(BNS) Could AI Spending Blow Up The Economy? With Paul Kedrosky
I spoke with the great Paul Kedrosky to discuss the significant impact of AI capital expenditure (CapEx) on the economy, exploring how it contributes to GDP growth and the implications of this spending. Qw delve into the rapid growth of AI-related investments, the short lifespan of data centers, and the potential risks associated with this economic phenomenon.
00:00 The Impact of AI Capital Expenditure on the Economy
09:34 The Dynamics of Data Center Investments
19:39 Debt Financing and Its Implications
30:09 Potential Risks and Future Outlook for AI Investments
Articles mentioned on this episode:
Paul Kedrosky: Honey AI Capex Ate The Economy
Chris Mims in the WSJ
Noah Smith
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Fri. 08/08 – GPT-5 Fallout
Tracking the fallout and implications from GPT-5’s rollout yesterday. Why is Google’s AI chatbot filled with self-loathing and recrimination? Are President Trump’s comments just the latest worry for the CEO of Intel? Are those AI coding companies actually making any money? And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.
Links:
GPT-5: Key characteristics, pricing and model card (Simon Willison)
GPT-5 Hands-On: Welcome to the Stone Age (Latent Space)
Google says it's working on a fix for Gemini's self-loathing 'I am a failure' comments (Business Insider)
Intel’s Chief Holds Firm After Trump Demands His Resignation (NYTimes)
High costs and thin margins threatening AI coding startups (TechCrunch)
Weekend Longreads Suggestions:
AI Is Coming for the Consultants. Inside McKinsey, ‘This Is Existential.’ (WSJ)
SEO Is Dead. Say Hello to GEO. (NYMag)
Is Perrier as pure as it claims? The bottled water scandal gripping France (BBC)
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Thu. 07/08 – GPT-5 Released
All the news around the big unveiling of GPT-5. President Trump calls on the CEO of Intel to “resign immediately.” Also, the threat of 100% tariffs on chips and semiconductors. But Apple gets a pass because they’re committing to building more in the US.
Links:
GPT-5 is being released to all ChatGPT users (The Verge)
OpenAI Unveils GPT-5, Its Latest and Most Powerful Model, After Two-Year Wait (WSJ)
OpenAI’s GPT-5 is here (TechCrunch)
Trump Urges ‘Conflicted’ Intel CEO Tan to Resign Immediately (Bloomberg)
Trump Eyes 100% Chips Tariff, Exempting Firms That Invest in US (Bloomberg)
Apple Announces $100 Billion US Investment Ahead of Trump Event (Bloomberg)
Could AI Datacenter Spending Blow Up The Economy? With Paul Kedrosky (YouTube)
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Wed. 08/06 – OpenAI’s Open-Weight Models
Disney is making big streaming moves with the new ESPN app and a revamp to Hulu. Then, it’s all basically AI announces. OpenAI’s new open-weight models. Grok’s new spiciness is already generating nudity. A new AI model to identify malicious software autonomously. And Nvidia wants you to know: no back-doors!
Links:
ESPN flagship streaming service to launch Aug. 21 (CNBC)
Hulu App to Be Phased Out as Disney Is ‘Fully Integrating’ Service Into Disney+ (Variety)
OpenAI Just Released Its First Open-Weight Models Since GPT-2 (Wired)
Anthropic's powerful Opus 4.1 model is here - how to access it (and why you'll want to) (ZDNet)
Qwen-Image is a powerful, open source new AI image generator with support for embedded text in English & Chinese (VentureBeat)
Grok’s ‘spicy’ video setting instantly made me Taylor Swift nude deepfakes (The Verge)
Microsoft’s new AI reverse-engineers malware autonomously, marking a shift in cybersecurity (GeekWire)
Nvidia defiant over backdoors and kill switches in GPUs as U.S. mulls tracking requirements — calls them 'permanent flaws' that are 'a gift to hackers' (Tom's Hardware)
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Tue 08/05 – Spygate At TSMC?
TSMC has fired employees for allegedly attempting to pilfer information on their 2nm tech. Figma could have raised more money in its IPO but chose not to. Creating entire video game worlds with just a text prompt. And exactly how big Patreon has grown in the creator economy.
00:32 TSMC Spygate
02:50 Cloudflare V. Perplexity
04:52 Figma Followup
07:35 Music AI
09:53 New Google Models
14:58 Patreon Numbers
Links:
TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process (9to5Mac)
Cloudflare says Perplexity’s AI bots are ‘stealth crawling’ blocked sites (The Verge)
Figma’s Pursuit of Long-Term Backers Kept IPO Price in Check (Bloomberg)
Voice Startup ElevenLabs Launches AI Music Service (WSJ)
Google’s new AI model creates video game worlds in real time (The Verge)
Google’s Kaggle to host AI chess tournament to evaluate leading AI models’ reasoning skills (Silicon Angle)
Exclusive: Patreon crosses $10 billion creator payment milestone (Axios)
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