Here’s our text for the day on the LLM/AI “boom”, which is now the center of the US economy and to a great degree the center of political power as well.

Four years into the AI boom, the companies selling it are cutting prices. Microsoft, Amazon, Workday and Figma are offering discounts and free access to hold on to customers drifting toward Anthropic and OpenAI, and the two labs cut prices on their newest models by as much as half.

The discounting has a plain explanation: EY says only one in 10 companies can show AI’s return on its income statement. The cost of building AI kept rising. Anthropic is negotiating a single data center lease that would require at least $40 billion, and Blackstone concedes no one has mapped out who will buy all the debt.

The takeaway: AI is getting cheaper to buy just as it becomes more expensive to build. How that gap closes, whether through vendor margins, credit markets or Anthropic’s coming IPO, will shape the boom’s next phase.

I want to flag your attention to this note written by computer scientist and AI researcher Yoshua Bengio. It was sent to me by TPM Reader LG. Bengio is one of the most cited and highly regarded AI domain experts in the world. I have no independent ability to judge his views. But I believe this characterization is objectively true. I note this simply to establish that Bengio isn’t some random or obscure person. Right or wrong, he’s a major voice in the field.

You should read the note yourself. It’s concisely written, short and accessible with a basic layman’s familiarity with AI.

Let me highlight a few points. One is an issue that has resonated most with me in my recent speed-run self-education about LLMs. In the news we often hear that researchers told the LLM to X but it did Y. So it went “rogue” or disobeyed. There are several levels of problems with this framework.

Here’s a secondary issue we’re currently seeing in a number of races in red states. Take the Kansas Senate race. Who knows if this is really in play? But the last two polls of this race actually show Democrat Adam Hamilton with a nominal lead (+1 or +2). But there’s an issue here with Sen. Roger Marshall (R), the incumbent senator. And it goes beyond Marshall. In a lot of solidly red states you’ve got a generation of politicians who’ve never seen a contested partisan election. If you get the GOP nomination, you’re the senator. Period. And in some states, getting that nomination can have a significant machine dimension to it.

Yesterday, after a federal court forced the White House to readmit three news organizations to the White House, Donald Trump ordered the Secret Service to bar CNN from a flight today to a college football game in Knoxville. Right-minded people get infuriated and understandably so. But I would like to encourage you to see it in a somewhat different light.

Trump went to war against Iran because he was upset, disequilibriated by his declining popularity and power at home. Now he is boxed in by, defeated by Iran and pouring all his energy into a fever run of monument buildings and renamings. The news organization bans are just another part of that same storm of acting out. More failure, more ego-soothing. The guy is doubling down on what actually accounts for a larger part of his unpopularity and likely midterm drubbing than people realize. Yes, gas prices, diesel prices are driving him lower and lower. Just as much, I would argue, is Trump’s constant performance of “People Care About X, Trump Cares About Y”. His enemies can claim he only cares about himself. He’s far more convincing when he says it himself. Everyday. Through his own actions. You’re more spun up about the particular offenses. Most voters are seeing his priorities, and attempted demonstrations of power that look increasingly silly, often pitiful and cringey. He’s in a regressed feedback loop. It’s turning the people whose support he needs against him more every day.