Manias, panics and AI
The history of investment booms suggests three questions that should be asked of the current one
Add BT as a preferred source
[WASHINGTON, DC] In 1978, Charles Kindleberger published Manias, Panics, and Crashes, an instant classic history of investment booms and subsequent busts.
Such booms can be divided between those that end up building something useful (such as a railway system in mid-19th-century Britain, the United States and elsewhere); and those that do not (such as the Netherlands’ infamous 17th-century tulip mania and the subprime-mortgage madness of the early 2000s).
By any metric, the US and, by implication, the world, is now in an intense artificial intelligence (AI) speculative boom. But will all the investment pouring into the industry build something useful? To whom, and for what purpose? And if there is a downside, what will it look like?
TRENDING NOW
On the board but frozen out: The Taib family feud tearing Sarawak construction giant apart
Thai and Vietnamese farmers may stop planting rice because of the Iran war. Here’s why
MAS convenes bank CEOs over AI cyberthreats; boards told to own risks, not leave to IT teams
Is it time to scrap COE categories for cars?
