By now, it’s clear that the only way the tech industry can justify the cost of AI is if it replaces vast swaths of the human workforce with machines that run 24/7.
The bad news is that this situation has created a world-historic financial market that, by some metrics, is looking worse than the run-up to the Great Depression. The good news is that this future of an AI takeover is looking increasingly unlikely, at least at the industry’s current pace, a fact which is now dawning on some of the biggest rubes and dupes in the corporate world.
According to a new survey from “Big Four” accounting firm KPMG, a significant number of corporate executives are reeling from sticker shock over new usage-based AI pricing schemes. Though enterprises could once count on AI companies to subsidize the price of large language models via flat-rate contracts, that’s no longer a given, as the rising cost of computational power forces the entire tech sector into a defensive posture.
@MicroWave Boss: ‘What a fantastic day! Tollbooth co have announced the worker replacement tollbooth that can replace workers, and they’re rentimg into people at far less than it costs to run! What a fantastic deal, I shall never have to deal with troublesome workers expecting to be paid more each year!’
Boss 1 year later: 'What? Tollbooth co have announced a massive price hike?! This is an outrage! How dare they demand more money after I let them infiltrate every aspect of my business?! Oh what a terrible day, who could have seen this coming? Why did nobody warn me, except the workers I fired then had to re-hire to check the tollbooth was working?