Lately, I’ve been noticing how certain we’ve all become about AI (and, yes, I’ve been guilty of this too… I am still super-optimisitc).

Certain it’s inevitable…
Certain it’s transformative…
Certain it’s worth whatever it costs…

And that’s what made my conversation with Cory Doctorow for this week’s episode of Thinking With Mitch Joel so interesting… and honestly… a little uncomfortable.

Cory is not subtle (just check out his latest book, Enshittification – Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It… or follow his Pluralistic emails)
He doesn’t gently question trends.
He interrogates them.
And after interrogating the state of AI, Cory believes it’s not only a bubble but corporate fraud…
Not because the technology doesn’t work (in fact, he argues much of it doesn’t work as advertised).
But because the economics might not (and he’s far less tentative about that than I am).

That’s a very different argument than “AI isn’t good.”

It’s asking whether the massive capital expenditures… the infrastructure, the chips, the energy, the models, the sales deals… are actually producing a truly transformative economic model… or just narrative momentum.
We’ve seen this movie before.
Railroads… telecom… dot-com… crypto.
“World-changing” technologies can still be wrapped in speculative excess and hype.

That doesn’t make them fake.

It just makes markets human (and humans do hyper-emotional and irrational things).
What struck me wasn’t whether Cory is “right.”
It was how quickly most of us dismiss the possibility that he might be right.

Because the dominant cultural story right now is speed at all costs.

More investment… more integration… more development… more deployment.
And when capital floods a category this fast, questioning it can feel like heresy.
But good strategy has never required blind optimism.
And it has never rewarded blind cynicism either.

The leaders I respect most must hold both tensions at once…

AI will reshape industries.
AI may not be as transformative (as quickly) as the frontier models are telling us.
Both can be true…
Cory’s deeper provocation wasn’t that AI won’t matter (even though he doesn’t think it will).
It was that we may be confusing technological capability with durable business models.

It’s something to think about.

Because when billions (even trillions) are allocated based on assumed future returns, leaders have to ask harder questions than, “Does it work?”
They have to ask: Who captures the value?
When?
Under what margins?
At what cost?
And if it can do what we’re being told, who in this company is ready, willing and sharing?
And who absorbs the downside if the assumptions don’t hold?

That’s not anti-AI… that’s pro-discipline.

And in this moment where the loudest voices are either evangelists or doomsayers, the more interesting move might be neither.
It might be intellectual range.
To listen to someone like Cory without needing to agree with him.
To test your own conviction against his skepticism.
To ask whether your enthusiasm is strategic… or emotional.

Because bubbles don’t form when something is useless.

They form when something is powerful… and everyone believes the story will only go one direction.
So maybe the better leadership question right now isn’t: “Is AI the future?”
It’s: Are we investing with clarity… or with speed disguised as inevitability?

And are we open enough to hear uncomfortable perspectives before the market forces us to?

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Mitch Joel (@mitchjoel)

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