Article
Investors Are Becoming Useless, the Stock Market a Casino, and the Internet Just a Game
The investor was once a key figure in the capitalist world. He provided capital to the entrepreneur — someone with a vision, energy, and the drive to build something new. It was a deal: capital in exchange for a share in future value. And it worked. In some places, it still does.
So why am I speaking in the past tense?
Because the changes brought by artificial intelligence and automation suggest a radically different future.
What was once valuable is losing its worth
The world today is hard to predict. Still, to glimpse the future, we can at least start by observing current trends and underlying laws.
When everything feels unstable and uncertain, physics offers a steady ground. In a closed system, energy can neither be created nor destroyed — it only changes form. And these systems tend to equalize over time.
Just like pressure balances out in physics, price adjusts in economics through supply and demand. When demand is high and supply low, price rises. When supply exceeds demand, price falls. In both systems, equilibrium is the natural direction.
But what happens in a world where supply becomes nearly infinite — because AI can generate solutions, products, and services without human labour and at near-zero cost? Who will create the demand? Who will even want all the results this system keeps churning out?
We are heading toward a future where many things simply lose their value. What is worth billions today could be worth no more than a calculator, a light bulb, or a wheel just a few years from now. That is a big shift, is not it?
People are investing their life savings into things that currently seem highly valuable — like autonomous electric vehicles or AI-powered systems automating entire workflows, marketing operations, or software development.
But what if, in just a few years, we treat these things like we treat calculators today? I do not think that is such a crazy thought. And if it turns out to be true, it will fundamentally reshape how the world of finance works.
Capital will lose its value, and the stock market will turn into a casino
Historically, the biggest barrier to building something was how expensive it was. You had to pay for a factory, employees, logistics, marketing. That is why investment was essential. The investor provided capital that was not otherwise accessible.
But today, launching a company costs less and less. Automated systems are replacing dozens of employees. AI can code, invent products, analyse markets, draft strategies, and write compelling copy. A single person with access to a powerful AI model can now build something over a weekend that used to take entire teams months to accomplish.
What is losing value now is capital itself. And if we go one step further, we might say modern money never had intrinsic value. But let us set that aside. In business, the belief that money had value made it possible to buy time, labour, machines, and services.
If people are no longer needed, and the outputs of machines and algorithms become worthless due to infinite supply — then what is capital for? What is an investor for?
Join the Library
Full access to my thoughts, personal stories, findings, and what I learn from the people I meet.
Join the Library — €29.99 per yearGet the full article by email and feel free to reply if you want to discuss it further.
Disclaimer
This article is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice, a recommendation to buy or sell any securities, or a guarantee of future market performance. The views expressed are solely those of the author, who may also be an investor. Investing in financial markets involves risk, and each reader should make their own decisions independently and, if necessary, consult with a licensed professional.
Summary
Common questions on this article's topic
What happens to the value of things when supply becomes nearly infinite?
Could stock markets actually become like casinos?
What will capital be used for if AI eliminates most production costs?
Is the internet really losing its value?
What should investors do in this environment?
If you have any thoughts, questions, or feedback, feel free to drop me a message at mail@richardgolian.com.
Related articles
I am building an AI system to predict the S&P 500. It runs on my own machine, uses free public data — yfinance, FRED, the Shiller dataset — and grades every forecast against reality. This series documents the build itself: the decisions, the methodology, the mistakes. What I will eventually share from the running system is a separate question, and an honest one.
When someone loses their job, their sense of security collapses—so they sell their stocks.
It is real, growing, and potentially devastating.
More articles
Prague, 13 May 2026. On my way to work I started thinking about something that stayed with me for days. If most routine work on a computer disappears in the next ten years, and a large share of repetitive manual work disappears with it, what happens to the flow of money? Who pays whom for what? Which economic layers will exist, how large will they be, and what relationships will run between them? This is the six-layer map I sketched as an answer.
Yesterday I could not tear myself away from the computer. When I lifted my head, it was half past eight in the evening. I had been sitting alone upstairs for about three hours.
Will AI take my job? A certified Google trainer told me in June 2024 that my profession would cease to exist. Twenty-two months later, my job title has not changed — but ninety percent of what I do during the day is different. I have delegated more of my thinking to AI agents than I thought possible. I am not afraid. This is why, and what it means for anyone asking the same question.
One hour. Fifty-five minutes. That is how long it took to build what a Czech software firm had quoted at over €50,000. I built it with Claude Code. Not a prototype. Not a proof of concept. A working tool — the one the company actually needed. By the evening of the same day, it was running on staging. This is not about Claude Code. It is about what Claude Code exposes.
I have conducted roughly one hundred and fifty practical interviews over the past four years. Fifty for data specialist roles. A hundred for advertising and performance marketing specialists. Almost every one of them involved sitting down with a candidate over a practical task — something close to a real problem we actually need to solve at the company. Not theory. Not trivia. Applied problem-solving. Over time, I started noticing a pattern.
Before you can teach AI to understand anything, you need to see what it is hiding from you.
The moment other people needed access to it, the problem changed completely. It was no longer about whether the agent could learn. It was about who gets to teach it.
I wanted to build an agent that doesn't just assist. One that acts.
This is what I learned about local vs cloud AI, and why I switched to Claude Code.
Four days in Catalonia. No computer, no AI, almost no social media. I bought this notebook so that I could write down what I would think about, and what I would come across and learn on the trip.