During an appearance at Italian Tech Week, the billionaire sought to distinguish what he described as an “industrial bubble.”
“This is a kind of industrial bubble, as opposed to financial bubbles,” Bezos said in a conversation with Ferrari Chair John Elkann in Turin, Italy.
“The ones that are industrial are not nearly as bad,” he continued. “It could even be good because when the dust settles and you see who are the winners, society benefits from those inventions.”
He pointed to a bubble that formed in the biotechnology industry in the 1990s, noting investors “all lost money” when it burst, but society ultimately received several lifesaving drugs as a result.
“That’s what’s going to happen here too,” Bezos said. “This is real. The benefits to society from AI are going to be gigantic.”
Stock market bubbles form when share prices rapidly increase in a way that is disconnected from their underlying value.
Many have raised concerns that the AI boom is fueling a bubble, as tech companies see massive growth even though AI investments have yet to show real returns.
“[The] thing that happens when people get very excited, as they are today about artificial intelligence for example, is every experiment gets funded, every company gets funded,” Bezos noted.
“Investors have a hard time in the middle of this excitement distinguishing between the good ideas and the bad ideas. And so, that’s probably also happening today,” he added.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has similarly suggested the AI market is in a bubble, drawing comparisons with the dot-com bubble that burst in 2000.
“When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,” Altman reportedly said in August. “If you look at most of the bubbles in history, like the tech bubble, there was a real thing. Tech was really important. The internet was a really big deal. People got overexcited.”
“Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes,” he added at the time. “Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes.”
Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter, I’m Julia Shapero — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.
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Essential Reads
How policy will be impacting the tech sector now and in the future:
Federal officials investigating Amazon delivery drones crash
The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are investigating a crash after two Amazon Prime Air delivery drones struck the boom of a crane in Tolleson, Ariz., Wednesday morning. No one was injured in the incident, the FAA said in a statement. “We’ve resumed drone delivery in Tolleson while continuing to support ongoing reviews by relevant agencies,” Amazon spokesperson …
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2 families sue Tesla over door design after crash deaths
Two separate families sued Tesla on Thursday over its door design, alleging it prevented their college-aged children from escaping a burning Cybertruck after a crash last November. The parents of 19-year-old Krysta Tsukahara and 20-year-old Jack Nelson each filed suit against the electric vehicle maker in a California court, arguing that Tesla’s electric door handles became nonfunctional in the crash. “This case …
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Trump posts AI video throwing ‘Trump 2028’ hat at Jeffries
President Trump posted an AI-generated video on Thursday on Truth Social that showed him tossing a “Trump 2028” hat at House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). The video depicts Trump, seated behind his desk in the Oval Office, throwing the hat in slow-motion before it lands on Jeffries’s head. The video concludes with Trump pointing and laughing, all while Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” …
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Judge rejects Musk attempt to move SEC case
A federal judge on Thursday rejected billionaire Elon Musk’s attempt to move a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit over his failure to disclose his stake in Twitter — the social platform now known as X — out of Washington, D.C. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan denied Musk’s request to move the case to Texas or New York, finding that the tech mogul had failed to show that such a change of venue was warranted. …
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The Refresh
News we’ve flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics:
BlackRock group hunts a $20 billion deal to get in on the AI boom (Wall Street Journal)
OpenAI’s Sora soars to No. 1 on Apple’s U.S. App Store (TechCrunch)
In Other News
Branch out with other reads on The Hill:
Apple removes ICEBlock from its App Store
Apple has removed ICEBlock, which allows users to track and report the location of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, from its App Store. “We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps,” Apple said in a statement to NewsNation, The Hill’s sister company. “Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and …
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Op-eds in The Hill
Opinions related to tech submitted to The Hill:
The $100,000 H-1B fee is a golden opportunity for women in tech
