itself, you can direct it to whatever datastore you want, through RAG and Tools.
All LLMs do is select the next token, it has no idea of the context it’s working under, it’s a pure algorithm.
I believe at the time that the automobile was in it’s ascendency in the early 1900s, there were around 2000 companies involved in manufacturing cars. How many were left after the inevitable shakeout.
It’s a game of musical chairs.
This is my experience, as well.
It seems to me that AI made huge money, just because SEXY name.
Otherwise, I see it just like another generation of search machine
All LLMs do is select the next token, it has no idea of the context it’s working under, it’s a pure algorithm.
It’s basically an Excel Spreadsheet, on steroids. I use it mostly to create technnical documentation that would take me hours to do.
The good news, is, many of those kinds of tasks can be done on your local machine, so you don’t have to worry about how many tokens you’re using against your ChatGPT or Anthropic Account (and believe me, those costs add up quickly!)
One problem with AI is it’s destroying the problem solving skills of young people. If you make young people dumb enough, AI might win. I know the socialists will win.
> One ad suggested 'skipping work' for the day since the AI had everything under control. It then proceeded to not-so-subtlety suggest that workers' jobs could be done by AI.
The obvious takeaway? Not that your job could be made easier: instead, YOU could lose your job to AI.
> The Chris Hemsworth ad was funny, but also creepy and scary, since it did more to reinforce fears and less to extol benefits... and weirdly, Hemsworth seemed to immediately forget his own fears once Alexa promised to pamper him.
> Most of the other ads? Terrible from a marketing perspective as they did nothing memorable enough to be even remembered less than 20 hours later.
Well, I have deep technical discussions with AI. It points out challenges with certain solution approaches to problems I’m trying to solve. It’s like having an expert consultant next to me. It can detail aspects of regulatory aspects I’d not considered. It can compare and contrast solutions, perform calculations respective to differences.
It saves my months of time, all the time. The results get documented and we review them as a team. The only aspects that it might miss are details you didn’t ask for, which it provides well when you do.
People are surrounded by neural networks already, they just don’t realize it. From your TV’s to cars, to security systems and medicine, it’s transforming our lives. This notion that it is a fad or just “GIGO” is short sighted, especially as the capabilities are not just increasing but accelerating.
The media pushes the AI agenda at their own peril. I can create “news” articles and messages very easily with AI. The media should look at the Washington Post recent actions closely.
You know, I’ve thought that too...but I go back and forth and try to check my biases to see if it is just another technological change that is only a tool, but those that don’t really understand it or use it think it is a negative tool, and those that do understand it and use it see it as a positive.
Don’t forget the 1995 Newsweek column about how the internet is over from Clifford Stoll.
https://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306
With statements that stood the test of time like:
“We’re promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet—which there isn’t—the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.”
Don’t forget the 1995 Newsweek column about how the internet is over from Clifford Stoll.
Decca Records (1962): “Guitar bands are on the way out.”
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