Investor and analyst Paul Kedrosky explains to Alex Kantrowitz that the narrative of AI as an unpriceable call option on AGI is largely a marketing tool for institutional investors.
Opinion
Kedrosky: AI infrastructure models based on labor TAM are ridiculous and speculative
“It's wrong to say, for better or worse, we're going to be putting in a trillion, therefore I need a hundred trillion out of this. That's not the way investors are looking at this, and it's, and it will lead you down the wrong path if you take that approach, be…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Aug 2032
Kedrosky: Token demand is unlikely to achieve 100M-fold growth in 6 years
“You have to see around a hundred million fold growth over the next six years in terms of tokens. Is it possible? Absolutely. It's possible. Is it likely? No, it's not likely, but it could happen.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kedrosky: Minimal model differentiation will crush AI investment returns
“The convergence means that the model differences while there are so minimal as I can't tell the difference in the kind of Pepsi Coke phenomenon, which again, to cut to the investment chase suggests that the competition then becomes much more about marketing ex…”
Insight
Kedrosky: Justifying AI spending with historical bubble theory drives dangerous overbuilding
“We've created this reflexivity. We're now, we justify overspending on the basis of prior overspending having worked out. Well, in prior episodes where that happened, people were not justifying the overspending by saying, say, in rural electrification, you know…”
Insight
Kedrosky: Recent AI gains stem from orchestration harnesses, not model breakthroughs
“So much of the improvement we've seen in the last 18 months has really been about the imposition of harnesses, effective nannies, sitting on top of bratty kids, and not about the actual structural improvements in the models themselves, and that's a sort of a h…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kedrosky: OpenAI and Anthropic Will Earn Utility-Like Returns
“Like a power dam. I don't know who, I don't know where they are or who they are, but I guess they exist and they'll earn utility-like rates of return.”