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

Post by retsibsi » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 1:59 PM UTC

emp17344 wrote: post #377

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…

Why is Zitron’s repute evaluated entirely on the basis of failed predictions? Predictions are incredibly hard. AI enthusiasts and thought leaders have made so many demonstrably incorrect predictions it’s hard to keep track. Based on this metric, Altman and Amodei should never be taken seriously again.

Post by runarberg » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

unreal37 wrote: post #858

eloisant wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like too many people have a binary vision of the world, i.e. you're either "pro AI" or "anti AI". Ed Zitron doesn't say that AI doesn't work, that its impact on the world will not increase. He's basically saying that (1) the current data center investments are based on unrealistic revenue projections and (2) hyperscalers are using accounting tricks to move around "money" in a circular way to make it look like…

If you ever listen to more than a couple of Zitron interviews, it's clear that he's not the "reasonable centrist" viewpoint on AI. He's the doom-and-gloom guy. Maybe there is someone out there positive on AI itself and calling out reasonable objections to some of the extreme things. But that's not Zitron.

Post by rrrx3 » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

square_usual wrote: post #863

eloisant wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like too many people have a binary vision of the world, i.e. you're either "pro AI" or "anti AI". Ed Zitron doesn't say that AI doesn't work, that its impact on the world will not increase. He's basically saying that (1) the current data center investments are based on unrealistic revenue projections and (2) hyperscalers are using accounting tricks to move around "money" in a circular way to make it look like…

> Ed Zitron doesn't say that AI doesn't work, that its impact on the world will not increase He's said variants of both of these things before! That's the point OP makes too, people say "He doesn't say that" or "But what about this" when he's said a million, sometimes contradictory things.

Post by delis-thumbs-7e » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:22 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #829

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh c’mon. You must be trolling. Great, now we have have scientific papers with formally correct English, but data and sources of which are fabricated and most of the paragraphs are utter nonsense. And publications are drowning on these. Oh thanks for changing the world!

AI has been great for scientific research. It writes code, it can help solve difficult mathematical problems, you can bounce ideas off of it, you can learn background info on a scientific question quickly, etc. I haven't noticed any uptick of trash papers in quality journals, or even on the arXiv. I know submissions are way up to all the journals, but peer review appears to still be working to filter out obvious junk…

  What we find is sobering. Submission volume has risen by 42% since November 2022. At the same time, submission writing quality also began to decline at the end of 2022, with Flesch Reading Ease (a standard measure of writing quality) 1.28 standard deviations (SD) lower in January 2026 relative to January 2021. Submissions that are heavily AI-generated account for nearly all of these trends. The quality of reviews has also dropped sharply since November 2022, driven by an increase in heavily AI-generated reviews. These reviews, in addition to being of worse quality, are also narrower in their emphasis, focusing more on theory and less on data. In short, more research is being submitted, with more AI writing that is lower in quality—not better.[1]

  Peer review is unpaid work that we do (often on nights and weekends) because peer review on our own work is so valuable. Spending hours going through a submission and then realizing that there are hallucinated citations is infuriating as it is a waste of our time! If you haven’t spent enough time with your work to even get the references correct, then a.) why should we spend time reviewing it for you, and b.) what are you hoping to accomplish with the submission in the first place? Learning from reviews requires reflecting on your work, and you need to spend time with your work in order to do this.[2]

Post by heaney-555 » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #873

unreal37 wrote: post #858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever listen to more than a couple of Zitron interviews, it's clear that he's not the "reasonable centrist" viewpoint on AI. He's the doom-and-gloom guy. Maybe there is someone out there positive on AI itself and calling out reasonable objections to some of the extreme things. But that's not Zitron.

The center is not always the reasonable viewpoint. And sometimes the doom-and-gloom guy is correct.