McKelvey, F. (2025, September 28). Generative AI might end up being worthless – and that could be a good thing. The Conversation.

Abstract

This article challenges the dominant narrative of generative AI’s inevitable economic success by examining structural conditions that may render it commercially unviable. The article identifies three critical pressures undermine commercial viability: unsustainable computing costs, mounting copyright litigation, and proliferation of open-source alternatives that destabilize market valuations. Highlighting the $800 billion revenue shortfall, the article reframes AI’s potential failure not as catastrophe but as revealing a deeper contradiction: knowledge systems trained on collective intellectual labor may be impossible to price and own. It argues that commercial collapse could benefit users through sustained access to free tools while checking big tech consolidation. This analysis offers a counternarrative to techno-optimism, suggesting AI’s value may lie precisely in its resistance to commodification.