You put too much faith in people to make good decisions. This could decrease profits by a wide margin and they’d keep using it. Tbh some would keep with the decision even if it throws them into the red.

You have more faith in people than I do.

I have managers that get angry if you tell them about problems with their ideas. So we have to implement their ideas despite the fact that they will cause the company to lose money in the long run.

Management isn't run by bean counters (if it was it wouldn't be so bad), management is run by egos in suits. If they've stated their reputation on AI, they will dismiss any and all information that says that their idea is stupid

The problem is how long it takes to correct against stupid managers. Most companies aren't fully rational, it's just when you look at long term averages that the various stupidities usually cancel out (unless they bankrupt the company)

I think the profit motive is what's driving it in many cases. I.e. shareholders have interest in AI companies/products and are pressuring the other companies they have interest in to use the AI services; increasing their profit. Profit itself is inefficiency (i.e. in a perfect market, profit approaches zero).

This doesn't scare me at all. Most companies strive to stay as profitable as possible and if a 1+1 calculation costs a company more money by using AI to do it, they'll find a cheaper way

This sounds like easy math, but AI doesn't use more or less energy. It's stated goal is to replace people. People have a much, much more complicated cost formula full of subjective measures. An AI doesn't need health insurance. An AI doesn't make public comments on social media that might reflect poorly on your company. An AI won't organize and demand a wage increase. An AI won't sue you for wrongful termination. An AI can be held responsible for a problem and it can be written off as "growing pains".

How long will the "potential" of the potential benefits encourage adopters to give it a little more time? How much damage will it do in the meantime?

A problem right now is that most models are subsidied by investors. OpenAI's 2024 numbers were something like 2bn revenue ves 5bn expenses. All in the hopes of being the leader in a market that may not exist.