Hype Cycles & the Principle of Optimism - by Mills Baker

One of the reasons I’ll never stop casual-posting is that I periodically discover broader interest in an idea that I would have anticipated. Recently, I restacked an observation Alberto Romero made about the “AI bubble,” noting as a comment to it that there’s more defensibility to hype-cycles and “manias” than might be apparent. I wouldn’t dispute that they’re ridiculous, but they occur for reasons more justifiable than many critics understand; they’re not solely the result of broken psychology, financial profiteering, or mob dynamics, but are also frequently productive, consequential, and skill-developing. There really is an interesting angle to this. I’ll overstate it and simplify it to illustrate one way it works (and this is true for LLMs, crypto, anything): People in SV get excited about a novel development. Your capacity to seem germane to unfolding developments hinges on your generation of enthusiastic and novel takes about the latest … The AI bubble - which is now an inch close

One of the reasons I’ll never stop casual-posting is that I periodically discover broader interest in an idea that I would have anticipated. Recently, I restacked an observation Alberto Romero made about the “AI bubble,” noting as a comment to it that there’s more defensibility to hype-cycles and “manias” than might be apparent. I wouldn’t dispute that they’re ridiculous, but they occur for reasons more justifiable than many critics understand; they’re not solely the result of broken psychology, financial profiteering, or mob dynamics, but are also frequently productive, consequential, and ski