After ChatGPT drew millions of users to the first mature, widely available LLM-based chatbot, the race was on to build better, bigger, and more versatile AI models for a range of stated and implied purposes: to automate labor; to entertain people; to replace old software; to come up with entirely new types of software; to perhaps accumulate power in less obvious and more ambitious ways; to build some sort of god and hope it doesn’t immediately murder everyone; and, perhaps, to assure markets that your company is on top of things, wherever they’re going.

Building and deploying state-of-the-art generative-AI models is extremely capital intensive, which has resulted in the unsettling spectacle of some of the richest companies on earth broadcasting their intention to buy dominance in a future they’re all saying is inevitable: $75 billion in data-center investment from Google in 2025; $100 billion from Amazon; $80 billion from Microsoft. Each firm has a different connection to the moment and reason to believe it might prevail. Microsoft was........

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