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How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

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Re: How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

#21

Post by dgellow »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #10
gregdoesit wrote: post #2

I used to pay attention to Ed Zitron, exactly because he seemed to be someone who did the research, and looked at numbers. Until one day, I realized that seems to only look at numbers as long as it serves his agenda. When it doesn't, he looks away or makes the case for why the numbers are wrong, and shields himself from these "incorrect" numbers - or people who would point to anything suggesting that AI is not a tota…

Ed's right about OpenAI being out over its skis, he's right about the numbers for everything being wildly optimistic and he's right about the circular financing/leverage aspect of a bubble. He hates AI though so he can't acknowledge its usefulness, it was pretty clear to see on his DOAC interview, Stephen kept bringing up real wins and clear progress, and Ed wouldn't engage in a substantive way.

Yes, his thesis is pretty much correct, his personal opinions aren’t too relevant or valuable. It’s a mistake to take his predictions as the important thing, it’s pretty much irrelevant, the whole field is very dynamic and complex, and he obviously isn’t an oracle who can predict the future. The only thing that matters is the thesis

Re: How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

#22

Post by simianwords »

irishcoffee wrote: post #16
gregdoesit wrote: post #2

I used to pay attention to Ed Zitron, exactly because he seemed to be someone who did the research, and looked at numbers. Until one day, I realized that seems to only look at numbers as long as it serves his agenda. When it doesn't, he looks away or makes the case for why the numbers are wrong, and shields himself from these "incorrect" numbers - or people who would point to anything suggesting that AI is not a tota…

Looking at it from an objective/historical perspective, when he first got on his high horse agents weren’t a thing, MCP was in its infancy at best, and half the code generated didn’t compile from frontier models. From there everything split into two factions, which I’ll dub as believers and non-believers. From there, it has entirely been a cult following despite the evidence showing that models and agents have legs f…

what's it with people who think a bubble is literally destined to happen because of some religious belief that history repeats itself? I find it fascinating to understand the theory of mind of such people. So much confidence.

Re: How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

#23

Post by knowaveragejoe »

simianwords wrote: post #18
tolugenius wrote: post #14

I've been doubting him myself (his recent articles just hedge on data centers more than anything else) but then I want to ask, are there any valid critics of AI? Not a "code is bad but it'll get better" but actual criticism in the nature of the financing, politics, etc. I think separating AI as a tool and it's capabilities and AI as product that needs to make a profit is helpful, however most people are really hedgin…

Valid criticisms of AI - safety critics who think AI can take over the world like Yud (I find this the least credible but still valid) - Bernie type of critics who think AI can cause widespread job losses - Ruxandra Teslo who thinks AI can remove meaning which I feel is the most serious one [1] What are not valid - environmental like emissions and water usage - AI is useless and it will take the economy with it becau…

This sounds completely reasonable:

> - AI spreads misinformation and causes societal damage

Re: How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

#24

Post by 0x20cowboy »

simonw wrote: post #3

> For any of his posts that I read, while there are numbers thrown around, the numbers don't actually connect to a coherent argument. In many cases, as we saw above, the numbers don't even really support his argument (such as an MAU decline in Facebook causing Meta financial problems which would then cause Meta to spuriously insert AI in places it doesn't belong). I suspect he's relying on people's eyes glazing over…

“Because Danny had a mortgage and a boss to answer to … The guilty don't feel guilty, they learn not to“

Re: How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

#25

Post by Retr0id »

simianwords wrote: post #18
tolugenius wrote: post #14

I've been doubting him myself (his recent articles just hedge on data centers more than anything else) but then I want to ask, are there any valid critics of AI? Not a "code is bad but it'll get better" but actual criticism in the nature of the financing, politics, etc. I think separating AI as a tool and it's capabilities and AI as product that needs to make a profit is helpful, however most people are really hedgin…

Valid criticisms of AI - safety critics who think AI can take over the world like Yud (I find this the least credible but still valid) - Bernie type of critics who think AI can cause widespread job losses - Ruxandra Teslo who thinks AI can remove meaning which I feel is the most serious one [1] What are not valid - environmental like emissions and water usage - AI is useless and it will take the economy with it becau…

What is invalid about the environmental angle? (aside from the dubious water claims)

Re: How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

#26

Post by fallingbananna »

pcstl wrote: post #5

Zitron has become the distorted reflection of the very AI boosters he criticizes and mocks. I think the worst thing that happened to him was AI skepticism becoming a political position . This gave him a captive audience - as long as he says what they want to hear , which means that he can never ever concede that he might have been wrong or that AI might actually be progressing or having successes. This is not conduci…

I have the exact same feeling about him.

He has built a following of people that want to hear his extra skeptical views. And even if he changed his mind about some things, he cannot admit it, as that is not what his followers want to hear from him.

It's rare that people make the news and build a following by saying a very balanced, down to earth opinions... unfortunately.

Re: How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

#27

Post by dgellow »

simonw wrote: post #3

> For any of his posts that I read, while there are numbers thrown around, the numbers don't actually connect to a coherent argument. In many cases, as we saw above, the numbers don't even really support his argument (such as an MAU decline in Facebook causing Meta financial problems which would then cause Meta to spuriously insert AI in places it doesn't belong). I suspect he's relying on people's eyes glazing over…

I don’t understand the issue, cannot you ignore his commentary and just look at the numbers?

Re: How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

#28

Post by onemoresoop »

jrflo wrote: post #17

Thanks for putting this together, his writing really aggravates me and it was nice to see all of his predictions put together in one spot. It's interesting how he has pivoted from denying that LLMs are useful to accusing frontier labs of Enron-scale fraud. I suppose it's the natural pivot you have to make when your whole business is an anti-AI newsletter that costs $7 per month.

The fraud is there. Whether it surpasses Enron or not will be revealed in the future.

Re: How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

#29

Post by reducesuffering »

baggachipz wrote: post #20

Hate on him all you want (he's gotten very repetitive for the sake of subscribers and reads), but the basic premise that the modern AI industry is a circular-dealing, point-of-diminishing-returns grift still holds. The bubble is here and the longer it inflates, the worse the pop will be. Sure the goalposts have moved, but the basic numbers don't math.

> The bubble is here

Zitron implied 2 years ago that OpenAI would collapse by now. How's that bubble popping going? All NVDA+memory co+frontier lab numbers are accelerating

Re: How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

#30

Post by fwip »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #23
simianwords wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valid criticisms of AI - safety critics who think AI can take over the world like Yud (I find this the least credible but still valid) - Bernie type of critics who think AI can cause widespread job losses - Ruxandra Teslo who thinks AI can remove meaning which I feel is the most serious one [1] What are not valid - environmental like emissions and water usage - AI is useless and it will take the economy with it becau…

This sounds completely reasonable: > - AI spreads misinformation and causes societal damage

Agreed. And so are the other two, if stated reasonably instead of as strawmen.
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