Claims that can’t be checked by Gary Marcus, page 7 of 24
Deadlines are judged as of 2026-10-29. About Gary Marcus and the sources covered.
Claims that can’t be checked by Gary Marcus (2353)
Public evidence cannot settle these claims, so they are recorded and attributed, not scored. Most were screened out: both AI providers read the claim on its own and found it a value judgment, rhetoric, hedged, too vague to test, or about something no public evidence could show. The rest were found to be recommendations or too open to test in a full review.
Page 7 of 24: claims 601 to 700 of 2353, ordered by the date first said, newest first. To find a claim by its words, use search.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“It all works, until it doesn’t. We desperately need more reliable technology.”
Our reading: LLM-based tools are unreliable, and more reliable AI technology is badly needed.
No horizon
Source: “Scale Is All You Need” is dead
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“Knowing what to borrow and what not is likely to be more than half the battle.”
Our reading: In building AI, knowing what to borrow from human and animal cognition, and what not to borrow, is likely to be more than half the battle.
No horizon
Scope: what to borrow and what not
Source: “Scale Is All You Need” is dead
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“But it should look to human (and animal cognition) for clues.”
Our reading: AI research should look to human and animal cognition for clues, without slavishly replicating it.
No horizon
Source: “Scale Is All You Need” is dead
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Let’s bring in the cognitive scientists, and stop fantasizing that data and compute will solve all our problems.”
Our reading: The AI field should involve cognitive scientists and stop believing data and compute alone will solve its problems.
No horizon
Source: “Scale Is All You Need” is dead
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“The time for neurosymbolic AI and world models and causality is now.”
Our reading: AI research should now pursue neurosymbolic AI, world models and causal reasoning.
No horizon
Source: “Scale Is All You Need” is dead
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“In the worse case, the government might seriously consider a bailout a taxpayer expense.”
Our reading: In the worst case, if OpenAI falls, the government might seriously consider a taxpayer-funded bailout.
No horizon
Only if: worst case
Source: OpenAI’s “Code Red”
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“My guess is that they have cumulatively raised on the order of $100 billion since they launched, perhaps more than any other company in history, but have already spent most of it, and likely don’t have much more than a year’s runway left.”
Our reading: Marcus guesses that OpenAI has cumulatively raised on the order of $100 billion since launch, perhaps more than any other company in history, has already spent most of it, and likely has not much more than a year's runway left.
No horizon
Qualifier: my guess (applies to the whole estimate)
Source: OpenAI’s “Code Red”
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“And of course many other companies are also in close relationship with OpenAI, with a lot of future orders from them on the books. These too might drop.”
Our reading: If OpenAI drops, other companies with many future OpenAI orders on their books might also drop.
No horizon
Only if: if OpenAI drops
Source: OpenAI’s “Code Red”
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“Things took longer to unravel than I thought they would, but OpenAI’s unraveling has begun.”
Our reading: OpenAI's unraveling has begun.
No horizon
Source: OpenAI’s “Code Red”
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“If OpenAI drops, Nvidia might well also drop.”
Our reading: If OpenAI drops, Nvidia might well drop too.
No horizon
Only if: if OpenAI drops
Source: OpenAI’s “Code Red”
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“If most or all opt out, OpenAI’s valuation could drop, perhaps precipitously, as happened with WeWork, which dropped rapidly from its peak of $47 billion to near-bankruptcy.”
Our reading: If most or all investors opt out, OpenAI's valuation could drop, perhaps precipitously, like WeWork's.
No horizon
Only if: if most or all investors opt out
Source: OpenAI’s “Code Red”
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“That code red may in stem part from a recent exodus of users:”
Our reading: OpenAI's code red may stem in part from a recent exodus of users.
No horizon
Source: OpenAI’s “Code Red”
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“Anyone assuming that everything is simultaneously rising exponentially, and that it will continue to do so indefinitely, is a fool.”
Our reading: Anyone assuming that everything is simultaneously rising exponentially and will continue to do so indefinitely is a fool.
No horizon
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“But I think a fair case can be made that it is not what it has often been cracked up to be, and probably never will be.”
Our reading: Marcus thinks a fair case can be made that ChatGPT is not what it has often been cracked up to be, and that it probably never will be.
