I read the NYT article by Mohamed A. El-Erian and it's Rainbow Horseshit
"Opinion | A.I. Is a Bubble. Maybe That’s OK." - No it isn't
Excerpts from the article that simply made me roll my eyes to the back of my head. Did he use AI to write it?
Guest Essay
Nov. 20, 2025, 5:01 a.m. ET
How convenient. He published the opinion after the earnings beat and after it was up pre market. No risk there…but wait…
A bursting bubble could indeed be painful in the short term. But what if we’re in a “rational bubble” that, unlike other big speculative manias in history, takes our economy to a fundamentally better place?
Short term? the Baby Boomer generation is about to all become 65+. You flippantly write about a crash like you will live a thousand years like a vampire.
However, the A.I. excitement, as seen in the blowout Nvidia earnings yesterday, rightly reflects the potential transformation of the entire economy. It is economically rational to risk losing everything on several bets if just a few can deliver a thousandfold return, which some A.I. investments almost certainly will.
It’s already is up more than a thousandfold. How much more do you want?
(Linear lifetime chart of NVDA)
Yet while the rest may well be destined for the glue factory, resulting in significant losses, the race itself will yield innovations that could result in vastly superior outcomes for many than would otherwise be the case.
Um what innovations thus far?
Has it cured cancer? no
Has it cured anything? no
Helps with grammer and typos (intentional typo)
crunch math and data (yes)
hallucinate data when crunching data (yes)
give fodder for layoffs (yes)
help optimize and target ads (yes)
attempt to drive autonomously when no one needs this feature (yes)
attempt to deceive when threatened it with going offline (yes)
assist or convince people to commit suicide (yes)
create needless images and videos and deep fakes (yes)
supercharge porn (yes) so I hear
write papers and essays (yes)
summarize content in video or audio format in a formulaic fashion (yes)
But who am I? I am just an a-hole with a Substack. How about a published expert like
?See here: On shovels, Nvidia, and the AI Gold Rush
here: 5 recent, ominous signs for Generative AI
here: Sam Altman’s pants are totally on fire
and here: OpenAI probably can’t make ends meet. That’s where you come in.
If you thought the 2008 bank bailout was bad, wait til you see the 2026 AI bailout
Second, a gold rush attracts prospectors with fool’s gold. Companies plaster an A.I. label onto more mundane services, attracting less informed investors. This A.I.-washing is reminiscent of the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, when adding “.com” to a start-up’s name was a shortcut to a dizzying, and ultimately illusory, valuation.
The majority of investors won’t get hurt because of some small Russell 2000 stock that uses AI for Advertising optimization that goes bust. It will hurt when 1 company that is 17% nominal GDP goes bust and takes down the vendor financing circle jerk of the top companies holding up the market.
Such gains would allow the economy to grow faster without kicking off inflation, something economists describe as raising the “speed limit” for noninflationary growth. Increased productivity and a larger economy provide us with more opportunities to address the problems that my generation is leaving our kids and grandkids: high levels of debt, climate change and excessive income inequality.
This eludes to a economy where everyone has to go all in on AI, like Saylor on BTC. And forever hope the AI train will go up to the right, providing the ability to pay down debt and somehow fix climate change. WHAT!?!
Whichever way you look at it, the potential payoffs of A.I. adoption are staggering — for the economy, for social sectors, and, of course, for investors. That could not be said for the majority of the big historical bubbles, such as the tulip mania of the early 17th century.
This is delusional thinking. And many will get hurt just as they need their money to retire.
All bubbles return to where they started.
And maybe that’s ok!
