Financial historian Edward Chancellor, author of a brilliant recent book, The Price of Time, weighs in on the topical issue of the artificial intelligence boom. Can the massive spending by Big Tech produce enough profits to justify their current share prices? This is his take. An earlier version of this article first appeared on the online financial website, Reuters Breakingviews, and is reproduced with the author's permission.  

Tech firms plan to pour trillions of dollars into developing artificial intelligence. Every incremental dollar of new investment carries an even higher value in the ...