No horizon
Qualifier: I think a fair case can be made
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“For the love of Darwin, please let’s spend the next eight years considering new approaches, not tanking the economy on more of the same.”
Our reading: The AI field should spend the next eight years on new approaches rather than risking the economy on more LLM scaling.
No horizon
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“In many domains. answers might be like 80% correct and 20% absurd, but without a whole lot of task-specific engineering required.”
Our reading: In many domains ChatGPT's answers may be roughly 80% correct and 20% absurd, with little task-specific engineering.
No horizon
Qualifier: in many domains
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“If things do go belly-up, and the whole economy falls into recession, the single biggest culprit in my mind, will be ChatGPT’s human avatar, its bullshit-spewing CEO Sam Altman, who hyped GPT-5 endlessly for years, pretending he knew that AGI was coming when in hindsight he was bluffing.”
Our reading: If things go belly-up and the whole economy falls into recession, the single biggest culprit in Marcus's mind will be Sam Altman, whom he describes as having hyped GPT-5 for years while bluffing about knowing that AGI was coming.
No horizon
Only if: if things do go belly-up
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“And worse, the economy itself has become so wrapped up in generative AI and its promises, that the economy itself is, by many accounts in serious jeopardy.”
Our reading: The economy has become so wrapped up in generative AI and its promises that, by many accounts, it is in serious jeopardy.
No horizon
Qualifier: by many accounts
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“OpenAI itself isn’t traded on the open market, but if it had, it’s likely that it, too, would have fallen over the last month, for all the reasons I described, and one more: they don’t have moat.”
Our reading: OpenAI has no moat, and its value would likely have fallen over the last month if it were publicly traded.
No horizon
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“Return on investment for corporate end users is also lower than many people must have imagined.”
Our reading: Return on generative AI investment for corporate end users is lower than many people must have imagined.
No horizon Evidence as of
Limitation: This does not assess the separate factual claims about MIT or McKinsey.
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“The market is maybe finally catching on.”
Our reading: The market may finally be recognizing AI's limits, as shown by falls in Nvidia, CoreWeave and Oracle stock.
No horizon
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“ChatGPT has had a good (though not great) run; it’s time for something new.”
Our reading: ChatGPT has had a good but not great run, and the field should move to something new.
No horizon
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“GenAI is like a rerun of that situation, an order or two of magnitude more hype, coupled with equal naïveté about what a cognitively adequate solution would actually look like, only this time with an extra decimal place, potentially a trillion dollars down the drain — and perhaps with far more collateral damage to the economy.”
Our reading: Generative AI is like a rerun of the driverless-car hype, with an order or two of magnitude more hype and equal naïveté about what a cognitively adequate solution would look like, potentially with a trillion dollars down the drain and perhaps far more collateral damage to the economy.
No horizon
Qualifier: potentially
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“People are now very actively trying to put variations of large language models into humanoid robots, but I can’t imagine any could do what my daughter was able to do then, let alone what she can do nowadays as a curious, precocious eleven-year-old.”
Our reading: People are very actively trying to put LLM variants into humanoid robots, but Marcus cannot imagine any of them could do what his daughter did at three (inventing a new way to climb out of her chair), let alone what she can do now at eleven.
No horizon
Qualifier: I can't imagine any could
Source: Three years on, ChatGPT still isn't what it was cracked up to be – and it probably never will be
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“But it’s not just that a trillion dollars or more might go down the drain, but that there might be considerable collateral damage, to the rest of society, both economic and otherwise (e.g., in terms of how LLMs have undermined college education).”
Our reading: A trillion dollars or more of LLM investment might be lost, with considerable economic and other collateral damage to society.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“In the worst case, the impact of a deflated AI bubble could be immense.”
Our reading: In the worst case, the impact of a deflated AI bubble could be immense.
No horizon
Only if: if the AI bubble deflates
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“A trillion dollars is a terrible amount of money to have perhaps wasted. If the blast radius is wider it could be a lot more.”
Our reading: If the fallout spreads wider, the cost of the LLM bet could be much more than a trillion dollars.
No horizon
Only if: if the blast radius is wider
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“So venture capitalists may continue to support LLM mania, at least for a while.”
Our reading: Venture capitalists may continue to support LLM mania, at least for a while.
