[czhu12]

I really respected Ed Zitron, but I feel like he's very much lost the plot on AI.

Scroll back not too far and he was publishing criticisms that no one wants to spend actual money AI. Anthropic has shattered all notions of that since then.

Then there was the idea that even if people want it, we have way too much GPU capacity to ever be saturated. Now almost all providers are hitting limits.

Now, its the next iteration that even if people want to spend money and GPU's are at capacity, its just never going to be profitable. This may or may not be true, especially with more capable open source models that can be served at cost. But at this point, he mostly just brings up anything possible to downplay AI

[ant_li0n]

I agree. He plainly has an axe to grind. I'm as AI-skeptical as the next guy, but I can't handle Ed Zitron. Doesn't seem like a good faith actor.

[Analemma_]

I said this in the last Ed Zitron article too, but it's more than just having an axe or grind or acting in bad faith (though those are both true as well). He's a completely standard example of audience capture: there's huge demand right now for "AI is a scam" takes, fulfilling that demand is how he makes his living, and he can't abandon it without losing his audience no matter what the facts on the ground do. All he can do is pivot explanations whenever the old ones get empirically falsified.

[dw_arthur]

I don't understand his audience still being in denial about what is coming. There may not be a job apocalypse but there is a decent chance tough times are ahead. Eventually, his audience may turn into outright Luddites. If that happens I sort of hope they don't stop at data centers/AI and go for the whole project of the Internet.

[Aurornis]

The audience feels threatened. Reading anti-AI hot takes is comforting when you’re afraid it’s going to take your job.

There is a lot of hype right now about AGI destroying the economy, replacing workers, or even ending the world. Companies are embellishing as they run up to IPO. But there’s a lot of unhealthy counter-beliefs trying to take it the opposite extreme. Keeping up with AI news is about avoiding the hype monsters at either end of the spectrum.

[ant_li0n]

Yeah I don't disagree with him on a lot of the substance, but it's more about the tone of his writing (there's like 20+ exclamation marks in that article). Listening to his podcast, he is even more insufferable. It just has a feeling of "preaching to the choir", and as the parent commenter stated, it gives you a feeling that he is following where the wind is blowing.

I dunno, I guess I just don't like him.

[argee]

I agree that it’s not going to be profitable, when it comes to monopolistic profit. AI is increasingly commoditized and providers can’t set prices too far out of band with their competition, which includes local models, Chinese distillations, and established giants which can operate at a loss indefinitely. I haven’t seen any moat appear thus far, and we’re rapidly approaching the point where we will learn the bitter lesson again. As another comment said, we should draw a distinction between "AI is valuable" and "AI justifies its current investment levels."

[bauldursdev]

I'm not really an AI-futurist or anything, I think the truth is between the extremes, but it seems like a lot of people who are ideologically against AI just move the goal posts whenever a new development is made. They also seem to operate under the assumption that whatever the current state of the technology is is as good as it will ever be. "it can't even do x today, so it'll never be good".

[minimaxir]

The truth is indeed between the extremes, but it requires a lot of technical nuance which neither Ed nor his audience want.

[operatingthetan]

He seems to primarily discuss the economics of the industry.

[skeledrew]

About which his opinions are continuously being proven wrong.

[operatingthetan]

It seems like economists can do that their entire careers and keep getting paid.

[skeledrew]

It's all about being economical.

[ragall]

You mean just like all AI maximalists that keep pushing the date of AGI to anywhere between "next year" and "10 years from now" ?

[bauldursdev]

Yeah it's the same thing. No shortage of uninformed opinions on each side (not like I know WTF is going to happen, but at least I don't go around presenting my uninformed beliefs as fact).

[keeda]

> Now almost all providers are hitting limits.

Providers have been hitting limits and growing backlogs -- i.e. real money customers had committed to paying them but could not be realized due to lack of capacity -- to triple-digit billions EACH for multiple quarters now.

People are only just noticing the capacity crunch now because they're being directly impacted by Claude crapping out so much. But a superficial glance at the quarterly earnings of any of the hyperscalers shows that the AI compute crunch and revenues have only been growing pretty much since the AI boom took off. That alone should have raised questions about the bubble narrative.

Yet commentators like Zitron have been crying "bubble" all that time. I guess there's real money... er... engagement to be farmed by playing up the AI backlash. The backlash is real and understandable, but these narratives only serve to muddle useful discourse in exchange for some cheap rage-views.

[etempleton]

Well, I think he is probably right about this one. The costs are just too high and the spend is entirely too high. If the build out and demand is as advertised component prices will keep going up and costs will too offsetting any revenue gains and if they aren’t then they will never be able to justify the investment already made. Either way their entire business model involves a constant carousel of new investors either through private capital or by IPO and they need to keep that charade going for another five or more years or the whole thing explodes.

