When does euphoria turn to panic? The question is highly relevant to stock market psychology now as investor and entrepreneur obsession with artificial intelligence (AI) morphs into apparent anxiety that the boom is about to go bust and as stock prices wobble in consequence.

A principal sign that AI mania is turning into malaise and malady is that tech barons are seeking frantically to raise outrageous sums of capital while they perceive the going to still be good. Another is the growing realisation that the AI stock boom is running on empty and being financed largely on credit, as Mohamed El-Erian, former chief executive of bond giant Pimco, wrote in a Project Syndicate commentary on June 5.

Previous stock market booms, such as the dotcom bubble at the end of the last millennium, have ended not with a whimper but a bang, to misquote T.S. Eliot. This one could prove to be the mother of them all.

Trillions of dollars are involved in the stock market valuation of AI and other tech-related firms already listed or currently making a desperate dash to get listed before the proverbial balloon goes up. They want in so they can get their money out by monetising projected future income streams.

The latest manifestation of this desire to cash in and cash out on the dream of an AI utopia where machines do all the work and even thinking for us comes from ChatGPT creator OpenAI. It has filed to go public in a blockbuster listing likely to value it at more than a trillion dollars, according to the Financial Times, as it races rival Anthropic to Wall Street.

In the meantime, social media giant Meta is considering raising tens of billions of dollars in a stock offering to fund owner Mark Zuckerberg’s vast ambitions in AI following the launch of Google’s record US$85 billion share deal last week. Overshadowing even these megadeals is the massive SpaceX initial public offering, which could see the company valued at almost US$1.8 trillion despite posting a net loss of US$4.3 billion in the first quarter.