"The great railroad bust [of 1873] did not happen because America built too many railroads.... What happened was that America financed its railroads faster than they could capture value....Why is this important for AI? Because even if AI creates all the value its biggest boosters say it’ll do — supercharges growth, enables the automation of most kinds of production, and so on — it might not do it fast enough for the data center 'hyperscalers' to pay back everything they borrowed. In that case, there will be a wave of defaults on bonds and loans.... @timoreilly on the AI boom