AI is a neat tool, but I think it becomes a race to the bottom. Who can provide the minimum viable product at the lowest price. And that price has to be pretty darn low for it to make sense for companies and essentially free for it to make sense for consumers.

[pllbnk]

I don't know what it is but I feel there is some sort of logical fallacy here.

Ed Zitron is an analyst. His viewpoint is that AI is bad for whatever reasons and he does his job by trying to uncover those reasons and does a solid work. He presents a lot of insider knowledge that would otherwise be left unheard.

What are his alternatives? To stop claiming that AI is bad and pivot to "AI is good" writing? To quit writing entirely? To continue writing but in the beginning of each article list the things that he was wrong about in the past? What if it's too early for the things that seem to have been predicted incorrectly by him to materialize and in the end he will appear correct?

I think it's a benefit for society to hear the other side. There are plenty of pro-AI advocates.

[tptacek]

He could stop confidently opining about things he clearly doesn't have even a surface-level understanding of. He also employs a tactic beloved of Internet trolls: he writes extremely long posts to stud his bogus claims in; his readers only need the "vibe" of his pieces to get the value they came from, but actually discussing them requires you to get a pickaxe and shovel and start digging. It would be one thing if he'd evinced technical competence over the last year, but he has done the opposite: some of what he's written about software development makes it really clear he's got basically no exposure to it.

It's a bad combination. There are better AI skeptics to follow. Endorsing Zitron, though, has become a "tell".

[raincole]

An analyst shouldn't have a conclusion carved in stones and work backwards to support said conclusion, for the starter.

[shalmanese]

That’s not an analyst, that’s a pundit. An analyst can have a clear point of view that is different from yours and, very far off the consensus in any direction. But the value of an analyst is they have a consistent point of view that they apply to any situation and flag as their point of view evolves.

A pundit starts from a pre-declared conclusion and works backwards to generate the argument. An analyst lets the conclusion be dictated by the analysis.

[elcapithanos]

why does it sound like the crux of your argument against Ed is "why is he evolving his position"? Are we supposed to respect someone less for not being dogmatic and holding onto an opinion against mounting evidence?

[operatingthetan]

Why did you criticize his past arguments instead of the claims in this article? The one relevant claim you address is basically a shrug on your part. This seems to be purely a character attack of Zitron.

I agree that he is very one-sided, but I doubt his hit-rate is much worse than other pundits in the industry.

[raincole]

I think it's very reasonable to look at the track record when posting anti-AI articles looks like the author's part-time (if not full-time) job: https://www.wheresyoured.at/author/edward/

[operatingthetan]

It is reasonable to do so but only if they also actually address the current claims.

[tim333]

It's not really a character attack so much as a poor track record attack.

[hansvm]

It's the same idea. The crux of the argument is that the author has a history of bad predictions, so this must also be a bad prediction, or it's at least likely enough to be bad that we done need to invest further analysis into it.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad argument style (at this point it's by far the easiest way to argue that a Musk project won't work for example), but you have to be careful with it.

In this case, there are only two previous predictions being considered. Suppose the author would have been right 75% of the time given their available information; there was still a >6% chance of those predictions not working out. That's a pretty rough bound for ruling them out just on principle in a world where they do actually know a lot about how AI will progress. There isn't enough "track record" to confidently say much about the author's predictions.

[tonyneel923]

You're absolutely correct. Too easy just to say this guy sucks that's why he's wrong.

[lucketone]

Track record would matter if we would need to trust him. (E.g. he knows some hidden insider data which stays secret, while he shares only a conclusion without must justification)

Track record is not relevant if it is a prediction with all the arguments laid out in the open.

Which is our situation closer to?

[tim333]

Facts can be cherry picked. As an example of Ed's stuff see:

>Anthropic Is Bleeding Out ...Anthropic is very likely losing money on every single Claude Code customer, and based on my analysis, appears to be losing hundreds or even thousands of dollars per customer. (Ed, 10 months ago) https://www.wheresyoured.at/anthropic-is-bleeding-out/

vs

>Mind-Blowing Growth Is About to Propel Anthropic Into Its First Profitable Quarter The startup expects a 130% revenue surge to $10.9 billion in the June quarter and its first operating profit, defying skeptics of the AI boom (wsj, yesterday)

If you look at Ed's piece there the facts are correct but he just moans about costs and ignores the growth. Most of his stuff is kind of like that.

[lucketone]

> expects

Is bearing a lot load here.

It is a press release with a goal to create hype.

I.e. it has no relation to “facts”

… unless they would also share underlying numbers (e.g. cost/profit per customer, and why they think some things will increase)