How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been? • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by polski-g » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

ant_li0n wrote: post #210

maxglute wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? What happened to FAANG in last 3 years, they cut a fuck load of jobs, the raised rent/prices, then inflation, then experience surge in new category AI. 1 + 2, i.e. squeezing rock has limits. 3 is fundamentally not sustainable, i.e. AI revenue gap order of magnitude relative to spend. This like debt crisis, there's lot of levers to burn to maximize extraction and make ledger look good short term, but is fundament…

Ah I understand what you're saying. Yes I agree that if you pull back to, "We're in a bubble," then you can say that Zitron is correct, at least fundamentally, despite being wildly inaccurate in almost every other prediction he makes. But Zitron isn't just blogging about how we're in a bubble. The assertions he makes are not minutiae, he basically continuously says that all the big SW firms are walking corpses. He's…

Software companies aren't walking zombies for the same reason cabinet manufacturers aren't. Everyone can make their own cabinets, but few do, because they simply don't want to.

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

#272

Post by randomImmigrant » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

I’m with Zitron on the frustration and even the analysis of the economic feasibility of AI.

What I’ve stopped doing is reading him regularly. It feels hard to parse the factual from the obviously exaggerated.

I get he’s frustrated. We all are. But I’m not sure letting it out that much helps making the very urgent case he’s making.

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

#273

Post by solid_fuel » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #182

reticulates wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide any examples of any of the megascalers publishing any detailed financials that touch on their AI spend or revenue or profit? The only one I’m aware of that comes close is Microsoft and they have still buried it in barely related line items which still leave us making assumptions. There’s speculation on both sides and certainly Zitron is on the extreme end of the anti-AI side with the most cynical spec…

They don't publish their AI spending, revenue, and profit - but they do tend to break out other non-AI segments of their companies which can demonstrate that at least part of their growth isn't relevant to AI. Page 24 of Amazon's 2025 report for example https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872426... separates AWS from the rest of the company. Or Google/Alphabet's 2025 report https://www.sec.gov/Archi…

> They don't publish their AI spending, revenue, and profit - but they do tend to break out other non-AI segments of their companies which can demonstrate that at least part of their growth isn't relevant to AI.

So the previous statement that "As public companies, the megascalers publish pretty detailed financial reports" is incorrect and irrelevant to the question that was asked.

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

#274

Post by Zigurd » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC

joshcsimmons wrote: post #227

sfblah wrote: post #99

I don't think Zitron is wrong, exactly. He's just early. There are a lot of analysts who have faced the same criticism over the past 10-15 years. IMO the issue is that they fail to understand the staggering size and scope of the government fiscal + monetary interventions across those years. Essentially, the government has jammed all the risk into the future to repeatedly rescue near-term results. I think something si…

"Early" works for an open-ended bubble thesis. It does not rescue dated claims that already failed. Google's 500 million Gemini-user goal had an end-of-2025 deadline. Zitron called it so unrealistic that Sundar Pichai should be fired. Google reported more than 650 million monthly users by October. "AI had already peaked" is also a claim about the state of the technology at that time. Agent and coding benchmarks moved…

Some numbers have a lot of squish to them. Gemini can't be called a failure. But Copilot is a flop and yet Microsoft can probably show you similar numbers to what Gemini has.

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

#275

Post by BeetleB » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC

mustaphah wrote: post #244

I don't like Ed, but it seems that Luu spends far more attention documenting failed predictions than checking other predictions that might have been correct.

Telling me that quite a few of Zitron's predictions turned out to be accurate, while many others were completely off base, means he's throwing darts on a dartboard. Why should I listen to him?

I'm sure I can make a lot of accurate predictions. It doesn't mean I'm worth listening to, if people can't distinguish the accurate from the inaccurate in the moment.

Reminds me of a tactic I've seen often amongst both critics and shills on fads. An OpenClaw fanatic on Youtube comes to mind. He makes opposing claims in different videos. One of them has to turn out to be true, and he trumpets his successes ("Look, I predicted this!"). Only a few notice he also predicted the opposite.

Just look at the other thread about Zitron and his Enron comparisons.

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

#276

Post by taklimakan » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:31 PM UTC

Ed Zitron sells subscriptions to his blog. Whether he’s right or wrong is irrelevant.

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

#277

Post by achompas » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:31 PM UTC

sfblah wrote: post #146

inferniac wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, hes been extremely wrong multiple times, he should not be treated seriously Its silly to say hes just early, when his predictions give specific timelines that don't work at all - "so egregious that I am surprised it's not some kind of financial crime to say it out loud" — on OpenAI forecasting $11.6B for 2025 ( https://www.wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials/ ) actual: $13.07B. source is his own scoop ( h…

I think it's fair to call his specific predictions "early." I'm saying his timelines are too short. Like almost all bearish market commentators, he doesn't understand the scope of the government stimulus. This is a systemic problem in market commentary. But, don't kid yourself. If the US stops massive deficit spending, a lot of what Zitron's saying moves forward on the timeline.

A prediction definitionally includes an outcome, and it _can_ include a timeline. (if you’re serious about your forecasting, then you generally include a timeline; forecasting is non-actionable if it does not include a timeline).

You might choose a different timeline for Ed’s outcomes. Okay: those are now your predictions, not his.

Zitron has done us the favor of including timelines with his predictions, so that Dan can invalidate almost all of them.

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

#278

Post by hajile » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

ChoosesBarbecue wrote: post #32

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…

> - environmental like emissions and water usage Water usage, sure. But emissions has plenty of reasonable concern. There are the various xAI data centers have/are running using mobile gas turbines. In general, the extreme amount of power is going to put pressure on the grids. I hope this leads to the world doubling down on renewables to offset it all, but is that going to happen? Hell, the US actively paid [0] to st…

Water usage may be a drop in the bucket nationally, but they tend to put datacenters in areas without much water (often because evaporative cooling is less expensive in arid regions) and the effects to those local water supplies can be extreme.

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

#279

Post by dofm » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

The first correct, detailed prediction (in print) about the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a result of the subprime crisis was made by Max Keiser, of Karmabanque, in (Zac Goldsmith's) The Ecologist magazine.

In 2004.

And he'd been talking about it before then.

People thought Max Keiser was a crank; instead he made detailed predictions based on his intuitions, limited insider feedback and cold hard facts. He couldn't say exactly when it would happen; he laid out some horsemen you could expect for the apocalypse and this was one.

The thing about a bubble is everything is fine until it isn't. And it's worth observing that key parts of what Zitron is discussing has been covered in the WSJ and FT.

It's all very well posting numbers to "disprove" him when what he is pointing out is that the AI hype train is delusional and the costs are buried.

But Zitron is directionally correct, I think, particularly with regards to Oracle, where things he has said have literally come true.

Frankly as a Brit I remain amused at how much Zitron winds Americans up just by being himself — sweary, vulgar, rude, catty. And since non-Brits can't read Brits, Luu has to engage in pretty immature character assassination about it.

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

#280

Post by solid_fuel » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

I would be interested in seeing a similar list of predictions from Altman, Amodei, etc with annotations about how many have come true. Ed Zitron is a blow hard and frequently overstates things to the point where it is hard to take seriously, but so are the AI industry leaders.

I have heard multiple breathless press releases warning that the end of white collar work is "just 6 months away" and that people not using the latest Mythos/Fable/Whatever model will be hopelessly left behind.