John Clayton

Soundbites suck.
Ask why. Test the math.
Let’s move the needle. Check replies MAGA/MAHA
Unfiltered? This IS my filtered cut. 🇺🇸

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

What’s up with all the data centers getting built?

Why do we need them?

These aren’t the data centers we’ve had before.

These are high-density AI compute clusters.

Data storage is just a sideline, the point is the compute.

They aren’t here to answer your questions… they’re here to take your job.

They’re the infrastructure that lets AI handle routine work across industries cheaper than people.

They aren’t “data centers.” They’re job replacement factories on a very large scale.

I’ve laid it out here…
https://t.co/bS45QCVLsh

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

In tech AI writes and reviews code, routes tickets, and handles large parts of the work that once used to take multiple engineers.

In logistics it builds routes, sets schedules, and decides which loads move when.

In healthcare it drafts notes, flags findings, and sits in the path of treatment and billing decisions so that the approved option is the one that appears first.

In insurance it reviews claims and determines what gets paid.
In law firms it runs research, pulls relevant cases, and drafts or redlines documents.

In engineering it generates designs, checks calculations, and flags issues against standards.

In marketing it creates content, adjusts campaigns, and admin rolls.

In accounting it does math faster. In customer service it answers questions.

These are not the same tasks, but they share the same practical feature:
they are built on language, data, rules, past examples, or structured decisions that a system can process once it has been shown the inputs.

That’s why the same advantages move from one sector to any sector so effortlessly.

Point them at the new set of rules, and connect them to the existing system.
The cost difference versus a person stays the same (pennies on the dollar). A person requires wages, benefits, leave, taxes, and liability.
AI requires electricity and cycles.

Extra capacity is added at low additional cost, and it can run continuously. Let’s repeat that, it’s important. It can run 24/7 eliminating multiple jobs with a single AI agent.

Once the output is good enough for the routine work, the payroll can shrink while the work still gets done.

Companies describe the change as efficiency, attrition, or restructuring.
What they call it can vary. The savings doesn’t care what it’s called.

The same pattern is already appearing outside the technology companies.
Government agencies use the systems to process forms, permits, benefits claims, and records, and plans to reduce staff are in process.

Universities/schools use them on admissions, transcripts, scheduling, and routine questions.

Real-estate work uses them to pull information from contracts, track deadlines, and check disclosures.

Banking compliance and lending teams use them to collect documents, triage alerts, and prepare reports.

Human-resources use them to screen resumes, rank candidates against job criteria, and schedule interviews.

Marketing groups use them to generate variations and execute plans.

Utilities use them to handle billing questions, payment arrangements, and outage inquiries.

In each case the work includes decisions, classifications, drafting, or analysis that used to require people.

Once the tools reach a usable level of reliability and are connected, fewer people are needed for the routine share.
The remaining staff gets shrunk to bigger decisions and oversight.

Rules (regulation) could slow the pace in some places, but the incentives are huge across industries.
It merely depends on whether the same output can be produced at lower cost.

Previous technologies changed specific industries or specific steps inside an industry. The tractor changed farming. The computer changed calculation, record-keeping and matured slowly.

AI applies to any task built on language, data, rules, and common decisions, and scales quickly for pennies.
The economic numbers that matter are the ones that compare it to work completed.

What companies or reports call it in the headlines will vary.
The savings won’t care.

The underlying math does not change because the work moved from a technology company to a government office, a hospital, an insurance company, a law firm, a university, a real-estate transaction, a bank, a recruiting desk, a marketing team, or a utility call center.
The tools don’t need to become perfect.
They only need to be good enough, cheap, and scalable enough that keeping the old headcount stops making sense.

What makes AI an attractive tool in one sector works for any industry. We need to plan on it.

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

@THeMyerSHOW @downlowfarming Come on dude! Not AI? Give me a break. I’m gonna need more than “I heard” to convince me. Where’d you hear it?

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

@AIStockSavvy "If AI is the new electricity, then the intelligent organization is the new factory of the AI era, where productivity truly happens,"…

They’re JOBS replacement factories.

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

I’ll bet you a dozen donuts that take is dead wrong.
If you’re white collar and have a desk your job may already be on the chopping block.

200K jobs have evaporated so far this year in the tech sector alone, and AI isn’t even ramped up yet.

We’re not building “data centers”. Those are Workforce Replacement Factories!

