Intriguing article: "What AI is really for"

Some interesting quotes here:
https://www.chrbutler.com/what-ai-is-really-for

Again, I think that AI is probably just a normal technology, riding a normal hype wave. And here’s where I nurse a particular conspiracy theory: I think the makers of AI know that.

There’s a logic hole here that’s easily filled by the possibility that AI is a fitting front for consolidation of resources and power. The value of AI can drop to nothing, but owning the land and the flow of water through it won’t.

But I’ve been watching technology long enough to know that when something requires this much money, this much hype, and this many contradictions to explain itself, it’s worth asking what else might be going on. The market concentration and incestuous investment shell game is real. The infrastructure is real. The land deals are real. The resulting shifts in power are real. Whether the AI lives up to its promise or not, those things won’t go away and sooner than later, we will find ourselves citizens of a very new kind of place and we may not like it.