AI, markets and a more complicated world

Ipek Ozkardeskaya ipekScope

The week started with upward pressure on energy prices, US 10-year yield breaching the 5% mark and very uncomfortable questions regarding AI, and this time, it was not about the circular deals, financing capabilities, investor greed, earnings, the impact of AI on different sectors and businesses, the parabolic rise in market prices, PE ratios and so on. It was about the existential question of whether AI developments should happen at this speed.

For the big winners of AI, the faster the progress can be monetised, the better for their investment returns. AI companies (the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic) received a lot of funding from investors and companies around the world. In return, they made huge commitments to lease data centres, which then made commitments to build these data centres and buy chips, energy and other raw materials from providers. Some of these AI enablers then invested back in the AI model providers themselves (I am looking at you, Nvidia!), so that worldly financing issues would not prevent them from growing and from needing more compute capacity, more chips, more energy and so on.

Alas, the risks that AI poses to humanity seem to be worrying AI leaders more than how fast they can turn their investments into revenue – and no matter the ethics behind the thinking, that is a problem for some investors.

Read the full article here.

Author

Ipek Ozkardeskaya

ipekScope

Ipek Ozkardeskaya began her financial career in 2010 in the structured products desk of the Swiss Banque Cantonale Vaudoise. She worked in HSBC Private Bank in Geneva in relation to high and ultra-high-net-worth clients.

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