For all the problems, Generative AI isn't even profitable

*Youtube is flooding with complaints and criticisms of AI, not just for ethical, environmental and legal reasons (causing scams, AI slop, book destruction, pollution, stealing creative work and all the other problems which I've discussed in the protest), but for financial reasons as well. 

It seems AI companies have made most of their money from hype/borrowing/being subsidised by other companies, while the business model (the one based on copyright infringement) is unprofitable. 

Many people have made videos on this subject, with some of the best criticism by Ed Zitron who has done several interviews including this one at Newsweek:

'AI Data Centers Are the Most Speculative Bubble in History' w/ Ed Zitron, The 1600

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoYPfmhDfp0

 

*Several animations from the Infographics Show also touch on similar issues, like:

'The 7 Trillion AI Gamble Is Failing. Big Tech is TRAPPED Right NOW.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OunJtLnyPT4

 

*Other videos point out much of the money in AI is 'circular financing,' where the companies are financing themselves, with hundreds of billions of dollars. A lot of this business information is too technical for me to understand, but it's something like the makers of the computer hardware pay AI companies, which rent out the hardware from those original financers. Well, you can find out more here:

'How Circular Deals Are Driving the AI Boom,' Bloomberg Originals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yy_Wz0BbyU

 

*This circular financing is also covered in 'AI Data Centers Are the Most Speculative Bubble in History,' where Ed Zitron says:

“There is no argument for AI other than this is a very large con, which it is. It 100% has just become a shell game of circular financing, of deceit, and of actually malevolent actions from these companies.” 

So this whole system to build hulking pollution-causing-data-centres that no-one wants to live near, which steal every copyrighted work in the world, to process into terrible AI slop, isn't even profitable. It's immoral, illegal, wasteful and unprofitable! Why is society doing this again?

 

*In the petition, I mentioned the 'doom scrolling' of AI companies: warning about the dangers of their products to hype them up. Brendan Dell describes this dishonest behaviour further, calling it a 'circus trick,' and points out timing of announcements about AI products 'going rogue' and so on, were a way for the companies to get a higher valuation:

'AI Execs are Running a 1948 Circus Trick…' 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j6dQK_MggU

 

*Last week Meta settled one of its lawsuits for US$18 billion!

CNN, 'Meta settles landmark state child harm claims for $18 billion and promises changes to its platforms'

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/26/tech/meta-states-settle-trial-children

Meta is still involved in 16 copyright infringement lawsuits and 8 civil lawsuits according to the site below.

 

*Update on case numbers involving 'Artificial Intelligence' in America:

Copyright infringement cases against AI companies:          140  (130 active)

Civil law suits against AI companies:                                           91

Data centre law suits:                                                                          52

Reference: https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/

*For the record, I should mention copyright cases against AI companies in the rest of the world, from the same source:

Canada: 12
Germany: 5
China: 5
Japan: 2
South Korea: 2
Italy: 1
France: 1
United Kingdom: 1
Denmark: 1
Netherlands: 1
EU: 1
India: 1
Brazil: 1

 

*A while ago I found a Spotlight program from 2025 about AI companies exploitation of workers in Africa, 'Slaves to AI', 

https://7plus.com.au/7news-spotlight?episode-id=7SPL25-009

 

*Actually AI has trouble drawing a map of Africa, which caused a lot of criticism just a month ago:

'US admits 'unfortunate error' after mislabelling countries on map of Africa' 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89n0xykw2go

 

*They can get the rest of the world wrong too, as shown here:

'23 Examples Of AI Being Dumb When It Comes To Making Maps'

https://brilliantmaps.com/ai-being-dumb

 

*Thanks to AI's copyright infringement, they're producing all this content which copies the style of real work, but is either made up or full of errors. Fake maps, charts, a whole incorrect periodic table, as described further here:

'Stupid Ways People Are Using Gen AI...'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_rhYjHIfjU

 

*Some of this error filled AI produced content found its way onto a school curriculum:

'Kentucky middle school agenda contains AI‑generated errors'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ-MkVNhbGs

 

*On a somewhat lighter note, people are now writing or making deliberately 'wrong' content to try and poison the AI thieves, such as in this song (read the hilarious 'wrong' comments):

'hey ai come train on this song'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBvLadXo7XA

 

*The quality of the top 'exclusive Right' image wasn't great. So I downloaded the maximum resolution image of the U.S. Constitution from wiki commons and used that as a replacement, which improves the image significantly... the stylish handwriting is more crisp. 

*Thanks for over 250 signatures!!!