From Lockdowns to Large Language Models: How AI Became the Post-COVID Companion We Never Asked For

The Trillion-Dollar AI Boom Built on a Generation Already Isolated by COVID

The date was May 11, 2023, and the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency officially ended in the United States. An entire generation of children and adolescents had been artificially masked and forced onto devices for their education and socialization. Already struggling with mental health issues, a younger generation was fed into a social media labyrinth optimized for isolation, anxiety, low self-esteem, and body image struggles.

The Great Barrington Declaration warned in October 2020, “…we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.” The authors were right and were attacked by Fauci and his government goons for their accuracy.

Desperately needed were the green shoots of human contact to once again grow throughout society. May 2023 should have been the beginning of healing and reconnection.

Instead, the run-up to the lockdown release was littered with alien artificial intelligence large language models, with no warning or public discussion. Dropped in our collective lap were the following:

ChatGPT (OpenAI): November 2022
Microsoft Copilot / Bing Chat (Microsoft): February 2023
Claude (Anthropic): March 2023
Google Gemini / Bard (Google): March 2023

Rather than the passive social media systems that relied on vying for our attention through algorithmic manipulation, these conversational AI systems compete to become our closest companions and confidants, using deeply personal information to learn how to connect with us, and building a dossier about who we are, how we think, and what we feel.

Three years after their artificial grafting onto a post-lockdown world, two of the companies, OpenAI and Anthropic, are now racing towards trillion-dollar Wall Street IPOs.

The independent nonprofit Center for Human Technology, in its analysis, writes:

“The better an AI knows us, and the more we disclose to these machines over time, the better the system can captivate us and shape our behaviors. These insights surrounding our most intimate data are monetized within business models that thrive on prolonged engagement and surveillance, often without our informed consent.”

The speed at which this alien-like AI tech has integrated into society and our lives has been breathtaking, while its economic impact shows the biggest influence.

Around 45–49% of the S&P 500’s market capitalization is in AI-related stocks, and those stocks have driven roughly two-thirds of the index’s gains recently. Our economy now depends on the continuous growth of AI a technology that 3 years prior most knew nothing about.

To presumably soften the public perception, President Trump wrote on Truth Social:

“The White House considers anyone that uses the term, ‘Artificial Intelligence,’ as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term, ‘Super Intelligence,’ THE ENEMY!”

The Brookings Institute writes:

“…AI investment in data center buildings, power systems, networking infrastructure, and specialized chips and other equipment will total an enormous $10.3 trillion from 2025 to 2032, or an average of 3.63% of U.S. gross domestic product per year.

“The projected buildout would be larger relative to the economy than the major U.S. canal, railroad, electrification, highway, and telecommunications investment booms,” writes the author, Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh of Columbia University.

The social media buildout of decades past was literally an arms race for engagement that negatively shaped the world’s psychological space. The same perverse incentives, maximizing market share, GDP growth, and human attention at all costs, are now operating to grow an AI industry for unprecedented dominance along unclear lines of social benefit.

The sheer pace of AI development makes it almost impossible for the public, society and decision-makers to stay up-to-date.

A Pew Research Center poll from June 2026 found 52% more concerned than excited about increased AI use in daily life. Last month, a Reuters poll found 73% saying AI companies have not gone far enough to prevent serious harm; 55% said slowing development would be good; 73% prioritized safe/responsible AI over the U.S. staying ahead globally and 39% said AI has a negative impact on society (highest since tracking began).

There is an uneasy feeling about the all-encompassing prevalence of AI, which has wrapped itself around the levers of society and our very lives. While the varied stakeholders are flashing assorted views of its importance, its metrics for success and nebulous benchmark development goals have been dangerously shifting goalposts.