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.”
Honestly love to see how these companies figure to make a profit in any given future. There are not enough humans with the money or care to pay even a minimal subscription. This is why they’re jamming it up our ass. An AI subscription will have to be the next internet or phone bill for this thing to even think about making a profit.
But what about commercial uses? There are plenty, but not enough to make a profit. Companies are already cautiously rolling back subscriptions.
It’s not a ‘product’ in the conventional sense. It’s a gateway to an intellegent astroturf machine. Buy a ton of fake accounts for every social media platform, make them appear ‘legit’, then have bots comb for anything they can shoehorn a message into and have your ai bot army manipulate public perception. That’s the only use case I could see companies actually willing to pay that kinda money for.
Not really, since even the paying subscribers are costing the companies money. If they were a baker, they’re doing the equivalent of selling 1-dollar loaves of bread that cost 2,50 to knead and bake, and that’s not even counting the fact that you need to buy flour first.
What was it again. OpenAI makes now almost a third of running costs in subscriptions?
Looks like consumer subscriptions are 1/3rd of total revenue, which doesn’t cover nearly 1/3rd of operating costs. Yikes! Worse than I thought.