I think that what is really behind the AI bubble is the same thing behind most money, power, and influence: land and resources. The AI future that is promised, whether to you and me or to the billionaires, requires the same thing: lots of energy, lots of land, and lots of water.

If you just wanted land, water, and electricity, you could buy them directly instead of buying $100 million of computer hardware bundled with $2 million worth of land and water rights. Why are high end GPUs selling in record numbers if AI is just a cover story for the acquisition of land, electricity, and water?

▲ bix6 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But with this play they can inflate their company holdings and cash out in new rounds. It’s the ultimate self enrichment scheme! Nobody wants that crappy piece of land but now it’s got GPUs and we can leverage that into a loan for more GPUs and cash out along the way.

▲ exceptione 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Valid question. What the OP talks about though is that these things were not for sale normally. My takeaway from his essay is that a few oligarchs get a pass to take over all energy, by means of a manufactured crisis.

  When a private company can construct what is essentially a new energy city with no people and no elected representation, and do this dozens of times a year across a nation to the point that half a century of national energy policy suddenly gets turned on its head and nuclear reactors are back in style, you have a sudden imbalance of power that looks like a cancer spreading within a national body.

He could have explained that better. Try to not look at the media drama the political actors give you each day, but look at the agenda the real powers laid bare

- Trump is threatening an oil rich neighbor with war. A complete expensive as hell army blowing up 'drug boats' (claim) to make help the press sell it as a war on drugs. Yeah right.

- Green energy projects, even running ones, get cancelled. Energy from oil and nuclear are both capital intensive and at the same time completely out-shined by solar and battery tech. So the energy card is a strong one to direct policy towards your interests.

If you can turn the USA into a resource economy like Russia, than you can rule like a Russian oligarch. That is also why the admin sees no problem in destroying academia or other industries via tariffs; controlling resources is easier and more predictable than having to rely on an educated populace that might start to doubt the promise of the American Dream.

	▲	amunozo 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I did not think about it that way, but it makes perfect sense. And it is really scary. It hasn't even been a year since Trump's second term started. We still have three more years left.

▲ kjkjadksj 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Because then you can buy calls on the GPU companies