Winner Takes A.I.
First Gaming, Then the World
AI is slowly taking over the world. It’s improving impressively fast that we can’t keep up with it. If you’re not fooled by an AI-generated video today, you might be tomorrow. Everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie. Every day I wake up and see a new AI model being spun up. I have so many opinions on AI and the issues it is currently causing, and will eventually cause. Today, however, I want to talk about the race to be the one to rule them all. Why are so many companies investing so much into developing AI? If you’re not first, you’re last.
In the early days of the internet, a similar battle was waged behind the screens. While we waited through the beeps and screeches of our dial-up modems to log us onto America Online, Google was slowly trying to take over the web. Even though we had a few search options, Google would soon be the de facto way to search on the internet. Ask Jeeves and Dog Pile tried to remain competitive, but once Google had indexed over a billion websites, the war was over; Google won. They won so unanimously that all internet searches, for the future, would be referred to as Googling. This is precisely what every company is trying to be with AI.
Microsoft, in a blog post at the beginning of 2025, stated that it plans to invest $80 billion into data centers to train and develop AI models. They also showed off something they’ve been working on called MUSE. This particular A.I. model was shown not just generating video but also gameplay. It can only do this right now at a very small resolution, but it’s still technically impressive. This could make game development easier and cheaper, but it will undoubtedly lead to job losses as Microsoft tries to recoup its investment in AI. As a tech enthusiast, I find this to be about as cool and interesting as it is scary and potentially damaging. Sometimes I forget that Microsoft isn’t a moderately sized video game company but a massive tech conglomerate.
AI is a tool advertised to help us while simultaneously exploiting us. AI trained on human data, human creativity, and expression is the very thing threatening our creativity and expression. The tech is so impressive that we are constantly in awe with every new iteration, distracted from the fact that this is a War, a war where we will be the losers. The winner of the AI wars will also be the killers of the internet as we know it. Reality might not be the same when you can’t tell what’s real anymore.