And that other pillar at the bottom next to it? All the blue and white collar workers who are being forced into employment oblivion by the AI hype.
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2025
334 points (98.0% liked)
Political Memes
9600 readers
2981 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
This is a hideous mis-meme-ing of the original XKCD comic. The tiny pillar is supposed to represent something we all actually need -- since we have built so much on top of it -- but barely think about. Like curl or ffmpeg.
Sure but it also works as a solid visual for something like this. This is kinda the whole thing about memetics, memes aren't solid permanent things they shift and change as people interact with them putting a bit of themselves like genetic additions in a population. Memes the DNA of the soul.
I imagine solvent banking institutions, retirement funds and the like are something that most people seriously need but barely think about. If the most valuable listed American company finds its value plummetting from 4 trillion to a few billion, there will be all sorts of fun and interesting revelations about the entire American financial system.
That being said, you are absolutely welcome to post your own memes which meet your specifications!
Aye but the hoverover text on the original comic also alludes to a single point of failure and the repercussions.
AI hype is papering over the bullshit economy that exists underneath it all. Only a handful of companies make up most of the gains in the past few years of the stock market. If you take that away the market has been pretty flat. Which reflects the reality for most people.
Sooner we give it a kick, the better.
Happens every half decade. In my day it was outsourcing. It came and went. This will come and go. It's just how society is.
Can you explain? I fail to see how the American economy is dependent on AI-hype. AI-hype is here, yes, but if it ceases to exist tomorrow, nothing would change on the big scale.
Companies like Nividea, who are turning huge profits right now because of demand from AI, are the main bright spot in the stock market right now.
OpenAI, with just 3000 employees, is “worth” $300-$500 billion right now, while losing $5 billion a year and is still without profitability even on the horizon. It’s hard to say if they’ll ever figure out how to monetize it and how much it will be worth at that point.
These are big big numbers and if the AI hype died overnight, so would a lot of the stock market.
Also look at all the mass-firings in the tech industry. Many of them are argued with AI being able to replace the workers, even though this hasn't been proven. Even non-tech companies argue that way. AI is supposed to increase efficiency and thus you need less people to do the work.
The dot-com bubble at least also came with mass-enployment. I wonder if the burst of the AI-bubble will result in the companies having to re-employ many of the workers they fired...
I fear small to medium sized companies who fall for this will not be able to afford to rehire and they will go under. Leaving only these big monopolies left.
It's based on a report from Deutsche Bank finical analysts that said that the enormous spending on "AI" is the only reason the US economy isn't in recession already.
As it was seen in previous crisises (dot-com bubble being the perfect somewhat recent example) - after hype hits its peak - reality of diminishing returns kicks in, and and then it's up to human nature to start panic, and that will just wreck valuation of companies along the board.
Economy ain't gonna cease existing, but it will absolutely hurt, when massive amounts of money will just instantly vaporize.
Oh, how I wish it were true that AI was this thin stick that would bring the whole building down if it fails.
Is not about hype anymore.
"We just need beans and rice as an essential part of -- ah, who am I kidding? -- entirety of our diet, but we're not going to have that either."
The entire ~~American~~ Global Economy.