"AI is like the guy that showed up and started pissing in everyone's beer at the party."

Mike categorizes various groups resisting or critically engaging with generative AI, from total abstainers to 'scopers' who seek responsible use cases.

• Global harms: While AI has become a hot button issue in the US, frustration in the states is a small part of a bigger movement.
• Diverse coalitions: Like the buckets of AI overlords from episode three, the resistance consists of many desperate groups banding together.
• Scoping AI: Mike briefly speaks to use cases that are narrow in scope and lower in their externalities to users and the public.

Deeper learning

The AI Resist List: airesistlist.org

Mike's thread on GenAI harms: bsky.app/profile/misaligned.markets/post/3migfnyvuak26

Ghost in the Machine Documentary: notaidoc.com

Ethical European model Apertus: infoworld.com/article/4051779/swiss-launch-open-source-ai-model-as-ethical-alternative-to-big-us-llms.html

EVO RNA GPT: hazyresearch.stanford.edu/blog/2024-03-14-evo

Inside Memphis’ fight against xAI: selc.org/news/inside-memphis-fight-against-xai/

Data centers in drought-region: newsweek.com/map-data-centers-built-drought-hit-areas-11997520

Jeff Geering AI and open source: jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/ai-is-destroying-open-source

XKCD infrastructure meme: explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2347:_Dependency

Distributed AI Research Institute: dair-institute.org

Dr. Fatima how to (Anti) AI better: youtube.com/watch?v=y85nqc2zm7M

Innocence Project LLM data science: hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

Joy Buolamwini and the Algorithmic Justice League: https://www.ajl.org/about

Reach out

Site: rss.com/podcasts/the-last-enclosure

Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/lastenclosure.bsky.social

Getting a valuation from the US government via the equity tax allows OpenAI to tell investors “we are worth a trillion [dollars]”

Mike and Nick examine the dangerous intersection of good intentions, astroturfing, and the kayfabe of the AI bubble. They compare Senator Sanders' proposal for an AI wealth tax to the industry's. Mike also details how industry operatives might be using the left's talking points against them to shape the policy agenda.

• The valuation magic trick: Valuations are invocations: numbers that become real once believed. If a politician proposes taxing a company based on a specific valuation, they aren't just taking money, they are validating a price tag.
• Bailouts in broad daylight: If the government holds equity in AI companies, the state becomes a stakeholder. A “tax” becomes a vested interest in an industry losing billions.
• 'Weaponized memetic schismogenesis:' Through influence campaigns AI industry affiliates are nudging critics to frame the debate.

Timestamps

0:00 Last Enclosure purpose

2:58 Sanders and Altman, aligned?

5:22 Importance of a valuation

7:54 Perverse incentives + bad tools

15:10 Schismogenesis and Bernie

29:29 Bernie and Yudkowsky

36:22 The legitimacy of Effective Altruism

37:37 Bernie vs Claude

39:34 Hank Green, Bernie, and AI Safety

46:50 Anthropic and EA

53:49 Is this a bailout?

1:00:55 Don't fall for kayfabe

1:03:35 AI economics redux (open source race)

1:12:55 Local models kill AGI

1:16:22 Conclusion

Deeper learning

Sanders' proposal: forbes.com/sites/jamesbroughel/2026/06/22/bernie-sanders-wants-a-us-sovereign-wealth-fund-for-ai

Altman's proposal: techcrunch.com/2026/07/02/openai-proposed-donating-5-of-its-equity-to-a-us-sovereign-wealth-fund

Anthropic's proposal: apnews.com/article/anthropic-dario-amodei-ai-afeb5279eef406980dffa46ff91495e0

Amodei's policy vision: darioamodei.com/post/policy-on-the-ai-exponential

Mike's rant on “left is missing out” bsky.app/profile/misaligned.markets/post/3mf76r4ewd22x

Yudkowsky: “Shut it all down” (2023 Time article): time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough

AI influence in Sci YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=0Plo-zT8W9w

Sci-educator on Hank Green: youtube.com/watch?v=9dXqf5CRH5U

Reach out

Site: rss.com/podcasts/the-last-enclosure

Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/lastenclosure.bsky.social

“If you're looking for a sign companies back down and go: 'Got you, it's a bubble!' They're never going to do that. They'll keep pretending everything's fine until the last death throes.”

Mike and Nick describe the AI bubble not as a single failure, but as a stack of overlapping collapses. From the physical reality of energy constraints in the Strait of Hormuz to the shadow banking fueling data centers, they map out how the bubble isn't just an economic issue but increasingly a political one, too.

• Overlapping bubbles: The economy is experiencing 5 bubbles, with at least 4 of them concentrating around AI spending.
• The energy ceiling: Silicon Valley ignores the material world at its own peril. Between energy costs and supply chain chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz, “scale is all you need” is about to hit a wall no amount of VC can overcome.
• Capital as labor (The Lie): The promise that AI replaces human workers is an economic fantasy used to justify mass layoffs and degrade remaining jobs.
• Enclosure of ML: For decades, machine learning was an open academic field. Big tech effectively enclosed this commons, rebranding a general-purpose architecture (the Transformer) as a proprietary product.
• The “Siri Plus” residual: When the bubble pops we'll be left with scoped, boring automation that works for specific tasks but never achieves the “general intelligence” used to justify trillion-dollar valuations.

Timestamps

0:00 What is the Last Enclosure?

2:38 AI bubble in context of Hormuz

8:03 Bailouts?

11:10 Bubble 1: Frontier AI companies

15:33 Bubble 2: “Wrapper” AI companies

17:13 Bubble 3: GPUs, infrastructure, and data centers

19:13 Bubble 4: AI financing (Banks and private credit)

22:33 What drives AI “value?”

30:18 The bubble in the real economy

33:37 Harms of the capital-as-labor myth

38:56 Residuals from the bubble

42:49 AI not causing layoffs

44:10 Why did this go on for so long?

49:08 AI is kayfabe and paper tigers

52:34 Types of bubbles

55:22 LLMs as the last enclosure

57:17 Accountability

1:02:56 Recommendations

Deeper learning

Mike on the AI bubble: misaligned.markets/what-to-expect-ai-bubble

Zitron - OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X in 2025, Spending Hit $34 Billion: wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials

Harvey AI wrapping frontier models like Claude: help.harvey.ai/articles/what-ai-models-does-harvey-use

America’s Data-Center Build-Out Is Falling Way Behind Schedule: wsj.com/tech/ai/americas-data-center-build-out-is-falling-way-behind-schedule-e408a9a8

AI Boom Runs on Debt: aol.com/articles/ai-boom-runs-debt-global-144019676.html

Reach out

Site: rss.com/podcasts/the-last-enclosure

Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/lastenclosure.bsky.social