Why the BAIT Outfits Are Drag Netting for Users
November 25, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Have you wondered why the BAIT (big AI tech) companies are pumping cash into what looks to many like a cash bonfire? Here’s one answer, and I think it is a reasonably good one. Navigate to “Best Case: We’re in a Bubble. Worst Case: The People Profiting Most Know Exactly What They’re Doing.” I want to highlight several passages and then often my usually-ignored observations.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough, but I am not sure how many AI execs wear old-fashioned camping gear.
I noted this statement:
The best case scenario is that AI is just not as valuable as those who invest in it, make it, and sell it believe.
My reaction to this bubble argument is that the BAIT outfits realized after Microsoft said, “AI in Windows” that a monopoly-type outfit was making a move. Was AI the next oil or railroad play? Then Google did its really professional and carefully-planned Code Red or Yellow whatever, the hair-on-fire moment arrived. Now almost three years later, the hot air from the flaming coifs are equaled by the fumes of incinerating bank notes.
The write up offers this comment:
My experience with AI in the design context tends to reflect what I think is generally true about AI in the workplace: the smaller the use case, the larger the gain. The larger the use case, the larger the expense. Most of the larger use cases that I have observed — where AI is leveraged to automate entire workflows, or capture end to end operational data, or replace an entire function — the outlay of work is equal to or greater than the savings. The time we think we’ll save by using AI tends to be spent on doing something else with AI.
The experiences of my team and I support this statement. However, when I go back to the early days of online in the 1970s, the benefits of moving from print research to digital (online) research were fungible. They were quantifiable. Online is where AI lives. As a result, the technology is not global. It is a subset of functions. The more specific the problem, the more likely it is that smart software can help with a segment of the work. The idea that cobbled together methods based on built-in guesses will be wonderful is just plain crazy. Once one thinks of AI as a utility, then it is easier to identify a use case where careful application of the technology will deliver a benefit. I think of AI as a slightly more sophisticated spell checker for writing at the 8th grade level.
The essay points out:
The last ten years have practically been defined by filter bubbles, alternative facts, and weaponized social media — without AI. AI can do all of that better, faster, and with more precision. With a culture-wide degradation of trust in our major global networks, it leaves us vulnerable to lies of all kinds from all kinds of sources and no standard by which to vet the things we see, hear, or read.
Yep, this is a useful way to explain that flows of online information tear down social structures. What’s not referenced, however, is that rebuilding will take a long time. Think about smashing your mom’s favorite Knick- knack. Were you capable of making it as good as new? Sure, a few specialists might be able to do a good job, but the time and cost means that once something is destroyed, that something is gone. The rebuild is at best a close approximation. That’s why people who want to go back to social structures in the 1950s are chasing a fairy tale.
The essay notes:
When a private company can construct what is essentially a new energy city with no people and no elected representation, and do this dozens of times a year across a nation to the point that half a century of national energy policy suddenly gets turned on its head and nuclear reactors are back in style, you have a sudden imbalance of power that looks like a cancer spreading within a national body.
My view is that the BAIT outfits want to control, dominate, and cash in. Hey, if you have cancer and one company has the alleged cure, are you going to take the drug or just die?
Several observations are warranted:
- BAIT outfits want to be the winner and be the only alpha dog. Ruthless behavior will be the norm for these firms.
- AI is the next big thing. The idea is that if one wishes it, thinks it, or invests in it, AI will be. My hunch is that the present methodologies are on the path to becoming the equivalent of a dial up modem.
- The social consequences of the AI utility added to social media are either ignored or not understood. AI is the catalyst needed to turn one substance into an explosion.
Net net: Good essay. I think the downsides referenced in the essay understate the scope of the challenge.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2025
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