I’m currently reading a book about the history of the railroads in the US. There are some interesting parallels (I think) between the initial build-out of the railroads and the build-out of AI infrastructure and whatnot. I haven’t thought it all the way through yet, but (for example) there was a lot of “lay down as much track as possible and we will figure out what to do with it” in the early days of the railroads — sounds familiar. I need to think more about this (and what it might suggest about the future of AI).