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Peter Nayland Kust's avatar

Ah yes, the lunacy of TQM. That was coming into vogue right about the time I graduated from college with a degree in accounting. TQM and quality control metrics were all the rage--I probably spent more time going over ISO-9000 certification data than I did going over WIP reports!

What no one ever fully processed was that all of those protocols only institutionalized failure. TQM meant that if you made a mistake on one widget, you would make the same mistake on every widget until someone (usually a customer) caught it.

It was Taylorite corporate authoritarianism masquerading as "productivity gains".

And its ideas like those which squeeze innovation out of most established businesses. When everyone has to do everything the same way, there's never a different approach for comparison to figure out what might be done better.

Once everyone thinks the same way and acts the same way, they all make the same mistakes, and usually at the same time. It never ends well.

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Gbill7's avatar

Sounds smart - two years tops. Maybe dependent upon the rate of decline of China, etc.

I’m still left wondering, how could DeepSeek be developed with NO leaks within the tech community? Who invented it? Why is Xi (presumably) unleashing it now?

I know you don’t have the intel on it yet, but I’ll bet it’s going to be interesting stuff!

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Gbill7's avatar

…AI as a popping bubble so soon. I would have guessed it would run for a few years first, but you’re right, things are moving too fast. AND there is a confluence of big changes happening all at the same time, worldwide. I also can see a reactionary shift accelerating. “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride…”

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Peter Nayland Kust's avatar

DeepSeek is an accelerant, as I see it.

It’s made a big splash, roiling NVidia’s stock.

The question is what is it going to do for an encore? And if there is no encore then DeepSeek is just a flash in the pan.

But if there is no encore then the question eventually gets asked what any of the AI engines and language learning models are doing. If DeepSeek fails to deliver after basically showing ChatGPT and Gemini have failed to deliver, people are going to start questioning the hype.

Once that skepticism takes hold the AI bubble pops soon after.

I give it between 18 months and two years.

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Gbill7's avatar

Chilling, exciting, and powerful predictions! You see AI

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Gbill7's avatar

You realize that you make women swoon with your intelligent insights, right? (“Ohhh, Magnificent Man!”)

Okay, I’ve revived with smelling salts now. Back to topic - our country has reached another ‘paradigm shift’, to use a heavily overused buzzword of the 80s. It’s the end of DEI - yay! That has fallen on its face just as all the previous management fads have, and something new will replace it. I suppose it will be “everything AI, regardless of inappropriate application” - but do you have any other thoughts on what’s next?

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Peter Nayland Kust's avatar

That's hard to say.

I suspect the next major paradigm shift will be the collapse of the AI bubble.

AI is a fascinating technology but it is just a technology. Contrary to the hyperbole in the media no, AI does not "think"--certainly not the way that humans do. Computational prowess is not thinking.

Pretending that AI does "think" is becoming another departure from reality, and eventually reality is going to brutally dispense with that notion the way it dispenses with all flights of fancy.

What happens then? That's hard to say. It could be we are seeing enough progressive trends reaching their zenith at about the same time to catalyze a major reactionary shift in society. Already globalism is becoming a discredited force (which is bad news for the global south), and DEI/ESG foolishness is quickly being exposed for the insane grift that it is. Jonathan Haidt, once one of the great advocates of social media, is sounding the alarm that too much social media is bad for one's mental health. The AI bubble bursting now would be a perfect storm of reality.

At the same time, several of the worlds power locii are collapsing: the EU is deindustrializing, Russia and China do not have the population to sustain themselves for even another ten years--and no clear successor to Putin and Xi.

What happens when reality hits everywhere all at once?

We may be closer to finding out than anyone wants to be.

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