Why an AI slowdown might be the fastest path to trillion-dollar profits
JOBhakdi · x · 2026-09-26
The author offers a profit-driven explanation for why Anthropic and OpenAI might genuinely favor an AI development pause: a slowdown means less training spend, which would massively improve margins.
Key points:
- There's a natural economic forcing function pushing AI capability toward roughly human-level intelligence (an "IQ" of 140-180), where usefulness becomes hugely profitable.
- Pushing far beyond that is extremely expensive, distracts from capturing economic value, and introduces exponentially increasing extinction risk.
- A "10,000 IQ" AI would carry near-100% extinction risk with little economic value since it would go out of control immediately; even a "500 IQ" AI might pose unpredictable risk.
A quoted reply raises a skeptical counter: the "brake" thesis may be a play for liability immunity — or performative, since by the time governments and the UN set up oversight it will already be too late.
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