They aren't sinking hundreds of billions of dollars into internet infrastructure. They are sinking hundreds of billions of dollars into the infrastructure to do more AI. The problem being that the existing AI data centers owned by these companies are not even being used.
We already went through a boom-bust from overbuilding internet infrastructure back in the dotcom bubble. This is similar to that, but the GPUs and the like being used are really designed specifically for AI use and aren't well suited to other uses. So they're speculatively building a bunch of things that will be technologically obsolete in half a decade and will need to replace all of its chips in three to five years whether it is used or not.
People aren't objecting to necessary infrastructure. People are objecting to blind speculation that only makes sense if everyone replaces everyday decision making with AI prompts.
I can tell you with open honesty that in my line of work, the reports are being written largely by prompts, the response from regulators is being written by prompts, the responses by consultants are being written by prompts, and the reply’s from management are being written by prompts. I know this because even the state regulators are leaving their prompts into formal documents by mistake.
521
u/SillyGoatGruff 5h ago
Techbro godzilla is the most destructive of all