You've probably seen the posts about how AI is becoming more expensive than ever for a lot of applications -- even as cost per token falls.

So I said, OK, I'm going to dig into this. What I found was interesting!

And it's more complicated than you've heard.

🧵/1 First off, is the entire AI boom threatened by the rising cost of smarter-than-ever AI that burns tokens like they're Papiermark in Weimar Germany?

It... doesn't seem like it? Lots of levers for companies to pull. And experience of code-writing startups seems atypical.

🧵/2

The AI infrastructure build-out is so gigantic that in the past 6 months, it contributed more to the growth of the U.S. economy than /all of consumer spending/

The 'magnificent 7' spent more than $100 billion on data centers and the like in the past three months *alone*

1/🧵 As @pkedrosky has written, as a % of GDP, spending on AI infra has already exceeded spending on telecom and internet infrastructure from the dot-com boom—and it’s still growing.

One explanation for the U.S. economy’s ongoing strength is that this spending is so big it’s acting as a sort of private-sector stimulus program.

2/🧵

paulkedrosky.com/honey-ai-capex…

Something quietly revolutionary has happened in the auto industry and too few people have noticed:

Many EVs now cost the same or less than gas-powered vehicles.

Really! Even though their list prices remain higher.

Here's how that works.

1/

wsj.com/articles/elect… Lots of people look at the list price of an EV and think "meh, can't afford the premium"

But 85% of people finance the purchase of a new vehicle.

Which means what matters to most people is their *monthly* cost to own / operate that vehicle.

2/