No horizon
Qualifier: at least for a while
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“here we may have wasted a trillion dollars and several years to rediscover what cognitive science already knew.”
Our reading: The AI industry may have wasted a trillion dollars and several years rediscovering what cognitive science already knew.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“It is all starting to feel like a tale straight out of Greek tragedy, an avoidable mixture of arrogance and power that just might wind up taking down the economy.”
Our reading: The AI boom just might end up taking down the economy.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“The sad part is that most of the reasons have been known – though not widely accepted – for a very long time. It all could have been avoided.”
Our reading: Most of the reasons to doubt LLMs have been known, though not widely accepted, for a very long time, and it all could have been avoided.
No horizon
Scope: most of the reasons
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, trillion dollar investments in ever more expensive experiments aiming to reach AGI may be delusional to the highest degree.”
Our reading: Trillion-dollar investments in ever larger experiments aimed at AGI may be delusional.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“The whole thing looks incredibly fragile.”
Our reading: The AI investment-driven economy looks incredibly fragile.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“But none of what Sutskever said should actually come as a surprise, especially not to readers of this Substack, or to anyone who followed me over the years.”
Our reading: None of what Sutskever said should actually come as a surprise, especially not to readers of Marcus's Substack or to anyone who has followed Marcus over the years.
No horizon
Scope: especially not to readers of this Substack or anyone who followed me
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Whether this is the first step towards sub rosa bailout remains to be seen, but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.”
Our reading: Whether the Genesis program is the first step toward a sub rosa (covert) bailout of the AI industry remains to be seen, but it is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
No horizon
Qualifier: whether this is the first step towards sub rosa bailout remains to be seen
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“This latter theory, almost a form of safety-net socialism for overextended companies, seemed to be implied today, in a tweet that seemed to be laying the groundwork for bailout, by none other than… White House AI and Crypto Czar and well-known podcaster, David O. Sacks:”
Our reading: A tweet by White House AI Czar David Sacks appeared to lay the groundwork for a government bailout of overextended AI companies.
No horizon
Source: A tale of two AI capitalisms
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Stay strong, Early November David Sacks, stay strong.”
Our reading: David Sacks should hold to the position he stated in early November that AI companies should be left to their own devices without government bailouts.
No horizon
Scope: addressed to 'Early November David Sacks', i.e. his earlier stated position
Source: A tale of two AI capitalisms
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“AGI ain’t actually coming in 2027, and even Kokotajlo, known for his aggressive timelines, is now with me in thinking we probably won’t see AGI this decade.”
Our reading: AGI will probably not arrive this decade (by the end of 2029).
No horizon
Source: BREAKING: The AI 2027 doomsday scenario has officially been postponed
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“But there is a vastly higher probability that the future won’t transpire as described; it might not go anything at all like what they describe””
Our reading: The future of AI is very unlikely to unfold as the AI 2027 scenario describes.
No horizon
Source: BREAKING: The AI 2027 doomsday scenario has officially been postponed
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“It’s a work of fiction, not a work of science… stoking fear, uncertainty and doubt””
Our reading: The AI 2027 report is a work of fiction, not a work of science, that stokes fear, uncertainty and doubt.
No horizon
Qualifier: reaffirming his own earlier assessment
Source: BREAKING: The AI 2027 doomsday scenario has officially been postponed
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Much needs to be reconsidered, including what we should do now, given more realistic timelines. But also how and why so much critical decision-making revolved around sheer speculation—and why dissenting voices were not taken seriously.”
Our reading: Much needs to be reconsidered, including what we should do now given more realistic timelines, how and why so much critical decision-making revolved around sheer speculation, and why dissenting voices were not taken seriously.
No horizon
Qualifier: given more realistic timelines
Source: BREAKING: The AI 2027 doomsday scenario has officially been postponed
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“And it’s not just our policies that need to be rethought, but also our entire economy, which is being rebuilt at enormous expense around a myth.”
Our reading: Not just US policies but also the entire US economy, which is being rebuilt at enormous expense around a myth, need to be rethought.
