The Beautiful, Naive Fantasy of a Nonprofit World Wide Web of AI

The tech press is currently infatuated with the idea of a democratic, nonprofit alternative to the proprietary artificial intelligence duopoly. Everyone wants to believe that a small, well-meaning organization can build a public utility to rival Google or Microsoft. The latest darling of this movement is Current AI, which promises a free, culturally inclusive web of intelligence.

It is a beautiful fantasy. It is also entirely detached from the economic and physical realities of modern computing.

Compute is Not Free, No Matter