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\t\t\tIllustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins \/ Futurism. Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
When it comes to tech doomsaying, few are as cynical \u2014 or prescient \u2014 as sci-fi author and tech journalist Cory Doctorow.<\/p>\n
His far-sighted blend of tech criticism and class analysis has found Doctorow time and again at the bleeding edge of commentary on our techno-capitalist society. In many ways, his screeds on topics like tech broligarchs<\/a> and enshittification<\/a> broke the mold to allow room for the kind of tech-critical reporting being done by media projects like Tech Policy Press<\/a> and 404 Media<\/a>, or the podcasts \u201cTech Won\u2019t Save Us<\/a>,\u201d and \u201cBetter Offline<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n For better or worse, Doctorow\u2019s insights have often been a much-needed mirror into our society\u2019s complicated relationship with tech corporations. Now, in a recent essay posted on his blog Pluralistic<\/a>, Doctorow warns of the impending collapse of the AI industry \u2014 a hype-fueled financial disaster that he says it\u2019s too late to avoid.<\/p>\n In his essay, Doctorow recounts a conversation he had with an undergraduate student after delivering a lecture on the AI bubble, in which he reiterated that AI investors are propping up the US economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, you\u2019re saying a third of the stock market is tied up in seven AI companies that have no way to become profitable and that this is a bubble that\u2019s going to burst and take the whole economy with it?\u201d the student asked fearfully.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, that\u2019s right,\u201d the tech critic responded.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, but what can we do about that?\u201d<\/p>\n Doctorow answered that the bubble is being propped up by tech mega\u2013corporations who are now begging investors to come aboard, now that their growth potential is slowing to a halt. To court investors, the monopolists are selling a lie that AI can replace human workers \u2014 when in reality, AI experiments are failing at 95 percent of companies<\/a> that attempt them.<\/p>\n \u201cAI cannot do your job, but an AI salesman can 100 percent convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can\u2019t do your job,\u201d Doctorow writes. \u201cWhen the bubble bursts, the money-hemorrhaging \u2018foundation models\u2019 will be shut off and we\u2019ll lose the AI that can\u2019t do your job, and you will be long gone, retrained or retired or \u2018discouraged\u2019 and out of the labor market, and no one will do your job.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n Given the fact that these investments are already locked in an intricate web of finance capital<\/a>, Doctorow argues that the best \u2014 and only \u2014 thing to do is the \u201cpuncture the AI bubble as soon as possible, to halt this before it progresses any further and to head off the accumulation of social and economic debt.\u201d<\/p>\n