Craig Van Pelt

This example illustrates how the cognitive rift and cyberzombies point toward a specific trajectory.

AI Boom / Bubble

Talk about an AI bubble misses the point.

AI is already too large to fail and too expensive to unwind.

If the pattern of AI industrial maturation follows earlier industrial cycles, various sectors built around AI will go dark. Some data centers will be absorbed by stable corporations. Other server farms will be abandoned. Some AI firms will disappear or be folded into more stable ones. The survivors will harden into near monopolies.

The systems will not vanish. They will be consolidated. They will keep running.

Cyberzombies do not require wages or care. They do not starve. Centuries of accumulated cognitive labor will keep operating in server farms owned by those who can still pay for power and water. The systems will continue to generate value and make decisions for those with access.

The cognitive rift will not disappear in an economic collapse. It will widen.

If AI follows previous industrial cycles, then AI will not collapse with an economic crash. The real question is: “Who will control what remains?”