AI is oil, not god

Patrick O'Brien is pushing back on the cult of AI. The whole pitch has been that AI is god — a force that reshapes everything, the one invention above all others. O'Brien says it's oil. Useful, expensive to refine, traded in barrels, not a deity.

The piece walks through the difference. God is singular, eternal, the kind of thing you worship. Oil is a commodity — you can run out, you can overproduce, you can bet wrong on it. The market for AI is big but not apocalyptic. The companies making money are real companies, not miracles. The infrastructure is the wellhead, the pipelines, the refineries — not the sky.

This is the kind of explainer that lands with us because it names the fog without being precious about it. O'Brien isn't writing a thesis; he's writing in the style he's known for — clear, a little wry, no padding. The piece is about the craft of explaining things clearly rather than about a specific tool or vendor.

Why this matters for us: the oil framing means the next wave of AI isn't a miracle — it's work, and the people who understand the supply chain, not just the hype, will be the ones who profit.