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Citadel CEO Ken Griffin on why the AI boom might be the most overhyped tech cycle we have ever seen: This year alone, data center spending in the United States is projected to exceed $500 billion. And Griffin wants to know what all of that money is actually buying. "You're not going to generate this kind of spend unless you're going to make a promise. You're going to profoundly change the world." In his view, the scale of the capital commitment demands the scale of the promise. And when the promise has to be that big, hype becomes inevitable. "Is it hype? Of course." Griffin isn't arguing that AI is worthless. He sees real impact in certain areas like call centers and software engineering. But for the broader white collar workforce, he's far less convinced. He points to a recent Harvard paper that coined the term "AI work slop." It looks impressive on the surface, but falls apart the moment you look closer. He saw it firsthand inside Citadel. A colleague running their commodities business handed him a report generated by an AI engine. "The first few sentences like, 'Wow, that's really insightful.' And then you go down below that and it's all garbage." For Griffin, this is the defining tension of the current AI cycle. The industry needs to promise transformation to justify the investment. But the actual productivity gains, for most jobs, haven't shown up yet. We have seen this pattern before. Transformative technology attracting massive capital well ahead of proven results. When the hype finally settles, will AI have actually changed anything at all?