An economist predicts the AI boom will end in a bust within a year or two — bad news for anyone funding data centers, and a warning about a widening wealth gap.

• AI companies are spending five to ten times what they earn, so most will not survive.
• The pattern echoes the 19th-century railway boom: huge build-out, mass failure, a few survivors left standing.
• The gap between the richest and everyone else has exploded — the top fortune is now triple the second-place one, versus about 10% apart 50 years ago.
• If robots really do replace workers, people will need something like a universal income just to keep buying what firms produce.
• Buying stocks or houses hoping prices rise is speculation driven by financial bubbles, not investing.

Outlook: Expect a large AI collapse in the next year or two, with the money sunk into data centers largely lost.