Current “AI” from my perspective is less like a technological breakthrough—“the genie is out of the bottle”—and more a research fusion reactor: no matter how much energy and money you throw at the thing, nothing changes the fact that it costs more energy than it produces
All that scaling it up accomplishes is waste. LLM true believers are effectively arguing their tech accomplishes free energy when the costs mean it’s effectively the opposite
You know this already; but it's worth sharing again.
AI has several purposes for its fossil fuel investors:
1. Wage suppression & thwarting labor unions
https://fortune.com/2026/04/23/nursing-gig-economy-minimum-wage-ai-surveillance/
https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/labor-notes-conference-ai-unions/
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/they-just-formed-the-biggest-tech
2. Tax subsidies
https://www.internationalaccountingbulletin.com/news/kpmg-acquires-stake-in-ai-powered-tax-incentive-platform-incentify/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-06-17/ai-s-1-billion-tax-grab-data-centers-in-focus-video
3. Maximizing wasteful fossil fuel use
https://www.wired.com/story/new-gas-powered-data-centers-could-emit-more-greenhouse-gases-than-entire-nations/
https://www.wired.com/story/trump-energy-industry-ai-fossil-fuels-pittsburgh-summit/
4. Price gouging
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-electricity-prices/
1/
2/
5. Price fixing cartels
https://www.hwcooling.net/en/almost-like-price-fixing-memory-manufacturers-hike-prices-in-sync/
https://www.propublica.org/article/doj-realpage-settlement-rental-price-fixing-case
https://jacobin.com/2025/12/realpage-ai-rent-raising-lawsuit
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ndp-motion-surveillance-pricing-9.7164611
https://moneywise.com/news/economy/ai-memory-chip-shortage-pc-prices-2026
6. Tax loss harvesting
https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/personal-finance/tax-loss-harvesting
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinmckenna/2026/02/23/tax-loss-harvesting-through-direct-indexing/
If you'd been told to expect $234 billion in windfall profits, wouldn't you plan ahead to evade the taxes using tax loss harvesting schemes?
The bonkers AI & crypto investment hype of $100 billion
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-06/saudis-plan-100-billion-ai-powerhouse-to-rival-uae-s-tech-hub
Not long ago, we reported bad news about NAND Flash prices. Western Digital announced across-the-board increases for HDDs, and its SanDisk division raised prices for NAND and SSDs built from them. It now looks like that was just the beginning—broad price hikes across the memory market are ahead. Samsung, one of the largest producers, has […]
Baldur Bjarnason
Nicole Parsons
