How is spending 750 billion on AI slop that nobody wants makes any sense?

Gartner's 2026 consumer panel finds half of US adults would actively prefer brands that don't use generative AI. Half. A February 2026 NBER paper finds 90% of surveyed firms report zero productivity impact from AI deployments. An MIT GenAI study tracks 95% of corporate projects at zero ROI. Microsoft's own Copilot has lost 39% of its market share in six months, with users citing distrust of outputs as the leading reason. The platform-level data is sharper. Wikipedia banned AI-generated articles in March. Stack Overflow lost 78% of new-question volume in twelve months.