I guess my takeaway from this is: Try not to build your life around AI, but there's so much money being pumped into it that your life will be heavily affected by AI succeeding or failing.
What else can individuals do though?
I remember "doomsday prepping" became a cultural phenomenon after the 2008 financial crisis. But if you avoided the stock market and/or taking on debt at historically low interest rates, you missed out on some significant opportunities. Maybe part of that prepping is to reorder your life so that you don't care about stocks or real estate. Maybe the timeframe I'm looking at is too narrow, and history will lump 2008 and any AI crash together.
But maybe AI would be bailed out. I think we're already seeing private industries treat AI the same as their office real estate after COVID, i.e. "We don't need this, but we have it, so we need to use it."
The only call-to-action that Zitron writes in this piece is, "When the collapse happens, do not let a single person that waved off the economics have a moment’s peace." But I think if the collapse occurs as he is proposing, we won't have time to police the boosters' peace.
Does anyone have a more actionable plan for insulating yourself, your family, your community, or society at-large from a potential AI crash?
Since so much of the US economy (as of 2025) is built on AI, the best thing you can do is effectively de-dollarize: don't hold USD (which has already lost 10% of its value this year) and move your money into European/Asian equities instead of the US stock market.
I could see a case for personal de-dollarization in the long term, but based on previous American financial crises, European and Asian markets are also impacted by the downturn. Even the Shanghai Stock Exchange was hit in 2008[1].
Of course, this time could be different. Do you have any speculation as to why it would be?
Yeah good point, might be impossible to fully insulate yourself then. It just seems like the US economy is more tied to the AI bubble than any other national economy.
> We are watching one of the greatest wastes of money in history, all as people are told that there “just isn’t the money” to build things like housing, or provide Americans with universal healthcare, or better schools, or create the means for the average person to accumulate wealth. The money does exist, it just exists for those who want to gamble
Wealth is not a zero sum game.
Unless you're going to tax or create more subtle incentives, you cannot tell people what to do with their money. They don't HAVE to give it to charity, they don't have to funnel it into investments they don't want to. Heck, you can't tell them not to gamble.
I guess my takeaway from this is: Try not to build your life around AI, but there's so much money being pumped into it that your life will be heavily affected by AI succeeding or failing.
What else can individuals do though?
I remember "doomsday prepping" became a cultural phenomenon after the 2008 financial crisis. But if you avoided the stock market and/or taking on debt at historically low interest rates, you missed out on some significant opportunities. Maybe part of that prepping is to reorder your life so that you don't care about stocks or real estate. Maybe the timeframe I'm looking at is too narrow, and history will lump 2008 and any AI crash together.
But maybe AI would be bailed out. I think we're already seeing private industries treat AI the same as their office real estate after COVID, i.e. "We don't need this, but we have it, so we need to use it."
The only call-to-action that Zitron writes in this piece is, "When the collapse happens, do not let a single person that waved off the economics have a moment’s peace." But I think if the collapse occurs as he is proposing, we won't have time to police the boosters' peace.
Does anyone have a more actionable plan for insulating yourself, your family, your community, or society at-large from a potential AI crash?
Since so much of the US economy (as of 2025) is built on AI, the best thing you can do is effectively de-dollarize: don't hold USD (which has already lost 10% of its value this year) and move your money into European/Asian equities instead of the US stock market.
I could see a case for personal de-dollarization in the long term, but based on previous American financial crises, European and Asian markets are also impacted by the downturn. Even the Shanghai Stock Exchange was hit in 2008[1].
Of course, this time could be different. Do you have any speculation as to why it would be?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Stock_Exchange#Timeli...
Yeah good point, might be impossible to fully insulate yourself then. It just seems like the US economy is more tied to the AI bubble than any other national economy.
> We are watching one of the greatest wastes of money in history, all as people are told that there “just isn’t the money” to build things like housing, or provide Americans with universal healthcare, or better schools, or create the means for the average person to accumulate wealth. The money does exist, it just exists for those who want to gamble
Wealth is not a zero sum game.
Unless you're going to tax or create more subtle incentives, you cannot tell people what to do with their money. They don't HAVE to give it to charity, they don't have to funnel it into investments they don't want to. Heck, you can't tell them not to gamble.
Ummmm governments do it all the time to poor people. No? From limiting what kinds of food they can buy and what they can spend money on.
Did you mean, "you can't tellwealthy people what to do with their money"?