Cory Doctorow argues that tech giants have engineered an AI bubble to prop up their stock valuations and which sells the false promise to employers that AI can replace skilled workers. We must pop this hype cycle before it turns us all into reverse centaurs in the service of machines.
The current AI moment is often framed as an unstoppable technological revolution, but in a long-form essay for The Guardian, science-fiction author and social commentator Cory Doctorow cuts through the AI hype to reveal a familiar story: tech monopolies inflating bubbles of their own creation to protect their corporate valuations on the stock market. He situates AI hype within a recurring cycle of tech bubbles designed to reassure investors that monopolistic companies can still grow in order to protect their inflated corporate valuations.
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What follows is not an anti-technology screed, but a sharp critique of how AI is sold, who it serves, and who pays the price. Doctorow reveals how any disruptive or transformative benefits of AI are secondary to ensuring tech companies are seen as growth stock. To bring in the kind of money that makes investors happy, AI developers have to sell the idea to employers by peddling a false claim that AI can replace skilled labour, creating significant cost savings through reclaimed wages. Behind the spin, what AI actually produces is substandard and requires constant quality control and oversight.