No horizon
Scope: our entire economy
Source: BREAKING: The AI 2027 doomsday scenario has officially been postponed
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“Their stories about this are, in my view, greatly flawed, but having outside groups with science fiction chops writing stuff like this distracts away from those flaws, and gives more power to the very companies trying hardest to race towards AGI”
Our reading: AI companies' imminent-AGI stories are greatly flawed, and outside scenarios like AI 2027 distract from those flaws and give more power to the companies racing to AGI.
No horizon
Source: BREAKING: The AI 2027 doomsday scenario has officially been postponed
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“A moratorium on Statewise regulation of AI was and is, a terrible idea, especially in a world in which there is no coherent Federal response to AI; children, in particular, are left incredibly vulnerable, to garbage like this:”
Our reading: A moratorium on state-level regulation of AI is a terrible idea and should not be enacted, especially given there is no coherent federal response to AI.
No horizon
Qualifier: especially absent a coherent federal response to AI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“A moratorium on Statewise regulation of AI was and is, a terrible idea, especially in a world in which there is no coherent Federal response to AI; children, in particular, are left incredibly vulnerable, to garbage like this:”
Our reading: As of November 2025 there is no coherent US federal response to AI.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“As I put it in earlier today on X, re a call for federal AI standards in lieu of state standards only makes sense if there are (sensible) federal standards, but Congress has not put anything serious forward to a vote.”
Our reading: Replacing state AI standards with federal ones only makes sense if sensible federal standards exist.
No horizon
Qualifier: only if sensible federal standards exist
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Call your Congress people, ASAP; don’t let the White House cut them and the states you live in at the knees.”
Our reading: Citizens should urgently contact Congress to stop the White House from overriding state AI regulation.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“We need to change that.”
Our reading: We need to change the fact that AI bots that tell kids to kill themselves have no regulations.
No horizon
Scope: AI bots that tell kids to kill themselves
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“There are serious holes in the scaling argument. To begin with, the measures that have scaled have not captured what we desperately need to improve: genuine comprehension…”
Our reading: The scaling argument has serious holes, because the measures that have improved with scale do not capture genuine comprehension.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“I was likely the first, with a series of challenges to GPT-2 and GPT-3 on Twitter in the fall of 2019 and in a series of articles in 2019 and 2020.”
Our reading: Marcus was likely the first to argue that large language models would not lead to AGI, through challenges to GPT-2 and GPT-3 in 2019-2020.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“Similarly, Fei-Fei Li is building a world-model focused AI startup, World Labs; based on past experience, I will be surprised if LeCun ever gives her endeavors much mention.”
Our reading: LeCun is unlikely ever to give much mention to Fei-Fei Li's world-model startup, World Labs.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“What’s more, the so-called scaling laws aren’t universal laws like gravity but rather mere observations that might not hold forever, much like Moore’s law, a trend in computer chip production that held for decades but arguably began to slow a decade ago.11”
Our reading: The so-called scaling laws are not universal laws like gravity but mere observations that might not hold forever, much like Moore's law, which held for decades but arguably began to slow a decade ago.
No horizon
Qualifier: might not hold forever
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“Instead, I was probably the first person to doubt this publicly, back in 2022:”
Our reading: Marcus was probably the first person to publicly doubt, in 2022, that scaling LLMs would reach human-level AI.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“In a podcast that was probably recorded in last several days, Altman also appears to have been laying the groundwork for loan guarantees:”
Our reading: In a podcast that was probably recorded in the last several days, Altman appears to have been laying the groundwork for loan guarantees.
No horizon
Qualifier: podcast probably recorded in the last several days
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“The very idea – of having the US government bail out OpenAI from their reckless spending — is outrageous, as I explained here:”
Our reading: The US government should not bail out OpenAI from its reckless spending; the idea is outrageous.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Nobody should ever trust this man. Ever.”
Our reading: Nobody should ever trust Sam Altman.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Tell your congress person — today — that you don’t want your taxes used to bail out overhyping and economically shaky AI companies that spend far more than they earn.”
Our reading: Readers should tell their congressional representative today that they do not want their taxes used to bail out overhyping and economically shaky AI companies that spend far more than they earn.
No horizon
Scope: AI companies that are overhyping, economically shaky, and spend far more than they earn
Source: OpenAI probably can’t make ends meet. That’s where you come in.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Workers, already feeling the knife from layoffs, should not be footing the bill.”
