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The AI Industry Is Panicking

12 min readJun 19, 2026

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Have you noticed that the AI bros are starting to panic? All of a sudden, they have dramatically U-turned on the notion that AI will take vast swathes of the job market despite that claim being critical to AI’s hype and the entire point of this ‘revolution’, they are desperate to gain US government backing, and they are pushing some of the most overpriced IPOs in history despite all of their companies being closer to a cash bonfire than a functional business. This is peak frenzy behaviour, the kind of stuff you see right before the bubble bursts. It is a thinly veiled, desperate attempt for them to find a stooge of a bagholder and cash out before the entire thing collapses. But why? Well, a lot has changed over the past few weeks, so let me walk you through everything.

The Debt & Bet

Here is a question: how much money do you think has been invested in the AI industry?

According to Reuters, investors and companies had poured around $2 trillion into AI by the end of 2025. But that isn’t quite the whole picture, as the AI industry has not just received cash investments but also racked up a colossal amount of debt. Much of this debt is obfuscated using weird company structures, which means Reuters probably hasn’t taken all of it into account.

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Will Lockett
Will Lockett

Written by Will Lockett

Independent journalist covering global politics, climate change and technology. Get articles early at www.planetearthandbeyond.co