While talk of an AI investment bubble usually centers around the designs of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, the implications reach far beyond the borders of the United States.
On Monday, an analysis published by the European Central Bank, first reported by Reuters, made the case that a “market correction” to AI investment euphoria is not only highly probable, but carries the potential for far-reaching consequences in Europe and beyond.
The analysis, authored by ECB economists and financial researchers, looked at two explanations for the AI financial bubble.
Their first, dubbed the “rational view,” is that unprecedented tech investments are justified by “extreme uncertainty” about a developing technology’s effects on productivity. For example, in October of last year, the chip giant Nvidia swelled to become the first $5 trillion company on the mere possibility that some quantitative leap in AI’s abilities could emerge. If that happens, Nvidia would be the “pick and shovel” salesman to the AI industry’s gold rush (of course, that kind of AI motherlode has yet to emerge from the river muck.)
“In the worst case in such a scenario, investors lose their investment,” the authors write. “But in the best case, the gains are large and genuinely hard to bound. This ‘option value’ increases the stock valuations of early adopters, causing their price-to-earnings ratios to rise sharply.”
The second explanation is the “behavioral view.” This interpretation holds that “overconfident” and “overoptimistic” investors are essentially losing themselves to the AI hype train, ignoring the rational possibility of either devastating financial losses or unprecedented gains in favor of a live-for-the-moment attitude.
When this kind of overconfidence around new tech fades, the authors posit, losses from a market correction can be swift and severe, more so than in the rational scenario.
Which of the two scenarios is playing out right now is difficult to say — and it’s likely an unholy blend of both. In any case, the authors write that both views “imply a boom followed by a correction, or a pullback from wherever valuations have risen, at some point in the future.”
What such a crash could mean for Europe is likewise hard to say without knowing more. The analysis asserts that spark that lights the fire sale probably won’t emerge from European markets, but that’s not saying much.
As the authors conclude, European “households, insurers and pension funds have significant exposures through global index trackers.”
“The effects of a US correction could extend beyond financial markets to euro area sentiment, financing conditions and hiring,” the experts write. “A US AI fallout would not remain a US problem.”
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