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https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/11/call-your-...
AI is not just coming for your job. Industry leaders plan to pick your pocket on a massive scale via a bailout.

However, top AI expert Gary Marcus has issued a call to action which I trust he wants to be circulated as widely as possible. Marcus has been warning that AI companies, who have no hope of ever achieving an adequate return on their massive investments, will soon do the obvious, which is to see a massive taxpayer rescue based on their presumed-obvious too-big-to-fail status.

Keep in mind that Marcus has been early and accurate in depicting the failure of large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT to live up to their promises, and has also debunked the idea that they could ever achieve true artificial general intelligence. More recently, he provided a series of sightings of how uptake and use of generative AI were slackening and even falling. This is consistent with various reports of AI not delivering in corporate settings, where its big applications were set to occur. For instance, a MIT study ascertained that 95% of corporate pilots of generative AI had failed. Similarly, Rand has determined that as many as 80% of AI implementations fail, twice the level of other software projects, and TechRepublic put the kaput rate at 85%.

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Gary Marcus
https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash...
The former AI chief at Uber has a warning for stock investors betting big on the technology


https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/if-you-thought-t...
If you thought the 2008 bank bailout was bad, wait til you see the 2026 AI bailout

A few days ago, Sam Altman got seriously pssed off when Brad Gerstner had the temerity to ask how OpenAI was going to pay the $1.4 trillion in obligations he was taking on, given a mere $13 billion in revenue.*

In a long, but mostly empty answer Altman pointed to revenue that hasn’t been reported and that maybe doesn’t exist, attacked the questioner, and promised that future revenue would be awsome

What Altman couldn’t say then was that he has a plan, to reduce the cost of his borrowing … by having the American taxpayer (indirectly) foot the bill.

The cat came out of the bag today, at a Wall Street Journal conference, from the mouth of OpenAI’s CFO, who seemed to be test-piloting the notion

======================
https://www.citizen.org/news/openais-request-for-m...
OpenAI’s Request for Massive Government Bailout Package Is Pure Corporate Entitlement

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/openai-cfo-re...
ChatGPT creator OpenAI had issued a clarification on Thursday that the company is not seeking US government loan guarantees to fund its massive infrastructure build-out.

This follows OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar’s comments at the Wall Street Journal’s business conference, where she said government backing could help attract the huge capital needed for AI computing infrastructure, especially given the uncertainty around how long AI data centers remain viable.

According to Friar, federal loan guarantees would “really drop the cost of the financing,” making it easier for OpenAI and its investors to borrow larger sums at lower interest rates.

If approved, the guarantees from such a proposal would lower OpenAI’s borrowing costs by shifting the risk of loss to the government should the company default.

So is the above a clarification or obfuscation of a burst trial balloon?

Did CFO Ms Friar let the cat out of the bag too soon?

How soon will the arguments that 1)AI is a strategic need for the nation. 2)And that we must remain ahead of China follow?
Has AI just become part of the defense industry?

AI will change the economy: possibly increasing GDP growth by 1% per year, and possibly displacing many workers from their jobs. I think there's enough private funding, and the U.S. government should stay out of it, except for funding basic AI research, preferably with existing departments that focus on healthcare (NIH), education (DOE), and science (NSF). Chatbots, AI search, and data centers should not get any government support, because there's plenty of private support. AI has uses in war, and so will get some defence department funding. Loan guarantees are a red flag.

CFO of OpenAI: "... We always want to be on the frontier chip. So the question is how long does a chip remain on the frontier? ... If the timeline on the chip stays short, that gets harder. And so this is where we're looking for an ecosystem of banks, private equity, maybe even governmental, the ways governments can come to bear.

WSJ: Meaning like a federal subsidy or something?

CFO of OpenAI: Meaning like just, first of all, the backstop, the guarantee that allows the financing to happen. ... "

OpenAI Wants Federal Backstop for New Investments
Sarah Friar, the CFO of OpenAI, says the company wants a federal guarantee to make it easier to finance massive investments in AI chips for data centers. Friar spoke at WSJ’s Tech Live event in California.
https://www.wsj.com/video/openai-wants-federal-bac...

How will Artificial Intelligence will Change the World, October 20, 2025
"McKinsey global institute says that at the global average level of adoption and absorption and advances in ai implied by their simulation, AI has the profound impact to deliver additional global economic activity of around $13 trillion in the foreseeable future and by 2030, or about 16% higher cumulative GDP compared with today. This amounts to 1.2% additional GDP growth per year. ...
Artificial intelligence (AI) could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs, a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs says. It could replace a quarter of work tasks in the US and Europe but may also mean new jobs and a productivity boom."
https://www.nexford.edu/insights/how-will-ai-affec...

Any statement from McKinsey I would take with a large grain of salt. They are king of layoffs. I'm sure they are in love with AI.
McKinsey is linked with numerous scandals both domestic & international.
Just a few links:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pulling-back-the-veil...
https://theconversation.com/what-frances-mckinsey-...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analys...
https://theconversation.com/what-frances-mckinsey-...

