Yet another Hacker News

US Reps Lead Democratic Resolution Opposing A.I. Bubble Bailout for Big Tech

47 points DeepLogin 1 hour ago 24 comments

theandrewbailey 35 minutes ago | parent

Privatize the losses. These are the largest companies the world has ever seen, sitting on piles of assets like dragons. They have hyped AI endlessly to the point that everyone else is sick of it. If they haven't saved any money, and can't bail themselves out, they deserve bankruptcy.

Signed, the Silent Majority

techblueberry 30 minutes ago | parent

Can you privatize the losses if the banks are investing, providing debt to and repackaging that debt into broader instruments?

I worry that one of the reasons that Anthropic has 500 billion in commitments and everyone is running to the credit markets is to make it so that if they fail everyone suffers.

bluGill 21 minutes ago | parent

All the more reason to make them fail. FDIC should pay insurance and otherwise fail the banks. Capitalism cannot work if there isn't feedback that not watching for things like this will hurt you.

AnimalMuppet 16 minutes ago | parent

I actually liked the approach that happened with several large companies in 2008 - the stockholders get wiped out, the senior management is gone, but the depositors get protected.

JumpCrisscross 15 minutes ago | parent

> the stockholders get wiped out, the senior management is gone, but the depositors get protected

Who are you thinking of?

That’s what happened in 2023. In 2008, depositors almost got wiped out and a lot of senior managers and stockholders got bailouts.

JumpCrisscross 16 minutes ago | parent

> FDIC should pay insurance and otherwise fail the banks

That’s what happened in 2023.

vinyl7 15 minutes ago | parent

We're due for a recession to wipe out all this irrationality that has been cooking for the last 20 years. I say let it fail.

driverdan 7 minutes ago | parent

Of course. Governments shouldn't be bailing out corporations ever.

bryanlarsen 18 minutes ago | parent

Need to update the aphorism:

If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem. If you owe the bank $100 billion, that's country's problem.

woodpanel 7 minutes ago | parent

> Privatize the losses

Isn't that what the IPOs are for?

wryoak 33 minutes ago | parent

Gosh I really gotta get a real job again. The RLHF gig work has been great while I’ve been in school - flexibility, good pay - but I’ve known the whole time that it won’t last. Gig workers will be the last consideration when it all falls apart

Sol- 27 minutes ago | parent

Is there any indication that such a bailout was even planned or is this just populist tilting at windmills?

apercu 24 minutes ago | parent

The investment to date has been ridiculous and undisciplined. It’s very hard to understand the valuations of these companies. If this wasn’t an election year I think there would be more oversight and critical review. But we have a very unserious party in charge right now.

It’s good that it’s being discussed. We’re tired of the wealth class privatizing the profits and leaving us to cover the costs.

Forgeties79 23 minutes ago | parent

Then the bill will never become relevant and it’ll just be a waste of time and you can laugh at it in hindsight. And I’m sure none of these companies will lobby against it, since it’s just tilting at windmills and won’t mean anything.

asjfhgw 19 minutes ago | parent

David Sacks has been a bit sidelined by the regime, but he was the one lobbying for the bailout of Silicon Valley Bank (under the Democrats!).

So there will be a huge pressure. Trump Jr. and the Kushners are invested in all sorts of bubbly assets, too.

The Democrats should do this however, and if they win the midterms keep their promises for once and block everything. Then 2028 is easy.

AnimalMuppet 18 minutes ago | parent

There are almost certainly bank execs who are looking at Anthropic's IPO and thinking "if it crashes, we'll get bailed out". Saying "no you won't" now, before the IPO, when it has a chance to affect peoples' behavior, is a worthwhile thing to do.

jelloroll42 17 minutes ago | parent

It's just convention at this point in the 21st century. No indication of a plan is needed when it's the only outcome to be expected.

JumpCrisscross 17 minutes ago | parent

It’s a resolution, so pure fluff. That said, a prohibition on bailing out this sector in particular might make it possible to claw back anything this regime illegally gives.

woodpanel 8 minutes ago | parent

a) How courageous for them declaring wanting to ban something that isn't being proposed

b) if an AI bubble burst were to happen, the fallout would be severe, ie. hard to abstain for policy makers from giving the public ease of mind

c) All this proposal wants is to drive a wrench between the GOP and its new (?) populist voters, that don't want any favors given to any Big Tech oligarchs, regardless of it being AI or not.

d) this may work or not – neither party is going to abstain from bailing them out, anyways.

ineedaj0b 6 minutes ago | parent

absolutely ZERO Ai companies need bailouts. this is complete theater.

if you are reading this, please do some research on how much money inference prints? its not wildly spoken about because people don’t yap about printing money.

“Oh but it’ll all come crashing down” - say you don’t work at a lab or know anyone at a lab.

My greater annoyance is HN becoming annoying political in the past few years. Sure, everything is political now but the moderation siloed these posts better. Maybe the user base is too old now. Fresh blood went to Discord or X.