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

Railroads lead to a distribution of capital into the society and to a long term increase of wealth for many.

Ai leads to a capital concentration on the hands of those that already have money and might lead to a long term reduction of wealth for the middle class.

Less purchasing power in the population usually is not good for economic development, so I have my doubts with respect to a boom .

> Railroads lead to a distribution of capital into the society

does it? I recall that railroads were monopolies (the vanderbilts). The gov't had to pass an act to break them up, because there were price collusions and farmers were forced to pay a higher price for their transport of foodstuffs.

> Ai leads to a capital concentration on the hands of those that already have money

that is true for a lot of other capital intensive ventures. Why pick ai specifically?

And AI is less monopolistic - at least it's not a natural monopoly. There are competition, and there are alternatives.

railroads are for moving freight, and you don't move freight if you're not selling goods. yes there were trust issues, but fundamentally a railroad requires a surrounding market.

ai does not, and seems to suffer the "resource curse" https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Mak2kZuTq8Hpnqyzb/the-intell...

Railroads needed steel and construction.

They were giant infrastructure projects build by thousands of humans.

Ai is not.

how many more people are involved in the entire supply chain of a single chip, compared to construction of rail roads?