Amazon became the latest tech company to announce swelling investments in A.I. amid stumbling share prices.

© Nathan Howard for The New York Times

In its heyday, Route 66 was a road of opportunities and dreams. Today, it’s a highway of ghosts, a symbol of what once was, although it still attracts visitors. For Current Affairs, Jesse Wright reflects on America’s historic highway in a time of artificial intelligence, when so much land across the country is being bought up, repurposed, and turned into data centers. Wright, who traveled the road from Chicago to Santa Monica, asks: What will these massive centers leave behind?

But what is new, perhaps, is the utter absence of even having been at all. The data centers’ legacy will be nothing. Their absence will be complete. Computer hallucinations leave no room for the dreams of humans. In 100 years, there will be nothing. Nobody will want to spend their vacation touring endless rooms full of rusty server racks.