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

@wrljet Then Gemini doesn’t have a friggin’ clue. And if you buy its take, neither do you.

The bs is what you posted.

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

I call bs.
Just this year it’s evaporated around 200,000 jobs in the tech sector alone.
No jobs? Think again.

Block… 40% of its staff
Oracle, Amazon… tens of thousands EACH

Meta, Microsoft, Cisco, Cloudflare, Coinbase… need I go on?

If you’re white collar and have a desk, AI is coming for you.
https://t.co/KWVPkRBTyQ

[wrljet @wrljet]

Me: "People spewing left and right that AI is taking everyone's job... that must be some pump and dump stock bullshit. You're fun to talk to and all that, and genuinely useful. But goddamn, you're not taking any real job."

Gemini: "That hits the nail on the head."

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

I’d say not likely it’s real… also couldn’t find any info about it actually on the news. Did you by chance?

Have you done much shooting? Even outside after you’ve fired 12 rounds you’d probably see some smoke. Inside a car?… hmm.

I’d need more information to be convinced it’s real.

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

Apparently she’s using the new Glock CO2. Where’s the smoke from the ammo? That many rounds fired inside a car and no smoke?
The fake AI generated videos are getting pretty old.

[THE PODCAST MYER TPM 🆇︎ @THeMyerSHOW]

Girl was almost robbed and being followed, so she pulled out her sidekick and blew both passenger and driver into the next life, apparently she made the news

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

@FrankBr05713205 “when a student touches it, they learn real quick about high voltage.”…. Hehe. It doesn’t zap you nearly as bad as HEI.
Don’t ask me how I know 🙄

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

@DougDevious Good story Doug 👊. High signal.

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

@PATRIOT2117 A) kids can live without their cellphones for a few hours at school. It’s actually good for them to learn they can live without it.

Allowing them for “safety” is a super weak argument. Seriously?

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

Karen scores 1 point… that’s not a strawman.

2 points Grok… the actual argument was left in the dust.

1 point me… mocking the gauge with a technicality (per capita isn’t a probability) IS the actual strawman

5 more points Karen…
Trying to argue per capita rates aren’t a gauge to help assess the likelihood of crime because it’s not a “probability” is F’ing irrelevant.

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

@beautyinnis @HaFsA_2050 I was being generous… maybe, if the family hadn’t bought new stuff yet 😝👊

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

“You probably knew what I was getting at.”
It’s happening practically exponentially now and more profoundly than you expected?

There’s a ton to unpack here. I’m gonna try to keep it short, but I may expand later on my own timeline and tag you if I do.

It’s been about 50 years for me.
When I was in grade school in the ’70s I had a teacher all excited about the tech and the industrial robots being introduced.
I didn’t know the timeline but it was at that moment I understood how this plays out long term.

I haven’t paid close attention to its progression all that time, but about 15 years ago IBM created Watson and it beat the all-time best Jeopardy winners… that really caught my attention.
I’ve paid closer attention since then.

Here’s the deal I think a lot of people get confused about:
AI didn’t finish that task so much quicker because it’s smarter than you, it’s not.
People are still the brains. AI is the brawn, the muscle.
It did it so well because it can outpace you… and the accuracy? Plenty to talk about there, for now I’ll just throw out there that it doesn’t fatigue and runs 24/7. It has more time to double/triple check its work.
People can’t do that.

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

Nice little studio apartment, built from nothing.
Next time I’m in Hogwarts I’ll check it out.

[Dr. Dawn Michael @DawnsMission]

This is really cool. I could not stop watching it. Enjoy.

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

@ZekeGary2 @DawnsMission lol… yeah. It is a neat idea. 👊

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

@ZekeGary2 @DawnsMission “He” is a made up AI fantasy 🙄

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

Yuk! It makes me sick to my stomach to hear that.
I would love to be wrong about this… but I’m just not.
The only thing I’ve been a little off about so far is the pace it’s happening. It’s happening a little quicker than I expected… so that’s not good.

Let’s switch gears for a second…

There are things we can do to help migrate this.
We need more domestic production as fast as we can build it… that would help. We have the natural resources, we’ve done it before. Are you old enough to remember when virtually everything had a MADE in the USA label? Imported goods were the exception, not the norm.

[John Clayton @CriticalPlinker]

@fassold_glenda @VOXofSU The shout outs hurt?