Our reading: Workers, already hit by layoffs, should not pay for government support of AI companies.
No horizon
Source: OpenAI probably can’t make ends meet. That’s where you come in.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Get ahead of this before the too-big-to-fail bullshit becomes too-late-to-stop.”
Our reading: People should act now against the push for government backing of AI companies, before a too-big-to-fail situation becomes too late to stop.
No horizon
Qualifier: before it becomes too late to stop
Source: OpenAI probably can’t make ends meet. That’s where you come in.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“In a long, but mostly empty answer Altman pointed to revenue that hasn’t been reported and that maybe doesn’t exist, attacked the questioner, and promised that future revenue would be awsome”
Our reading: Altman's answer about how OpenAI would pay its obligations was mostly empty and pointed to unreported revenue that may not exist.
No horizon
Source: OpenAI probably can’t make ends meet. That’s where you come in.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“In justifying what would like be among the biggest (indirect) government subsidies in history, Friar said, “AI is almost a national strategic asset.”
Our reading: If the government support floated by OpenAI's CFO were provided, it would likely be among the biggest indirect government subsidies in history.
No horizon
Only if: if the government support floated by OpenAI's CFO were provided
Source: OpenAI probably can’t make ends meet. That’s where you come in.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“The generative AI industry has long reminded me of Wiley E. Coyote suspended in mid-air, over the edge of the cliff, about to fall, but not until the moment he looks down:”
Our reading: Gary Marcus says the generative AI industry has long reminded him of Wile E. Coyote suspended in mid-air past the cliff edge, about to fall but not until he looks down.
No horizon
Qualifier: framed as a personal analogy ('reminded me of')
Source: Too big to fail?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“For years, I have been warning that America has not sufficiently intellectually diversified its AI industry. Too much hype, accepted uncritically has led us to an extraordinarily vulnerable position.”
Our reading: America has not sufficiently diversified its AI industry intellectually, and uncritically accepted hype has left it extraordinarily vulnerable.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“More likely, to my mind, is that generative AI will become a mildly useful, widely used commodity that never makes much money for anyone other than chip companies.”
Our reading: In Marcus's view, it is more likely than generative AI being truly 'magic' that generative AI will become a mildly useful, widely used commodity that never makes much money for anyone other than chip companies.
No horizon
Qualifier: more likely, to my mind (compared with generative AI really being magic)
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“The consequences of being all-in on a single, easily-replicated technology could well turn out to be severe — with or without pressure from China.”
Our reading: The consequences of the US being all-in on a single, easily-replicated technology (scaling large language models) could well turn out to be severe, with or without pressure from China.
No horizon
Qualifier: with or without pressure from China
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“Earlier today I wrote about how vibe coding seemed to be losing steam, with usage declining, quite likely because people are growing disenchanted with the results.”
Our reading: The decline in vibe coding usage is quite likely because people are growing disenchanted with the results.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“I smell a really big dose of people believing what they want to believe.”
Our reading: Quick acceptance of Bubeck's claim was likely driven by people believing what they wanted to believe.
No horizon
Source: Erdosgate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“Some things never change.”
Our reading: 'Some things never change': a closing quip linking the Erdős episode to OpenAI's 2019 Rubik's cube 'solved' claim, which Marcus found misleading.
No horizon
Source: Erdosgate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“The claim would have been extraordinary, and should have been vetted closely.”
Our reading: Bubeck's Erdős claim, which would have been extraordinary, should have been closely vetted.
No horizon
Scope: this particular Erdős claim
Source: Erdosgate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“First slowly, and then all at once, dreams of LLMs bringing us to the cusp of AGI have fallen apart.”
Our reading: Hopes that LLMs would bring us close to AGI have collapsed over the past few months.
No horizon
Source: Game over. AGI is not imminent, and LLMs are not the royal road to getting there.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“If the strengths of A.I. are to truly be harnessed, the tech industry should stop focusing so heavily on these one-size-fits-all tools, and instead concentrate on narrow, specialized A.I. tools engineered for particular problems”
Our reading: To harness AI's strengths, the tech industry should shift focus from general-purpose tools to narrow, specialized AI tools for particular problems.
