May 28th 2026 - AI is Getting Too Expensive

We're at the point now with AI where people are realizing that innovation doesn't happen automatically when you have more resources or the ability to crank out more output. Innovation usually requires real problems to solve, a limitation on resources, and creative people working on problems they find interesting. If you're in a mature industry, chances are, there is little room to innovate with AI. Not because AI isn't a wonderful tool but because your company, and competitors, have put in hundreds of thousands of human hours into solving the problems of your industry. If they haven't come up with something innovative in the last 5 to 10 years, AI probably isn't either.

Companies have been spending ridiculous amounts of money trying to squeeze innovation out of a tool that is designed to produce statistically average results. This leads to mass layoffs because workers, who also produce average results, are seen as redundant. But when average workers come together they can produce extraordinary results through the mere act of working on something long enough and synthesizing ideas. Eventually, someone will say or write something that triggers a thought for someone else and it leads to a breakthrough. AI can't do this, yet.

Regarding the software industry, the speed of writing code was never the bottleneck. Yes, AI can do it faster, but the parts that are most challenging are finding a market and figuring out how to best serve it. Those are the parts that take the longest and, often, the most resources. In reality, this is the real business of any company, what they produce is just a side effect of finding these two things. AI hasn't shown much promise in this regard. There are some simulated and small real world tries like what Andonlabs is doing but it seems humans are still better at this kind of thing.