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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?

#601

Post by psvv »

minimaltom wrote: post #389
psvv wrote: post #170

I don't really care what Zitron says or pay attention to him because it seems clear to me he has some kind of agenda. But this article is not nearly as impartial as it claims to be. It interprets all Zitron's claims in a narrow and overly-literal way. Missing the point and refuting a technicality. For example, looking at the last 3 year's revenue/profit growth. This tells us nothing without looking at a larger contex…

Yeah, I think this is fair criticism, and I definitely felt the pointedness in the tone as well. On the overly-literal / narrow thing, I think thats the culture around evaluating predictions overall. Like, all those posts around christmas where people make predictions and evaluate how last year went. The rigor is the norm.

I'm not familiar with the culture, but that sounds reasonable.

I'll quibble with the term rigor. I think the article contains the strictness that word implies, but not the thoroughness.

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

#602

Post by pixelatedindex »

jxcole wrote: post #574
layoric wrote: post #562

This critique is leaning really hard on their interpretation of "dying". They take the literal company is going to fail type of dying where as I have always taken it the same way he has presented it in his "rot-economy" context. They can remain financially "successful", but more and more people hate their products, their products are getting worse, their products are "dying". Google Search is still a good example, th…

If many people hated their products, they wouldn't use them. If they didn't use them they would not be financially successful. Google is not dying just because you personally have a feeling the results are worse than before and there is no definition of dying that would be consistent with Google's current state. If Google were to die they would die the way Yahoo did, because a competitor was demonstrably better than…

> If Google were to die they would die the way Yahoo did

This might be true 20 years ago where Google had one true product, Search. Since then, they have diversified and got their fingers a million pies.

I don’t think you can get true competition with the way MS,GOOG,AMZ have grown. You’ll get a duopoly, or maybe a triopoly.

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

#603

Post by loeg »

oofbey wrote: post #575
layoric wrote: post #562

This critique is leaning really hard on their interpretation of "dying". They take the literal company is going to fail type of dying where as I have always taken it the same way he has presented it in his "rot-economy" context. They can remain financially "successful", but more and more people hate their products, their products are getting worse, their products are "dying". Google Search is still a good example, th…

Was Microsoft dying under Balmer? I think we’d say yes. Even if the SEC filings indicated otherwise.

Right. If we merely define "dying" to mean something other than dying, it's possible for a not-dying company to be "dying."

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

#604

Post by RachelF »

ElProlactin wrote: post #594
RachelF wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is there is BullSh_t and hype on both sides. Both Zitron and AI execs have good points, but both are trying to sell you something. The murky truth lies between the two extremes. IMHO, having Zitron around is a counter to the AI leaders. Is he the best? No. Is he the loudest? Yes.

Anthropic's ARR is reportedly now above $60 billion. OpenAI's is reportedly above $40 billion. Countless people and businesses are using AI to create tangible value and reduce costs. We can debate whether the level of investment in AI is excessive and what any malinvestment will eventually cost when the market has to recognize it. But Zitron is selling you a $70/year subscription to a newsletter that constantly remin…

Very true. The problem is mainstream business media hasn't asked the questions that Zitron has.

So, much like current US politics, we're left with hype on both sides. That's all that gets the clicks/attention, and little balanced analysis in the middle.

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

#606

Post by dosisking »

achompas wrote: post #334

One thing I’m observing in these comments is a willingness of folks to project their own predictions onto Ed’s statements when validating their plausibility. Eg. “I think he’s wrong about the timing but I do expect AI companies to go to zero.” You can do that, but then you’re no longer discussing his predictions. You’re discussing your predictions, and your own positioning. Those differ from Dan’s essay, which engage…

AI companies will never go to zero because AI is part of the Military Industrial Complex now. All the money is coming from the military and government for surveillance and power and war.

