If you want to get some internet points… just comment “AI slop” on any image or video that could have been made using AI.
And don’t get me wrong, there is a ton of shite on the internet these days… but there was a ton before AI as well…
But there’s a more poisonous type of comment that I see left by people who otherwise seem reasonably intelligent
“No one can share the financial ROI of the AI investments we are making”
Literally what a ridiculous take…
I see other like it calling the AI buildout an “ego race” or comparing Google, Microsoft and Meta’s investments to the tulip bubble.
It’s one thing to question whether the huge investments will pay off long term… it’s another to dismiss that they have ANY ROI
Even right now, all you have to do is read any quaterly report from the hyperscalers…
In Q2, Google's cloud business made more operating profit than it did in the whole of 2024.
$8.8 billion in one quarter… against $6.1 billion for all of 2024.
Then Meta… its AI decides which ad you see and when.
Last quarter, the average price per ad rose 12% and ad revenue climbed 27% to $59.4 billion.
If you've ever bought advertising for your own business, you know nobody pays 12% more for ads that don't work. They pay more because the ads sell more.
Quite literally the definition of Return on Investment
I can hear the retorts now…
Google’s numbers don’t count because all these hyperscalers are just selling to each other (they aren’t)
Well then what about C.H. Robinson?
The freight broker who grew operating income by 20% YoY and 60% since 2022… while the entire freight industry is in a downturn… and directly attributed that to AI investments
Or Waste Management, who used AI and machine learning to grow its SmartTruck platform to a $300m/year profit center… raising the company’s overall profitability this year
I can do another 10 examples… but the anti-AI crowd won’t like them.
But like it or not… AI is here to stay
Like every other once-hated technological innovation before it…
Because we as humans… tend to be very skeptical of new things…
And tomorrow I’ve got one of the best examples of that
Until then, it’s back to the pool for me
Oliver