US AI Investment: Are Big Companies Wasting Billions on Unproven Strategies?
By
Dean Baker
Summary
The article examines whether major US corporations are wasting money on AI investments, drawing parallels to historical corporate blunders like the AOL-Time Warner merger. It critiques the massive spending by big tech companies on AI development, questioning the return on investment and comparing the US approach to Chinese competition in the AI space. The piece argues that throwing billions at AI without clear strategy mirrors past corporate failures.
Source
bskyUS AI Investment: Are Big Companies Wasting Billions on Unproven Strategies?counterpunch.orgKey quotes
· 3 pulledMost of us tend to think that the people controlling billions, or even hundreds of billions of dollars, at major corporations have a pretty good idea of what they are doing with their companies' money. But that clearly is not always the case.
In 2000, Time-Warner, which was at the time the largest media company in the country, effectively sold itself for nothing to AOL.
The sale went through just two months before t
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