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by Analemma_ 29 days ago
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.
1 comments

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.
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.

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.