this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2026
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Get correct while making dead arguments haha.
You're treating the current resource cost as though it's a fixed characteristic of AI, when cost per unit of useful output has been collapsing the entire time. Stanford found that the inference cost of GPT 3.5 performance fell more than 280x in about two years because hardware and algorithms continue getting more efficient all the time.
Total AI energy use still rose because we're using vastly more of it, but thats obviously going to happen in an emerging market. If AI becomes 10x cheaper and more efficient while simultaneously becoming useful across millions more tasks, total consumption can increase even as the resource cost of doing any particular task falls dramatically, but efficiency will continue to improve as the technology develops.
Im not saying 'its good that its using all this energy', im saying dismissing it as doomed by its energy usage is short-sighted. Its not in its end form.
The other things you mentioned are all regulation issues stemming from a completely fucked political system, not fundamental issues with ai.
So what AI company can I invest in and start making money, today? Which one is a going concern with solid financials? Because I’m pretty sure none of them are actually making more money than they’re spending on electricity. Because this tech doesn’t work on a very basic level.
Maybe it will get better. But it’s been years and I haven’t seen it improve enough to be economically relevant.
Conflating profitability with usefulness. AI companies are burning billions on R&D, infrastructure and expansion. That doesn't mean the product isn't already creating value for users.
The real question is whether that value eventually exceeds the cost of providing it.