World War AI

The promises haven't materialized. People aren't working less, goods aren't cheaper, and young people aren't more hopeful about an AI-driven future. When incentives stop working, institutions move to coercion. When the positive narrative fails, they build a new one around existential threat. The question isn't whether they'll try this shift. The question is what actually happens to ordinary people's lives when they do.

• History Provides an Uncomfortable Comparison. We're about to allocate a percentage of GDP to infrastructure buildout that has only been matched once before. Understanding what happened to ordinary citizens during that mobilization might change how you think about the current one.
• The Consumer Economy Is Already Under Pressure. Credit rejections are hitting levels nobody expected. People who would normally refinance their mortgages are being denied. Something fundamental about how capital flows through the economy has shifted.
• There's an Energy Problem Nobody's Being Honest About. Datacenter power consumption is projected to grow exponentially. The math on where that electricity comes from doesn't add up the way executives claim. There's a gap that has to be filled somehow.
• The Scale of This Reallocation Is Being Deliberately Obscured. The narrative focuses on innovation and progress. But beneath that are decisions about who gets capital and who doesn't. Those decisions have winners and losers, and most of us are on the losing side.
• Understanding the Real Trade-Offs Requires Looking Beyond the Headlines. What's actually being traded off? Whose interests are being prioritized? And what would need to happen for that calculus to change?