Article: AI won't collapse like the dot-com bubble — it will collapse to a simpler form
wordgrammer · x · 2026-09-03
- Drawing on the dot-com analogy, the article predicts AI won't crash into irrelevance but will "collapse" into a simpler form, as the internet did.
What the dot-com bubble got right
- The internet would be huge; value scales roughly with fiber laid
- A latent human need to express themselves with technology
What it got wrong
- It assumed HTML/JavaScript would be how ordinary people express themselves (everyone gets a website); in reality people prefer text, images, video
- The first 1% expressed themselves via personal sites, but the internet "collapsed" into social media as the dominant distribution form
Implication
- AI may similarly shed complexity and converge to a few simpler, mass-market forms rather than expanding indefinitely.
More from AGI Musings
- Essay: AI made test-style intelligence the cheapest commodity — judgment is what's left — r0ck3t23 · 2026-10-18
- "Yes, It's Lazy. That's the Point": Pushing Back on Humanoid Robot Housework Critics — VraserX · 2026-10-18
- Jason Furman: optimistic on AI productivity, skeptical firms can profit from it — sebkrier · 2026-10-18
- 562 AI PM job postings split into 4 roles — Model PM tops pay at $345K median — aakashgupta · 2026-10-18
- Longevity influencer: this is the last decade dying of old age is 'normal' — rand_longevity · 2026-10-18
- Only 85% of Anthropic hours and 76% of OpenAI workdays are agentic — yacineMTB · 2026-10-18