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

danluu.com

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

#311

Post by bawolff »

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…

in fairness, if you make the same prediction over and over again, you will probably be right eventually by sheer random chance.

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

#312

Post by iLoveOncall »

sarjann wrote: post #297
solid_fuel wrote: post #280

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 th…

I think one important distinction is at least they have some humility to admit they were wrong. I think Ed Zitron has rarely, if ever acknowledged he was wrong.

> I think one important distinction is at least they have some humility to admit they were wrong.

I'd be amazed to see a source proving that statement. There's never been a retraction around the AGI claims for example as far as I'm aware.

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

#313

Post by alephnerd »

aspir wrote: post #306

> In terms of the style of reasoning, of the futurists reviewed, he's probably closest to Kurzweil, in that he uses numbers to give a kind of aura of credibility, but if you know something about the topic he's discussing or look at the numbers, the reasoning falls apart. In one of his posts a few months ago, he went on a weird tangent about the CEO of ServiceNow talking about sales planning and whether his teams are…

This is a common issue I face on HN as well. A lot of "folk wisdom" on here is divorced from how stuff actually operates.

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

#314

Post by jacquesm »

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…

I don't agree with the believers vs non-believers dichotomy. That makes this look like a religious war and it shouldn't have to be like that. To me AI is a very useful tool, no more no less, it isn't a 'make a wish' machine and it isn't a silver bullet for all of the issues that have plagued software so far. But when properly applied it's quite useful. "Non-believers" would have to be people that have yet to actually use AI, just like you can probably be a non-believer in peanuts until you've seen them, and most people that I know acknowledge the reality of AI tools and their use cases.

All tools, AI included, have a business end and as long as you point that away from yourself you will be fine. But to properly apply it (rather than as a faster way to make a huge mess) takes discipline and being methodical. It was never different.

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

#315

Post by achompas »

solid_fuel wrote: post #280

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 th…

But I think anyone who evaluates their claims understands that they’re talking their own books.

Zitron’s problems are more subtle. He benefits financially from his own claims, while also touting his impartiality and capacity for objective thought.

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

#316

Post by chipgap98 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #310

This article cherry picks: Ed Zitron mostly covers the costs of data centers, circular spending, and predictions of large the market for AI has to be to justify the data center expenditures. I was disappointed this article didn’t really cover Zitron’s main arguments. Maybe a paid article placement? I don’t know, but I was dissapointed: I read Zitron’s material and I wanted to see good counter arguments to his rants a…

What are the predictions he has made that this article omits?

He is making predictions with specific timelines. No one is forcing him to do that. It is reasonable criticism to say he is make poor predictions.

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

#317

Post by tomjakubowski »

qw2817 wrote: post #134

Examining Dan Luu's predictions would be harder since he doesn't even date his articles. Was this hit piece prompted by Zitron being mentioned in the tech scene lately? https://lwn.net/Articles/1091245/ I don't know. If you post walls of text and ramble on like Luu, perhaps you are sitting in a glass house?

the dates of his articles (well, month and year) are all here: https://danluu.com/

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

#318

Post by adventured »

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #175
mixmastamyk wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven’t allowed a recession to happen since ~2009 when they massively inflated their way out of the worst of the last one. Learned to have the cake and eat it too. The only problem is after a few rounds of this the currency becomes worthless, and we’re well on our way. Inflation is a major component of those numbers rising.

And that's when we pay off the national debt for pennies on the worthless dollar. The pro move would be to stop lending the US money, but that's not going to happen.

The US doesn't require that you lend it money, it possesses the global reserve currency. It'll take it from you via currency debasement. That's a world problem whether the world likes it or not. There is still no viable (realistic) alternative, and that includes the Euro, Yen, Yuan, gold, Bitcoin.

There are no lenders outside or inside of the US for $20 trillion in new debt over the next decade. Monetization is the only path. If you mean lend the US money in regards to holding or using USD (while it's being debased as it is now), then sure.

And if the world tries to shake off the USD, well, Iran & Venezuela (oil transactions assist USD dominance) would like a word. I'm not suggesting defending the USD reserve position via military action is moral, I'm suggesting it's certain to occur.

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

#319

Post by bawolff »

skybrian wrote: post #193
DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #161

Consider two propositions: P1. AI is useful powerful and (P1a) will continue to get more useful and powerful at the same rapid pace it's been improving 2. AI companies are very profitable, and (P2a) will be wildly profitable (eg $30T TAM) in the next few years These are completely separate. But in practice people seem to be either proAI (both true) or anti AI (both false). P1 is clearly true and I find it hard to tak…

I can certainly see one happening without the other, but I'd expect P1 and P2 to be correlated at least some of the time?

Sounds like the dot com bubble to me. many companies went bankrupt but the technology marched on.

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

#320

Post by jacquesm »

hypfer wrote: post #70

I just remembered that before AI, I knew Zitron from ranting about IoT and consumer tech. He just appeared one day in my Twitter Timeline, claiming to be the "man on the ground" at CES (or so my memory at least) So from that standpoint, I guess it would make sense that a personality like that would now have ended up at the AI topic. I would like to see a comparison with predictions of the pro-AI bubble and their hit…

All of the grifters (and lots of capital) can't wait to jump on the bandwagon because they see it as their chance to clean up. The same happened during the last 4 tech revolutions. (in my life so far: semiconductors, the internet, mobile communications, smart phones, crypto, EVs, probably forgot a few). And of course, as always, the longer term will be more amazing than the short term hype.
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