It took me a few thought cycles to put down that question.

In my understanding, we, as a civilization, are on a high wire number over a pit of knifes. The AI craze is full throtle as we speak, with conflicting indicators that it may/will cause the worst economical crash ever - becoming third in less than twenty years, where each was always reported as an unprecedented and irrepeatable event - while at the same time infiltrating companies in ways we are still to discover how ruinous may prove and spreading over the internet like a grotesque parasite, rendering services unsuable and leaking sensible data.

If the great AI companies tank (I can only hope) and the services they provide - whatever those may be - faill, how much is it going to affect companies? There is really no sense of consensus; some say it was the best thing ever, others are registering neglictable improvements, others failed miserably and had to return to the original state of affairs.

Then there is the constant attack from agents on the net, rendering websites, more or less important, more or less useable or stealing, destroying or corrupting valueable data.

I've reached a point where I am willing to forego internet and even computers. Even technology in a wide sense. At best, I may keep an air gapped machine, to use for writing and printing documents. But will others do it? And if so, will 8t happen in an organic fashion or will things devolve to a point where something cracks and things just get ugly? Because people are tired. Tired of datacenters popping up like poisonous mushrooms everywhere, destroying everything.

People are getting tired. Everywhere.

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[–] 3 points 10 hours ago (1 child)

Why is AI development continuing?

There is demand, but that demand only exists because consumers aren't being exposed to the actual price of AI. It's all being subsidised by investor hype.

Not one of the frontier AI companies have made a profit as of today, not a single one..

The only ones making profit are those exploiting the subsidised pricing for business (or to pull huge scams) and the guys selling the shovels components for data-centres, like Nvidea - who are desperate to keep the investor money flowing, to the point that they themselves are pouring some profits into their own AI company customers in the unofficially dubbed great AI Investor circle-jerk.

... And though this Bloomberg report was from January 2026, if you look hard enough you'll notice this circular financing hasn't stopped, in-fact Nvidea even acknowledged this circular fimancing themselves not even two months ago.

If the only way this keeps going is propping up the industry with investor money and circular financing, then when one of those eventually give and the public are exposed to the true price of AI - what happens then?

A bit into conspiracy territory now, but it's what has me suspecting that a lot of the news we hear about AI going rogue and what-not isn't as accidental as it seems. Any publicity is good publicity and keeps AI on the forefront of investors minds.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 hours ago

    There is demand, but that demand only exists because consumers aren't being exposed to the actual price of AI.

    I use AI extensively and it's mostly via local models, which I pay 100% of the inference costs for.

    If the only way this keeps going is propping up the industry with investor money and circular financing, then when one of those eventually give and the public are exposed to the true price of AI - what happens then?

    Reduced AI usage. Not no AI usage, though. For example, my usage wouldn't go down one whit. The price wouldn't change at all for me.

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