Global tech stocks fell sharply this week after investors realised that Washington might, in a sudden burst of enthusiasm, take a look at what the AI industry is actually doing. Markets did not so much react to a policy as to the mere idea of one, which is roughly how a household reacts when someone says, ‘We should talk about the cookies.’
Here is the setup. For years, the biggest technology companies have built enormous data centres (the warehouses full of computers that run AI), filled them with chips, and asked everyone to trust that all of it is fine. Now there is talk of regulators peeking inside. Investors, who had grown comfortable with the arrangement, responded the way a toddler responds to a closed fridge: loudly, and with the firm conviction that this is the worst thing that has ever happened.
Why should you care? Probably less than the headlines suggest. If you hold a broad index fund (a fund that owns a small slice of hundreds of companies), you already own a chunk of these firms, so a bad week shows up in your balance. Nothing needs doing today. Checking your savings twice a year, as planned, remains the correct amount of attention to give them.
As for the question on everyone’s lips, whether they will dare to actually check: somebody has to, and asking is the cheapest part.