Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken over everything in a very short time, it has slipped into every home and corner of our lives, and watch out, that’s not a bad thing. It’s a help, but the big tech companies are competing to develop increasingly powerful models, while investments have already reached billions and are multiplying all over the world. There’s AI everywhere, sometimes we even wonder if we are AI ourselves (just kidding).

The thing is, not everyone is convinced that AI is good and they believe it could end up posing many dangers, precisely because of the ambition and the race for power.

Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, two of the most influential figures in the industry, have both issued a warning to be careful with the tech bubble. They believe that money and enthusiasm are growing at an excessive pace and that it will be very difficult to absorb in the long run. What does this mean?

“Investment is out of control”

Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI and creator of ChatGPT, and he was one of the first to warn about potential problems. Altman compared the current situation with other historical bubbles, like the Internet boom in the late 1990s.

“When bubbles happen, people get excited about a small core of truth. The Internet was real, the technology was important… but the enthusiasm got out of hand.”

In his view, something similar is happening with AI because it’s an incredible advance, but there are also a lot of exaggerated expectations around it, along with a flood of money that won’t be sustainable over time.

Zuckerberg also sees familiar signs

The founder of Meta shares Altman’s concern. He believes there’s a possibility that, based on the history of other major infrastructures and their expansions, something similar to a tech bubble could happen, and that there’s still time to address it.

He doesn’t think there will be a collapse, that’s not the point, but he does believe that the current conditions remind him of periods of “economic euphoria” that ended in sharp corrections. The difference, he points out, is that AI has real growth potential if demand and technological capacity continue to advance together.

Are we facing a bubble?

It’s normal to ask this question. Artificial intelligence has transformed everything. Sectors like education, entertainment, scientific research, or business productivity are at “risk” of being replaced by AI, which has answers for everything. But at the same time, many companies are investing huge sums hoping for immediate returns, without always having a solid business model behind them.

If the pace of technological advances doesn’t match the flow of money, we could see a scenario similar to the “dot-com” bubble, a sharp adjustment that wouldn’t kill AI, but would take down many companies that jumped on the train without solid backing. Those with real technology and sustainable models will survive, and the others…

What is a tech bubble?

When investment and expectations grow faster than real advances, causing overvaluation. When the market adjusts to reality, many companies disappear or lose value.

This is being said because in just a few years dozens of companies have emerged, along with multimillion-dollar investments and excessive expectations. Experts like Sam Altman believe that this enthusiasm is not sustainable in the long term.

Enthusiasm, yes… but with caution

Neither Zuckerberg nor Altman are against AI. On the contrary, they lead two of the most influential companies in the development of this technology. What they want is to slow down the “blind” optimism surrounding the sector and remind everyone that even real technological revolutions can become inflated before they stabilize, and that we need to be very careful.

Will history repeat itself? Or will AI manage to keep its growth curve without bursting too soon? Everything points to this being just the beginning…