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

#607

Post by Joel_Mckay »

layoric wrote: post #562

This critique is leaning really hard on their interpretation of "dying". They take the literal company is going to fail type of dying where as I have always taken it the same way he has presented it in his "rot-economy" context. They can remain financially "successful", but more and more people hate their products, their products are getting worse, their products are "dying". Google Search is still a good example, th…

>tech giants need AI to continue to grow

You mean increase the -$2.50 lost for every $1 in revenue, or the $2Tn in debt disclosed 60 pages into the reports as a footnote.

Let us be clear, the only "growth" is in the LLM ectoparasite living rent free in peoples imaginations. The fact is when (not if) the peak of inflated LLM use-case expectations corrects, a lot of the industry won't survive.

Facebook has a founders-syndrome problem, and a product line catering to creeps. Note most normal people aren't creeps, but the ones that are creepy will buy creep-ware at a rate necessary to sustain the founder creeps ego.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder%27s_syndrome

Google hasn't built a successful product in decades, and acquired most of its successes like YT. There are 3 reasons this occurs, and 2 are related to corporate cult culture. One would have to fire 70% of the company to fix that problem, and one day someone will have to do just that.

>wish people would hold actual professional media economists to the same standards

OpenAI will go public soon, and the hype-cycle can finally settle down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle

LLM do have basic utility in search and pattern recognition, but only the delusional believe it will hyper-scale unconstrained forever. =3

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

#608

Post by ElProlactin »

RachelF wrote: post #604
ElProlactin wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthropic's ARR is reportedly now above $60 billion. OpenAI's is reportedly above $40 billion. Countless people and businesses are using AI to create tangible value and reduce costs. We can debate whether the level of investment in AI is excessive and what any malinvestment will eventually cost when the market has to recognize it. But Zitron is selling you a $70/year subscription to a newsletter that constantly remin…

Very true. The problem is mainstream business media hasn't asked the questions that Zitron has. So, much like current US politics, we're left with hype on both sides. That's all that gets the clicks/attention, and little balanced analysis in the middle.

This isn't true though. There is significant discussion in the financial media about the valuations of AI-related companies, the financing of the AI infrastructure buildout, etc. Academics are talking about it. Investment banks are talking about it. Policy people are talking about it.

Zitron is one of the loudest voices and he attracts attention because his thesis is so black and white: it's all a scam, there's no value, it's all going to $0, the sky is falling.

As a PR shill, he was obviously clued in to the fact that a lot of people prefer black and white, oversimplified and bombastic theses. To buy into Zitron's ideas (and pay him $70/year), you don't need to understand how AI works. You don't need to understand the difference between capex and opex. You don't need to know how to read a balance sheet or financial statement. All you need to do is believe that everything is a massive fraud.

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

#609

Post by wmf »

dosisking wrote: post #606
achompas wrote: post #334

One thing I’m observing in these comments is a willingness of folks to project their own predictions onto Ed’s statements when validating their plausibility. Eg. “I think he’s wrong about the timing but I do expect AI companies to go to zero.” You can do that, but then you’re no longer discussing his predictions. You’re discussing your predictions, and your own positioning. Those differ from Dan’s essay, which engage…

AI companies will never go to zero because AI is part of the Military Industrial Complex now. All the money is coming from the military and government for surveillance and power and war.

Speaking of wrong predictions... the entire US military budget would have to be spent on OpenAI/Anthropic to keep the bubble from bursting.

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

#610

Post by marcus_holmes »

I read all Ed's posts, and enjoy them, and I like AI as a tool and use it every day.

I think it's really, really, really important to have a contrarian opinion out there, even it's a voice howling in the wilderness. Even if most of his predictions are wrong. Even if he swears a lot and gets a bit ranty at times.

Personally, I think he's going to be mostly right in the long term about the AI bubble, but mostly wrong in the long term about the effectiveness of AI (i.e. I think it will have a net-positive effect in the long term).

I always keep in mind the Gartner Hype Cycle [0] is true, and we're still on the initial slope up to the Peak Of Inflated Expectations.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle

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