Majority of CEOs report AI brings no financial benefits

[Otter]

SvennoJ said:

The Billionaire class doesn't want a population with time to learn and think for themselves. They want people either gone or continue to live paycheck to paycheck, too busy to keep a roof over their head to protest or demand reform.

Sadly AI is already used to monitor everyone, everywhere, on everything. It's been developed in Gaza and the West Bank and is now being deployed in the US.
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/machine-surveillance-is-being-super-charged-by-large-ai-models
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-ai-can-enable-public-surveillance/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/08/anti-defamation-league-surveillance

We can build a post scarcity world, but all signs point to building George Orwell's 1984.

ICE is not to get rid of illegal Immigrants, it's to keep the US in control
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ice-ai-cameras-surveillance-flock-safety-b2903365.html
Inside the AI police tech firm whose data is being fed to ICE

Meanwhile

Canada prepping response to hypothetical US military invasion for first time in a century, report says
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/canada-trump-us-military-invasion-b2904279.html


This AI gold rush is leading us right towards WW3. Trump is desperately seeking resources to keep the AI bubble and the US afloat. But it will have to burst to be able to make real changes.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/23/artificial-intelligence-ai-bubble-bursts-humans-take-back-control

The real bubble is not stock valuations but the inflated ego of an industry that thinks it is just one more datacentre away from computational divinity. When the correction comes, when the US’s Icarus economy hits the cold sea, there will be a chance for other voices to be heard on the subject of risk and regulation. It may not come in 2026, but the moment is nearing when the starkness of the choice on offer and the need to confront it becomes unavoidable. Should we build a world where AI is put to the service of humanity, or will it be the other way round?


For now the higher productivity AI can provide is not growing more food, not building more houses, not cleaning up the environment, not building fusion power plants, not building water desalination plants. More efficient desk jobs are not fixing the real problems.

AI does escalate developement where technology is concerned though and improvement in health diagnosis and treatment. Just as it more effectively identifies cancers compared to Dr judgement alone. Although as you point out many things don't need new technology but simply better resource management and ironically AI is very resource hungry.

Some of the ground breaking tech advances of the next century may still be due to it (fusion power, new materials, new drugs etc)