AI capex is so big that it's affecting economic statistics

I don't know... 1.2% of GDP just doesn't seem that extreme to me. Certainly nowhere near "eating the economy" level compared to other transformative technologies or programs like:

- Apollo program: 4%

- Railroads: 6% (mentioned by the author)

- Covid stimulus: 27%

- WW2 defense: 40%

- The birth of the space age, and more realistically the birth of the ICBM and satellite age. Both key to national security, and in the context of a cold war.

- 40% of long-distance ton miles travel by rail in the US. This represents a VAST part of the economic activity within the country.

- A literal plague, and the cessation of much economic activity, with the goal of avoiding a total collapse.

- ...Come on.

So we're comparing these earth-shaking changes and reactions to crisis with "AI"? Other than the people selling pickaxes and hookers to the prospectors, who is getting rich here exactly? What essential economic activity is AI crucial to? What war is it fighting? It mostly seems to be a toy that costs FAR more than it could ever hope to make, subsidized by some obscenely wealthy speculators, executives fantasizing about savings that don't materialize, and a product looking for a purpose commensurate to the resources it eats.

It continually surprises me when people are in denial like this.

Literally every profession around me is radically changing due to AI. Legal, tech, marketing etc have adopted AI faster than any technology I have ever witnessed.

I’m gobsmacked you’re in denial.

You could be right, but I'm not the one here who's paycheck depends on AI being worth more than the cost.

The adoption curve is self evident to any one not living under a rock. I suspect you’re mostly just a grumbler than making cogent arguments