Richard Golian

1995-born. Charles University alum. Head of Performance at Mixit. 10+ years in marketing and data.

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Richard Golian

Hi, I am Richard. On this blog I share my thoughts, not investment advice. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell securities.

Investors Are Becoming Useless, the Stock Market a Casino, and the Internet Just a Game

AI makes investors obsolete, stock casino

By Richard Golian

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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?

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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

Capital used to be essential. Building anything required factories, teams, logistics. Today, one person with an AI model can build in a weekend what once took months. If the cost of creation approaches zero, what is capital still for? This article questions the foundational role of the investor in a world where supply approaches infinity and value collapses.
Richard Golian

If you have any thoughts, questions, or feedback, feel free to drop me a message at mail@richardgolian.com.

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Common questions on this article's topic

What happens to the value of things when supply becomes nearly infinite?
In economics, the paradox of value holds that abundance reduces price regardless of utility — water is essential but cheap because it is plentiful. In the article, this principle is applied to AI-generated products and services: what is worth billions today could become as commonplace as a calculator within years. When AI can generate solutions at near-zero cost, the marginal value of each additional output approaches zero.
Could stock markets actually become like casinos?
Academic research has found empirical connections between gambling behaviour and stock market volatility: countries with more gambling institutions have less stable stock prices. In the article, the argument goes further — if the underlying value of companies becomes difficult to assess because AI disrupts traditional business models, markets may increasingly be driven by speculation, tokens, and digital asset volatility rather than by fundamentals. This would make them functionally closer to casinos than to instruments of serious long-term investment.
What will capital be used for if AI eliminates most production costs?
In the article, the primary remaining use for capital is buying attention — in other words, advertising. The exceptions are projects requiring physical resources: land, raw materials, mining rights, energy generation, and ventures like space colonisation that need large upfront investment before any return. But overall, the opportunities for meaningful investment are described as shrinking, which lowers the importance of both investors and markets.
Is the internet really losing its value?
By late 2024, over 50% of new web articles were estimated to be AI-generated. In the article, this trend is described from personal experience: consuming less content online because most of it feels artificial, with real human interaction increasingly rare. The internet is compared to online games from the year 2000 — where the distinction between real players and NPCs mattered, but now the same confusion applies to the entire internet. The concept of AI slop — low-quality AI-generated content flooding online spaces — has become a widely recognised problem.
What should investors do in this environment?
The article does not offer a simple answer because the uncertainty is too deep. If the value of capital itself is declining and the structure of markets is changing fundamentally, traditional investment frameworks may no longer apply. The implicit suggestion is to invest in things with durable value — personal skills, physical assets, relationships — rather than assuming financial markets will continue to function as they have historically.