Science fiction author and journalist Cory Doctorow, who coined the term "enshittification", is bringing a warning to Australia ahead of a visit to promote his new book: when the AI bubble bursts, businesses that sacked staff in favour of AI tools will struggle to rebuild the human skills and knowledge they discarded. He argues the AI industry is being propped up by huge investment from Gulf sovereign wealth funds and billionaires into datacentres, and that this circular investment between chipmakers, AI firms and tech companies is fragile and could collapse if key deals fail or IPOs from firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI keep stalling.

Doctorow says detailed institutional knowledge held by workers who are fired, retired or retrained cannot easily be recovered once "scattered to the four winds", comparing the aftermath to a post-apocalyptic scramble to relearn lost skills. He also cautions creative industries against relying solely on copyright to protect their work from AI companies, a point made days after Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese pledged tougher copyright laws to make AI firms pay for using music, books and news content, arguing copyright reform alone "won't solve anyone's problems".