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Chamath just asked the question nobody in AI wants to answer (Save this).

Milk Road AI Twitter · Milk Road AI (@MilkRoadAI) · 2026-05-16

Milk Road AI highlights Chamath Palihapitiya's public challenge to the AI industry demanding a clear return-on-investment accounting for $3 trillion spent on AI over the past four years.

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Extraction

Topics: ai-roiai-spendingventure-capital-aiai-economics

Claims

  • The AI industry has collectively spent approximately $3 trillion over the past four years.
  • No clear, defensible ROI for AI token consumption has been publicly demonstrated at scale.
  • The question of AI's return on investment is described as the most important open question in technology today.
  • Most people currently profiting from AI investment are unable to answer the ROI question adequately.

Key quotes

Okay guys, you've spent $3 trillion in the last four years. What is the ROI of these tokens?