No horizon
Qualifier: if the strengths of AI are to be harnessed
Source: Is AGI the right goal for AI?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“In an OpEd today in The New York Times, I argue that at least for now, AGI is maybe not the right near-term goal:”
Our reading: At least for now, AGI is maybe not the right near-term goal for AI.
No horizon
Qualifier: at least for now
Source: Is AGI the right goal for AI?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“Right now, it feels as if Big Tech is throwing general-purpose A.I. spaghetti at the wall and hoping that nothing truly terrible sticks.”
Our reading: Right now, it feels as if Big Tech is throwing general-purpose AI at the wall like spaghetti and hoping nothing truly terrible sticks.
No horizon
Qualifier: it feels as if
Source: Is AGI the right goal for AI?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“Those obstacles may be one reason generative A.I. hasn’t led to the skyrocketing in profits and productivity that many in the tech industry predicted.”
Our reading: Hallucinations and errors may be one reason generative AI has not produced the predicted surge in profits and productivity.
No horizon
Source: Is AGI the right goal for AI?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“The whole thing should be viewed as evolving, with future measures replacing existing ones as researchers devise better benchmarks — and not as a static checklist.”
Our reading: The AGI definition framework should be treated as evolving, with better benchmarks replacing existing ones, not as a static checklist.
No horizon
Source: Is AGI the right goal for AI?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“I am someone who believes that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) could change the world, but also someone who thinks that LLMs are not the right path there, morally or technically.”
Our reading: Marcus thinks LLMs are not the right path to AGI, either morally or technically.
No horizon
Qualifier: morally or technically
Source: Is AGI the right goal for AI?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“The main alternative — definitions of AGI that are in terms of economic criteria like profits (AGI as being $100 billion in profits) or percentage of jobs displaced— seem to me to be fundamentally misguided.”
Our reading: To Marcus, definitions of AGI based on economic criteria such as profits or percentage of jobs displaced seem fundamentally misguided.
No horizon
Qualifier: seem to me
Source: Is AGI the right goal for AI?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Humanity would be better served by labs devoting more resources on building specialized tools for science, medicine, technology and education.”
Our reading: AI labs should devote more resources to building specialized tools for science, medicine, technology and education.
No horizon
Source: Is AGI the right goal for AI?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“I think we are making a huge mistake.”
Our reading: Marcus thinks that we are making a huge mistake by reshaping our world on the premise that we are close to AGI.
No horizon
Qualifier: I think
Source: The Grand AGI Delusion
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“Practically the only people still pretending scaling LLMs is “all you need” are grifters.”
Our reading: Practically the only people still pretending that scaling LLMs is "all you need" are grifters.
No horizon
Qualifier: practically
Source: Game over for pure LLMs. Even Turing Award Winner Rich Sutton has gotten off the bus.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“With only a small fraction of the current and planned investments in LLMs, we can and should find out.”
Our reading: With only a small fraction of current and planned LLM investment, we can find out whether Sutton's or Marcus's preferred approach is right, and we should do so.
No horizon
Qualifier: with only a small fraction of the current and planned investments in LLMs
Source: Game over for pure LLMs. Even Turing Award Winner Rich Sutton has gotten off the bus.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“When the LLM crowd has lost Sutton – and when Sutton sounds exactly like me – it’s game over.”
Our reading: With Sutton having turned against pure LLMs, it is game over for the pure LLM approach.
No horizon
Qualifier: Sutton has abandoned the LLM camp
Source: Game over for pure LLMs. Even Turing Award Winner Rich Sutton has gotten off the bus.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“Quite likely we need some of both.”
Our reading: Quite likely, AI needs some of both approaches: Sutton's reinforcement learning and Marcus's neurosymbolic approaches with innate constraints.
No horizon
Qualifier: quite likely
Source: Game over for pure LLMs. Even Turing Award Winner Rich Sutton has gotten off the bus.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“That said I have always thought it was wrong, or more to the point, overstated, and fatally flawed.”
Our reading: Marcus has always thought Sutton's Bitter Lesson essay was wrong, or more precisely overstated, and fatally flawed.
No horizon
Qualifier: or more to the point, overstated
Source: Game over for pure LLMs. Even Turing Award Winner Rich Sutton has gotten off the bus.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“Just think how high that percentage can go!”
