The Commanding Depths
Where the gains from artificial intelligence go up, and where the bill comes down.
Sequence No. 99
Dale estimates heating and cooling jobs for a contractor outside Dayton, Ohio. This spring his company bought estimating software with an AI assistant built in. It does a takeoff in four minutes. Dale used to take an afternoon. His boss now asks, politely, what the afternoon was for.
The same month, the county approved a property-tax abatement for a data center two exits up the interstate, and the utility filed for a rate increase to cover "grid modernization." Dale's quarterly 401(k) statement arrived the same week. His target-date fund is up, mostly because of the same handful of companies building the data center.
Dale owns a sliver of the commanding heights. He also paves the road up to them, keeps the lights on at the top, and promises to catch anyone who falls off. This schedule is his attempt to add it up.
The essay argues that only two countries can sustain frontier AI, and that the American state will act as the "buyer and seller of last resort." That is a reassuring phrase until you look up who funds the state.
The essay describes a "Neo-Dollar": stablecoins carrying dollars to billions of people who will never open an American bank account. Dollars now move around the world in seconds. Dale's paycheck still clears on Friday.
The essay expects a K-shaped economy, where owners of intelligence-related assets pull away from everyone else. It notes that the top 1% already hold more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. A K has two legs. This form is filed from the lower one.
Not to scale. A sketch of the shape the essay describes. The real lines are steeper, and nobody prints them on your 401(k) statement.
| Position held by the taxpayer | What you do there | Who collects |
|---|---|---|
| Ratepayer | Pay for new substations and transmission lines in your monthly bill | The utility, then the data center |
| Backstop | Stand behind the buildout if it goes wrong, through the federal budget | Whoever is too important to fail |
| Bagholder | Own the top seven stocks through an index fund, at the top of the cycle | The people who sold to your index fund |
| Training data | Wrote the forum posts, reviews and how-to guides the models learned from | The models, for free |
| Toll payer | Pay a subscription to use the assistant that replaced your afternoon | The rails |
| Neighbor | Live next to the 24-hour hum, the diesel backup and the water draw | Everyone else, by not living there |
The essay predicts companies shrinking to a few operators directing fleets of AI agents. The American household got there first. It already has one operator, and she is also the CFO, the IT department, the benefits administrator, the travel desk, and tier-one support for her parents' new AI assistant.
Line 27. What you can actually do. You can't buy a frontier lab. You probably already own a sliver of one through your index fund. The cheapest position in the commanding depths with any leverage is a seat at a public hearing. County tax abatements and utility rate cases are decided in public meetings, and almost nobody comes. Dale went once. They let him speak for three minutes. That is three minutes more than his 401(k) got.
"One either owns the rails or pays those who do." Most Americans do both.
The first sentence is the essay's. The second is this schedule's whole return. Through a 401(k), Dale owns a sliver of the rails. Through his power bill, his county budget, his federal taxes and every subscription with a new "AI" badge, he pays the toll. The commanding heights are real. So is the ground they stand on.
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Under penalties of perjury, I declare that I have examined this schedule and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I own a small piece of the rails and pay the tolls anyway.