And AI does not have a record of success so far.
https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of...
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2680...
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-85-of-ai-...

Open AI has access to massive private investment. They have attracted $1.3 trillion in debt.
I believe Friar was fishing for government guarantees. Maybe because the return on AI is not a slam dunk.

"AI will change the economy: possibly increasing GDP growth by 1% per year, and possibly displacing many workers from their jobs"

I've read the claims about how AI will boost the economy, while at the same
time eliminating jobs. These seem to be 2 conflicting outcomes.

Currently, workers get paid, and with their paycheck they pay taxes, and spend money
on goods and services. So if AI makes them expendable,they are no longer working, they won't be paying taxes and spending money on goods and services. How exactly is that going to add growth to the GDP?

And AI is also going to raise the cost of electricity for households, possibly
steeply. For the average displaced American, cost of living goes up, while income
plummets.

Sounds like Americans are gonna get bent over again. I'm no Luddite, but
we better start electing some politicians that regulate AI and it's effect,
but instead we elect Politicians that can't climb into bed with the tech bro's
fast enough.

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/if-you-thought-t...
"A few days ago, Sam Altman got seriously pissed off when Brad Gerstner had the temerity to ask how OpenAI was going to pay the $1.4 trillion in obligations he was taking on, given a mere $13 billion in revenue."
Altman's response:"First of all. We’re doing well more revenue than that. Second of all, Brad, if you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer."
Find him a buyer? Altman didn't offer to buy Gerstner shares.
Is Altman highly leveraged hoping AI will propel him past Musk & Bezos in wealth? Or is Altman utilizing OPM?

Just how fragile is Open AI finances?
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sam-a...
OpenAI is planning to spend an exorbitant amount of money building out AI infrastructure, as it continues trying to achieve artificial general intelligence through sheer computational scale.

That’s despite its revenue lagging far behind its enormous spending spree, with recently released Microsoft earnings suggesting that the Sam Altman-led company lost a whopping $11.5 billion last quarter.

Even its blockbuster AI chatbot ChatGPT, which accounts for the majority of the company’s revenue, appears to be stalling out on new subscribers. OpenAI is struggling to convince more than a measly five percent of its 800 million active ChatGPT users to pay for a subscription.

Altman was ousted as CEO for 5 days then reinstated.
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligenc...
The board claimed Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board,” undermining their confidence in him. He was out for less than a week before being reinstated after hundreds of employees threatened to resign. But observers wondered: What hadn’t Altman been candid about? And what led Sutskever to turn against him?
Does not consistently candid=lying?

Now, new details have come to light in a legal deposition involving Sutskever, part of Musk’s ongoing lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI. For nearly 10 hours on October 1st, bookended by repeated sniping between Musk’s and Sutsever’s attorneys, Sutskever answered questions about the turmoil around Altman’s ouster, from conflicts between executives to short-lived merger talks with Anthropic. He testified that from personal experience and documentation he’d viewed, he’d seen Altman pit high-ranking executives against each other and offer conflicting information about his plans for the company, telling people what they wanted to hear.
In any case Altman triumphed and got the board replaced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman
As of June 2024, Altman's investment portfolio includes stakes in over 400 companies, valued at around US$2.8 billion. Some of these investments intersect with companies doing business with OpenAI, which has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest.

AI may become a force in the US economy. OpenAI wouldn't be my pick to bet on. But then at age 74, I no longer swing for the fences. My pick would be ETN that is involved in building data centers for AI.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/eaton-takes-aim-...

Not only ETN, but if looking at the world writ large:

PHG Koninklijke Philips N.V. Ny Reg - Netherlands
SIEGY Siemens Ag - Germany
SBGSY Schneider Electric Se - France
EMR Emerson Electric Company - USA
ETN Eaton Corporation, Plc - USA
ROK Rockwell Automation, Inc. - USA
HUBB Hubbell Inc - USA
HON Honeywell International Inc. - USA
JCI Johnson Controls International - USA
TEL Te Connectivity Ltd. - Switzerland
APH Amphenol Corporation - USA
epa:LR Legrand(Paris) - France
etr:PFSE Pfisterer Holding SE - Germany
swx:ABBN Abb Ltd N - Switzerland
swx:ACLN Accelleron Industries AG - Switzerland

Disclosure: I own shares of all of these companies - some for well over a decade. It is my opinion that we are seeing a convergence of AI, Cryptocurrency generation, EV's and the upcoming likely rebuilding of Ukraine, Gaza and a number of evolving economies requiring the items manufactured and the services provided by these companies world-wide.

Far broader in scope, the following companies handle virtually the entire breadth of manufacturing and exporting of Japan:

8001:tyo Itochu Corp
8002:tyo Marubeni Corp
8031:tyo Mitsui
8053:tyo Sumitomo
8058:tyo Mitsubishi

These guys dig up stuff which is needed by all of the above:

RIO Rio Tinto - Australia
BHP - UK/Australia
Vale - Brazil


Jeff

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