‘It’s going to be really bad’: Fears over AI bubble bursting grow in Silicon Valley

Jamali, Lily. “A Tangled Web of Deals Stokes AI Bubble Fears in Silicon Valley.” BBC News, BBC, 10 Oct. 2025, www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz69qy760weo.

Summary:

This article discusses Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, during a rare occurrence in which a technology company actually responds to the questions of reporters. Lily Jamali expresses the skepticism of the public about how valuable AI really is, and explains why people are not so sure they can trust Altman, even though he is attempting to persuade audiences to believe his company is one worth trusting in its value. Jamali provides the Bank of English, the International Monetary Fund, and the boss of JP Morgan as contributors to the thought of uncertainty we should have as consumers about AI. The idea of “bubbly” AI [“bubble story”] is a through-line in this article, even discussed by early AI entrepreneur Jerry Kaplan to a large audience, stating that this over-valuing of AI is going to become a problem for the economy as a whole. Much of the article delves into the details of how AI is impacting the economy now, and how its projected to impact the economy in our future. 

Why I liked it:

I really liked the ironic tone immediately set by Lily Jamali when she stated, “OpenAI boss Sam Altman did what American tech bosses rarely do these days: he actually answered questions from reporters.” There are a lot of political spaces right now – and spaces that are not political, yet are being invaded by politicians – that are limiting freedom of speech and are not being fully transparent with the information they have that motivates their revoking of rights; this ironic tone with which Jamali begins her article made me think that perhaps the culture of AI is hiding information in the same way as America’s political figures. As I read on, I liked the use of the term “bubble story”; I had never heard this phrase before, and when I used context clues within the rest of the paragraph I could assume that it meant to inflate something beyond its actual value, which is an opinion on AI that I welcomed to hear more about due to my own skepticism. I did wonder if it was a technique, however, of Altman’s to get the people on his side by affirming their concerns before explaining that those concerns should not apply to his company: “there’s something real happening here [with OpenAI].”