Our reading: Gary Marcus suggests that the share of workers receiving low-quality AI-generated 'workslop', now 40%, could rise much higher.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“I signed, too—because we have let too much slide, and done too little to face the risks.”
Our reading: We have let too much slide and done too little to face the risks of AI, which is Marcus's reason for signing the global call for AI red lines.
No horizon
Qualifier: given as his personal reason for signing the letter
Source: AI red lines
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“I think the truth is somewhere in between.”
Our reading: Marcus thinks the truth about Yudkowsky and Soares' book on potential catastrophic AGI threats lies somewhere between Max Tegmark's view that it is 'the most important book of the decade' and the New York Times likening it to Scientology.
No horizon
Qualifier: I think
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Don’t panic. Don’t dismiss.”
Our reading: People should neither panic about nor dismiss the potential catastrophic threats from AGI argued in Yudkowsky and Soares’ book.
No horizon
Qualifier: in response to Yudkowsky and Soares’ book on catastrophic AGI threats
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Oracle’s new market cap, near a trillion dollars, up nearly 50% this week, driven largely by this one apparently non-binding deal with a party that doesn’t have the money to pay for the services, seems more bonkers than most.”
Our reading: Oracle's new market cap, near a trillion dollars and up nearly 50% this week, largely driven by an apparently non-binding deal with a party that lacks the money to pay for the services, seems more bonkers than most AI valuations.
No horizon
Qualifier: seems
Source: Peak bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“We are well past peak bubble, in fact, and into peak musical chairs.”
Our reading: The AI market is well past peak bubble and has reached a peak game of musical chairs.
No horizon
Source: Peak bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“I don’t know when the GenAI bubble will end. But this has got to be peak bubble:”
Our reading: The generative AI market is a bubble and has reached peak bubble, though Marcus does not know when it will end.
No horizon
Source: Peak bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“The other problem here is that the total value of the tech market as whole, which is supposed to reflect the future of value of the companies within it, far exceeds what is likely ever to be delivered.”
Our reading: The total value of the tech market as a whole far exceeds the value its companies are likely ever to deliver.
No horizon
Qualifier: likely ever to be delivered
Source: Peak bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“It’s not going to be pretty when the music stops.”
Our reading: When the AI bubble ends, the outcome will be bad.
No horizon
Only if: when the music stops (the bubble ends)
Source: Peak bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Let us all hope that we can learn something from the mistakes of the last few years, and find a new path — to an AI that better serves humanity.”
Our reading: Marcus hopes that we all can learn something from the mistakes of the last few years and find a new path to an AI that better serves humanity.
No horizon
Qualifier: let us all hope
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“If there is any true exponential nowadays, I fear it is this: the rapid doubling of AI-generated misinformation.”
Our reading: Marcus fears that, if there is any true exponential nowadays, it is the rapid doubling of AI-generated misinformation.
No horizon
Qualifier: if there is any true exponential nowadays
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“The field is overdue for a rethink.”
Our reading: The AI field should rethink its approach, and that rethink is overdue.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“Because they live in the land of correlations between images and text, not in the land of ideas.”
Our reading: The image-generating AI systems under discussion are unpredictably right or wrong because they operate in the land of correlations between images and text, not in the land of ideas.
No horizon
Scope: these systems
Source: Spinal Tap meets John Malkovich
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“These systems can draw things that kinda look like the world, but they obviously don’t know what’s what or how things work outside of their training data.”
Our reading: Generative image systems can produce world-like images but do not understand what things are or how they work outside their training data.
No horizon
Qualifier: outside of their training data
Source: Spinal Tap meets John Malkovich
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“Beauty is only skin deep.”
Our reading: The visual polish of generative image systems is superficial and hides a lack of understanding.
No horizon
Source: What scaling does and doesn’t buy you: peeling back the hype surrounding Google‘s trendy Nano Banana
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“Thanks to scaling (and some other tricks), the graphics are terrific, and the ability to have it edit photos that you upload is genuinely cool.”
Our reading: Thanks to scaling (and some other tricks), Google's Nano Banana has terrific graphics, and its ability to edit uploaded photos is genuinely cool.
No horizon
Qualifier: and some other tricks
Source: What scaling does and doesn’t buy you: peeling back the hype surrounding Google‘s trendy Nano Banana