Lots of people were sounding the alarm while the .com bubble was inflating.

Yes, absolutely yes, The dotcom bubble was precipitated by lots of people in mainstream media sounding the alarm. Ditto for the real estate bubble that led to the stock market collapse of 2008.

Short answer --- yes.

AI does not reflect reality. It struggles to tell the difference between fact and fiction. And it will gladly invent info in order to pacify the user.

Likewise, the investment being poured into this flawed technology does not reflect economic reality.

Reality is nothing if not persistent and will eventually intrude on this fantasy.

John Kenneth Galbraith says in his book The Great Crash 1929 that most knew it was heading for a fall, but everyone assumed they could get out before losing their money. Turns out the order system was over-whelmed so they couldn't get out.

Maybe in these times it will be a flash crash that catches everyone off guard. A flash crash that doesn't rebound like the one in 2010

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_flash_crash

Yes. Simplistically, its all about incentives, “you've got to dance while the music is playing.” If a professional money manager doesnt follow the mania theyre going to significantly underperform their competitors/benchmarks. If they underperform for multiple quarters theyre going to lose allocation, customers, and their jobs. See also the “perma bears” who have predicted “15 of the last 3 recessions.”

As an individual you can change your risk profile by rebalancing or profit taking during the mania. trying to find quality places to put your gains to reduce the downside risk. That said, in even a moderate correction youre going to underperform the index due to the silly magnitude of those mania gains over time. Eg an additional 2 years of +30% and then a 25% correction is going to outperform your “safe” 7% returns.

The classic joke is economists have predicted 11 of the last 4 recessions.

In case you've never seen it. There are people posting their takes on some sort of economic catastrophe in China, US, Japan, wherever, basically 24/7 365 days a year on YouTube.

It's a very very very common finance bro hobby to do this. Every single outcome that can happen has a million people having "called it" well in advance.

Yes, here's a couple examples from a quick search on [1] 2006 to 2008 timeframe.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=financial+real+estate+warnin...

Reuters, 8/9/2007, "House bubble could be a self-fulfilling prophecy", https://www.reuters.com/article/world/house-bubble-could-be-...

"experts fear is that excessive focus on the issue could generate enough fear among homebuyers to lead to the first-ever nationwide housing drop"

"Alan Greenspan doubts there is a national bubble but warns repeatedly of "froth" in local housing markets and imminent regional downturns."

"Barely a day goes by without blaring headlines about housing bubbles in newspapers and magazines."

NBC News, 8/10/2007, "High-risk mortgages turning into toxic mess"

"the option and interest-only ARMs held by more creditworthy borrowers loom as another calamity in the making"

"If the worst fears about these loans materialize, the economic damage would likely extend well beyond the United States because much of the debt has been packaged into securities sold to pension funds, banks and other investors around the world who were hungry for high yields."

"there is still reason to be alarmed because the trouble with option and interest-only ARMs still appears to be in its early stages"

"Those loans are begging to blow up. This is a true financial crisis"

Yes, both the real estate and dotcom bubbles both had their alarmists, same as for AI.