#43: The AI Bubble and Technological Revolutions

For this week's episode, inspired by the much-discussed AI bubble in the American economy, we read Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages, written by Carlota Perez in 2002.Anton, Eric, Matt, and Max discuss Perez's historical schema of technological revolutions, first published in the immediate aftermath of the dot-com bubble, and consider its insights for our contemporary tech economy. We talk about the infrastructures required to power this new technology, the policy changes to facilitate the paradigm shift, and the new common sense being produced. British-Venezuelan researcher, lecturer and international consultant, Carlota Perez studies the mutual shaping of technical change and society and the lessons provided by the history of technological revolutions for economic growth and development. In Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital (Elgar 2002), she put forward her theory of the emergence and diffusion of technological revolutions and of the role of finance in the process. Her work has contributed to the present understanding of the relationship between technology, innovation and economic development; between technical and institutional change; and between finance and technological diffusion.READINGS:--"On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?" - Bender, Gebru, McMillan-Major, Schmitchell, 2021: https://s10251.pcdn.co/pdf/2021-bender-parrots.pdf--The GenAI Divide - MIT NANDA, 2025: https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Business_2025_Report.pdf--"How AI Destroys Institutions" - Woodrow Hartzog & Jessica M. Silbey, 2025: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5870623--"Data Centers Are Military Targets Now" - Sam Biddle, 2026: https://theintercept.com/2026/03/20/ai-data-centers-military-targets-iran-war/--"AI Is a Threat to Everything the American People Hold Dear" - Bernie Sanders, 2026: https://archive.ph/qs8VwPlease note, this episode was recorded earlier this winter, prior to the current news cycle.