The real reason why people get distracted is their emotional threshold for uncomfortable experiences (like thinking about working) is way too low. We try to avoid uncomfortable feelings and chase after pleasurable ones. We have to train our threshold higher and higher until it completely disappears.

When your whole business model depends on getting funded at different stages you have a bad business. Long gone are the days where tech companies could fund their own growth through a profitable business. Not because the economy has changed but because its easier to convince investors to give you money than to actually deliver anything of value in a profitable way.

There are parallels between AI usage and slavery. The cost of keeping slaves was food, shelter, and medicine. The cost of keeping LLMs is data, infrastructure, and maintenance. We exploited human labor to progress and build wealth which is the same thing we're doing with LLMs, using them without consent or compensation.

Of course, AI is not sentient (if anyone could prove another being, other than themselves, to be sentient they would win a Nobel Prize). But the parallels still exist and the mechanism of exploitation still echoes true in both cases.