Discussion
Your semi-regular reminder that given the size and extent of the “AI” bubble it’s an absolute certainty that fraud is involved in it somewhere. We don’t know the scale or location of the fraud but you simply do not get a trillion-dollar bubble without fraud, both financial and in information/discourse
And all that fraud is going to be lined up supporting “AI”. Calibrate your scepticism accordingly.
@baldur look, it's pretty clear that nearly all of it is fraud. It's like trying to find the forest but being blocked by trees.
@baldur they say it's not AI at all and LLMs are just talkative database apps and graphic editors to that. Because of their nature, work on floating point numbers in graphic cards, why not edit videos to that...
Every ai is really 1 guy named Dustin living in a bunker full of self-help books, and he just grabs at whatever is near when creeps ask him how their cousin looks in hooker boots, and sends them photos of a horse.
@baldur
Data centers will mostly used as ad spy intelligence gathering violating citizens rights just to bring ads to people "they believe" will be "customized" just for them.
It's creepy when you look at something on your pc then get ad for it on wifi antenna TV. They've learned to automate this unethical practice and, walla, data centers for AI privacy menacing.
Just because I looked up outdoors doesn't mean I'm going to buy hiking crap, idiots, stop creeping round! Planet killing for this?
@baldur Definitely yes, there is fraud feeding the bubble. The players of this bubble game are probably the same people who are removing the safeguards we put on our banking rules after the market crash in 1929 which closed so many banks. My father's family had money in a bank which closed and all their savings was gone forever after. My father's family could grow their food and they had marketable skills. My mother's family had to sell their house and travel to where the work was. This reminder you remind us of the "AI" bubble, this is an important reminder for us to use whatever we have to prepare for the worst and look for a way to survive. These days remind me of the stories my parents told me about those days.
@baldur I keep not understanding how some large investors still bring in new funds: it's impossible they're unaware to gamble in a fraud.
We already know the source of the fraud behind the AI bubble.
The most corrupt industry on the planet; the fossil fuel industry.
The red flag is always investment by petrostate despots & Koch Network. Even Trump confirms this.
https://www.wired.com/story/trump-energy-industry-ai-fossil-fuels-pittsburgh-summit/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/technology/saudi-arabia-ai-exporter.html
https://www.desmog.com/2025/12/11/the-koch-network-is-pushing-trump-to-accelerate-ai-documents-show/
https://www.desmog.com/2026/06/11/mark-carney-advisor-says-ai-data-centres-provide-markets-for-gas/
https://www.semafor.com/article/11/07/2025/uae-says-its-invested-148b-in-ai-since-2024
https://www.desmog.com/2026/04/29/inside-the-plot-to-cover-europe-with-gas-powered-ai-data-centres/
The pump & dump has already begun.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-28/koch-said-to-weigh-15-billion-sale-of-data-center-player-edged
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/magazine/takeaways-larry-ellison-oracle-ai.html
@baldur Fraud or not fraud - the last couple of weeks I'm starting to see this kind of things more often:
@baldur and the fraud cycle follows the business cycle, so when the bubble bursts...
If you have read anything from Ed Zitron, you’ll know that he said that his research involves reading AI statements while awake. He’s gone on the comment that unlike 2008 there is no deeply opaque and incomprehensible derivative structure. News publications aren’t reading financial statements and simply propagate hype.
And every publication that bought into the hype needs to go into the trashcan
(I’ve been making this point from the very start of the bubble. Very few people listened and quite a few who did listen three years ago stopped listening when the bubble continued to grow which is the opposite of rational but, y’know, that’s people for you 🤷🏻♂️)
@baldur Ed Zitron is out there writing weekly jeremiads about how fraudulent the accounting surrounding this whole fiasco is. It would keep me up at night if it weren't for all the OTHER crap keeping me up at night.
@baldur Two questions:
① Do you think the dotcom bubble 25 years ago was fraud-driven?
② Do you think that the dotcom bubble has brought exceptionally evil to the industry?
I struggle to understand why anyone short of investors should bother.
@baldur Well...
