The US dictionary Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2025 was “slop”, which it defines as “digital content of low quality that is produced, usually in quantity, by means of artificial intelligence”. The choice underlined the fact that while AI is being widely embraced, not least by corporate bosses keen to cut payroll costs, its downsides are also becoming obvious. In 2026, a reckoning with reality for AI represents a growing economic risk.
Ed Zitron, the foul-mouthed figurehead of AI scepticism, argues pretty convincingly that, as things stand, the “unit economics” of the entire industry – the cost of servicing the requests of a single customer against the price companies are able to charge them – just don’t add up. In typically colourful language, he calls them “dogshit”.
Revenues from AI are rising rapidly as more paying clients sign up but so far not by enough to cover the wild levels of investment under way: $400bn (£297bn) in 2025, with much more forecast in the next 12 months.
Another vehement sceptic, Cory Doctorow, argues: “These companies are not profitable. They can’t be profitable. They keep the lights on by soaking up hundreds of billions of dollars in other people’s money and then lighting it on fire.”
In my university, people are paying and saying wonders about it… that’s terrifying
They even talk daily about which model is best, just like children discussing which super hero is stronger
My management has fallen in love with it, but is considering dropping because the commercial fees to use copilot haven’t seen a return on investment.
Out of the 3 people at my company who pay for chat gpt or grok, the 2 chat gpt users are too reliant on it, while the grok user believes he is talking to a living super intelligence.
Well, no one is paying shit for my uni thesis, and most others like it. University reports under PhD level are of absolutely no value. And even most PhD are not commercially viable.
So what you are saying is that Ai is good at getting a good grade in an exam, but that doesn’t mean it can commercially make a viable product.