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%

Yeah that's my first reaction to. 1.2% doesn't sound much. It's just people making headlines out of thin air. If it lists the water and energy consumption I might be more concerned.

Slightly off-topic, but ~9% of GDP is generated by "financial services" in the US. Personally I think it's a more alarming data point.

Why is 9% for financial services bad? This should cover fees/interest from everything like loans, transactions, mortgages, advice, investing, etc. It doesn't seem that surprising to me that the systems that are the backbone for all the money operations that power the rest of the economy make up about 10%.

9% is very inefficient.

"Inefficient" implies the money is being burned or something. It's flowing into the pockets of people who work in the financial services industry, who then spend it on other things. The economy isn't zero-sum.

And the industry itself greases the wheels of other industries. In other words without financial services like lending and payment processing there would be less spending and investment overall, so other industries would shrink along with it.

That’s a lot of money for “greasing”. Nearly 10% on any kind of overhead is generally considered a lot.

Central planning is drastically more efficient, for example. It’s why large companies use it internally.

Large companies are all decentralized. The ceo will set broad direction but they always leave details to the lower levels. Those lower levels often do things that are against the needs of a different division. Companies are reorganizing for efficiency all the time.