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The whole thing was a scam

garymarcus.substack.com

31–40 of 347 posts

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#31
post #25

What does this have to do with AI capabilities specifically? This is literally the politics of running massive business interests, which I understand is relevant for technology and everything… … but isn’t Gary Marcus’s whole game that AI is not capable and people are wrong/lying about AI tech capabilities? I feel like this is a handy moment for Gary where he can say he could basically ignore all of his previous claim…

What's your argument here? He's not allowed to discuss crony capitalism because you imagine that he thinks LLMs suddenly became reliable.

It’s a comment about who Gary Marcus is presenting himself as

My intention is for other people to think what I believe which is Gary Marcus is a hack and has no business being listened to with respect to technical evaluation of AI because he’s not technically competent enough to do. The existence of his polemics waste everybody’s time and generally waste resources like we’re wasting right now.

His entire schtick has been as the debunker in chief of claims of AI capabilities

If you actually look at his polemics they increasingly have nothing to do with his original argument because his original argument not only is flawed but is ignorant of the technical capabilities

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#32

25M isn’t even that much money. Not only are they whores, they’re cheap whores.

It's a loss-leader. Once the patronage system has solidly taken hold, then they raise the prices. Our only consolation is that the fascist-supporting techbros are going to be victims of their own enshittification dynamic - they think they're paying customers, but they're actually the product. The autocracy will continue to increase its meddling to maintain its own political legitimacy. Moldbug's enlightened benevolent monarch who needn't care about politics is a pipe dream.

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#33
post #26

To summarize all nepotism indicators posted here by various people: - The Kushner family has invested in OpenAI. - OpenAI uses Oracle cloud. Ellison is close to Trump. - Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan (the “spy sheikh") has invested $500 million in World Liberty and is also invested in OpenAI. - Altman is a protege of Thiel, whose Palantir integrates the external AI at the Pentagon. - The scam occurs right before…

Sweet, excellent idea for the government to tie itself to a bubble.

If it doesn't pop while Trump's in office, his successor will inherit this mess, bubble will pop, and that person will have to deal with managing the fallout.

The time to lock-in gainful employment is now (if you can).

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#35

PS: If openly bribing a crony gov to cancel your competitor is now the de-facto standard of making business in the US, I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment. When the rule of law degrades into pay-to-play politics, the inevitable result is a mass exodus of both capital and top-tier talent.

>I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment. 2025 was also the first year that the majority of stocks were traded off-market (i.e. hedgie darkpools, no public price discovery) . ---- Hope ya'll bought your gold before Monday . #RemindMe2days [gold@5290USD, this post]

>2025 was also the first year that the majority of stocks were traded off-market (i.e. hedgie darkpools, no public price discovery).

Do you have any sources for that?

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#37
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anywhere offering opportunity. I'm in Europe, I'd like to see it come here. The news I see suggests China's ahead of us in this race, but I don't know if that's for all talent, or if it was just an artefact of a lot of Chinese people in the US on work visas returning home. Or indeed whether the news about China doing well here was real or hallucinated by an LLM.

If engineers in the US (i.e. me) want to find work in Europe, what can we do? I know that’s a googleable question but honestly I can’t help but think that there cannot be any European country that would want me and my family. Immigration is hard.

It is hard.

I moved to Germany in 2018, and only just this month reached B1 level in the language; and that was a pre-Brexit move so I don't need to care about visa.

The EU has a "blue card" scheme modeled on US green card: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_(European_Union)

If language is your biggest barrier, pick a country whose language you already speak. As this clearly includes English, Ireland if you want specifically EU, and UK if you just want the continent (mainly London, but I spent a long time in Cambridge tech sector).

Germany may still be an option even without being a native speaker (depending on your skills), but with all the difficulty everyone has today with AI messing with job hunting, get the contract before considering a move.

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#38
post #26

To summarize all nepotism indicators posted here by various people: - The Kushner family has invested in OpenAI. - OpenAI uses Oracle cloud. Ellison is close to Trump. - Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan (the “spy sheikh") has invested $500 million in World Liberty and is also invested in OpenAI. - Altman is a protege of Thiel, whose Palantir integrates the external AI at the Pentagon. - The scam occurs right before…

Sweet, excellent idea for the government to tie itself to a bubble. If it doesn't pop while Trump's in office, his successor will inherit this mess, bubble will pop, and that person will have to deal with managing the fallout. The time to lock-in gainful employment is now (if you can).

A bubble is just a great opportunity to pass more money to yourself and your friends.

Re: The whole thing was a scam

#40
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anywhere offering opportunity. I'm in Europe, I'd like to see it come here. The news I see suggests China's ahead of us in this race, but I don't know if that's for all talent, or if it was just an artefact of a lot of Chinese people in the US on work visas returning home. Or indeed whether the news about China doing well here was real or hallucinated by an LLM.

If engineers in the US (i.e. me) want to find work in Europe, what can we do? I know that’s a googleable question but honestly I can’t help but think that there cannot be any European country that would want me and my family. Immigration is hard.

Not that hard if you are in young to middle years and have any job experience. I asked Perplexity "If an American citizen, a trained engineer with some experience, desired to work abroad in the EU or an English-first nation, what are some good websites to check?"

I suggest you do the same -- the reply lists a dozen promising sites.

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/if-an-american-citizen-a-tr...

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