Thread | Brutkey

We spend a lot of time talking about AI's technical capabilities: what it can do now, what it might do tomorrow, what it will never do. But AI is only secondarily a tech phenomenon; it is primarily a financial phenomenon, hundreds of billions of dollars in investment capital in search of a return.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/05/ex-princes-of-labor/#hyper-criti-hype

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A group of miserable men walking in a circle (Van Gogh's 'Prisoners'); they are cupped in two giant hands, between which protrudes a raygun that is bathing them in a sinister yellow-red light. In one corner sits a supremely self-satisfied business man, reclining in a comfortable chair, surrounded by fluffy clouds. The background is a hellscape of red smoke and brimstone.