Cathie Wood is making an unusually bullish call — that AI could double US growth — and the counterargument is that the evidence behind it is thin, which matters for anyone tempted to buy stocks aggressively right now.

• Wood compares AI to the Industrial Revolution and sees US growth doubling to 6%, with inflation possibly falling to zero or below.
• Her main proof is a $40 billion compute deal between Elon Musk's xAI and Anthropic — but that looks like one lab renting spare capacity to another at a steep markup before Anthropic's IPO, not real economy-wide growth.
• Corporate profit growth also looks better than it is: strip out gains Google and Amazon booked from stakes like SpaceX and S&P 500 profit growth roughly halves, while actual sales are growing about 12%.
• Meta shelved a big round of AI-driven layoffs after finding the technology still can't replace people, undercutting the idea that AI is transforming business right now.
• People's debt looks low only because stock portfolios are inflated; margin debt has climbed past $1.4 trillion and would look dangerous in a selloff.

Outlook: The near-term setup still looks strong, but Anthropic's IPO is the signal to watch — if it stumbles, the AI spending chain and the market lean on it.