The Big Shorts

In a roundabout sort of way, I work in tech. For a while now the narrative has been that A.I. is here and it’s taking your job. There’s a brash inevitability about it, an impending doom. ‘Vibe coding’ is Collins Dictionary’s ‘word’ of the year (two words, lads) which is, essentially, prompting an A.I. agent to write code for you. And I’m sure many of us have mucked around with Co-Pilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Nano Banana, whatever. The hype machine runs and runs.

The thing is, being on the periphery of this industry, there’s as much written on real world A.I. experiments that have failed miserably. That returns aren’t being made for investors; that it’s not what it is cracked up to be. ChatGPT can’t even tell me where the Myler money is. But you can’t make an omelette with breaking a few eggs or culling thousands of jobs, right?

This narrative follows that while A.I. may radically change society at some point, that point isn’t now – it’s just not ready for the big time – and as such, the A.I. industry is a bubble on the verge of popping. The guy behind The Big Short – the Christian Bale character in the film who made millions from the housing bubble and the ensuing financial crisis in 2008 – but the real person, is reportedly betting big on it being a bubble and it deflating sometime soon. So, come, say, next February, the economy could be in poor shape.

These things are relative though, aren’t they? Macro changes either affect you or they don’t, or there’s a weird kind of offset. The 2008 financial crisis hit me financially, but on the flip side Salford won the National League title and gained promotion to Super League. I was lucky enough to be able to weather the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic and Salford also made the Challenge Cup final, albeit bittersweet as after waiting 50 years to get back to Wembley we couldn’t attend in person. Following Salford has been a solace through otherwise grim times (and yes, I am amazed that I’ve just wrote that).

Now, with Salford being a club seemingly comatose and on life support, and as the weeks go on, increasingly less likely to field a team for the 2026 season, next February could be doubly grim. But really, when your club is on the verge of death, a tanking economy is merely background hum.