In your opinion, is the US economy in the middle of an AI bubble?

Yes (61%) – "The current obsession with generative LLMs cannot and will not bring the revenue that the AI giants are hoping for, because their performance is simply not that good. I see it every day at work, and I see it almost daily with how my partner uses ChatGPT, and how I use DeepSeek. GenAI is still rife with hallucinations, disregards commands and misinterprets prompts. Yes, it can make someone's work a bit faster. No, it will not boost productivity 600% in the future."

• "In spite of the many good features of AI, it's extremely fragile in a lot of ways. The wow factor will disappear (again) and customers will start peeling away as they realize it's not doing what they want. It'll also be a difficult upsell to get people to start paying the actual cost of the product."

"I think that this is also coupled with difficulty with getting AI data centers in place. They are trying to put in a data center in my community and also in my hometown and both are being met with resistance. They come with pollution concerns and communities that allow these should do so with eyes wide open"

• "We've become so enamored with AI so quickly that we're in that little love bubble like when you start dating someone. We need to be mindful and attentive to things because it's become a hit so quickly, we might not be paying attention to red flags like we should."

"Bubbles happen when prices go way beyond actual value, driven more by hype and herd mentality than substance. That’s exactly what’s happening with AI. VCs threw nearly $70B into AI startups in 2023, up from just over $4B in 2016. That kind of jump sounds impressive, but most of these companies have no revenue and no real business model. It’s all vibes and future promises. 🤙 And that’s the problem. Everyone’s slapping “AI” on their pitch decks to chase money or inflate their stock. We saw this exact playbook during the dot-com bubble (I remember!). The current pace of investment is way out of sync with what AI is actually producing in real-world value. Without clear paths to profitability for these foundational models, inflated expectations are going to meet market reality.. and as a lot of us have experienced, that gap doesn’t close quietly."

• "What was it Alan Greenspan warned of in 1997 - “irrational exuberance”? He was right but it took another three years for the market to crash. This would seem another case of the market getting ahead of itself. It’s like Wile E. Coyote running off the edge of the cliff. Everything will be fine until we start looking down."

No (25%) – "No, but I wish we were. I think AI WILL lead to massive profits. Unfortunately, they'll be at the expense of jobs for humans. We're already seeing big layoffs in companies, which are related to the impact of AI. I think it's just the tip of the iceberg. As AI gets smarter, which is doing at a very rapid speed, it will eliminate the need for many jobs. Companies will be more profitable, which will substantiate the investment in AI. I think it will radically reshape our world."

• "AI is still in its infancy, plus the current economy is putting a damper on things without AI's help. There's only room for upwards growth from here!"

Unsure/other (14%) – "The expansion and usefulness of the entire AI industry hinges on whether or not programming can be made that will turn the database into anything more than a filtered information bank. To be useful it must be able to take disparate information and combine it to make innovative processes, theories and useful information similar to what humans achieve. How likely is it that programmers can mirror human thinking as scientists still can't say how humans invent, innovate and create 'new' things?"