Hot take: GPT 4.5 is a nothing burger
We recorded 7 claims from this post. 3 were checked against evidence. 4 can’t be checked. 6 more are held. Read the post at its source.
Claims from this post (7)
In the order they appear in the post. Each quotation is the speaker’s words in this post. A label such as “Supported” or “Can’t be checked” is the claim’s current assessment; its page has the evidence and the reasons.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“Scaling data and compute is not a physical law, and pretty much everything I have told you was true.”
Our reading: Scaling data and compute is not a physical law, and pretty much everything Marcus has told his readers was true.
No horizon
Qualifier: pretty much
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“All the bullshit about GPT-5 we listened to for the last couple years: not so true.”
Our reading: The hype about GPT-5 over the past couple of years has not proven true.
No horizon
Assessment: SupportedSaid
Observation
“So now GPT 4.5 has dropped, and — breaking news — I was right. Hallucinations didn’t disappear today, and nor did stupid errors.”
Our reading: GPT-4.5 did not eliminate hallucinations or stupid errors.
No horizon Evidence as of
Limitation: The evidence is developer-reported.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“Grok 3 didn’t fundamentally change things, and GPT 4.5 – which was probably supposed to be GPT 5 – didn’t either.”
Our reading: Neither Grok 3 nor GPT-4.5 (probably originally intended as GPT-5) fundamentally changed the state of AI.
No horizon
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
Observation
“Even Altman himself was uncharacteristically tepid in his product announcement.”
Our reading: Sam Altman was unusually tepid in announcing GPT-4.5, not mentioning AGI.
No horizon Evidence as of
Limitation: The packet provides only one earlier product announcement, which cannot establish Altman's usual tone. [e3]
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“What I said almost a year ago still holds true, especially when coupled with the equally underwhelming performance of the similarly massive Grok 3:”
Our reading: Marcus's 2024 predictions still hold, supported by Grok 3's underwhelming performance despite its massive scale.
No horizon
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
Observation
“Gary Marcus was right all along that pure scaling would eventually hit a wall, or at least reach a point of massively diminishing returns.”
Our reading: Pure scaling of LLMs has hit a wall or at least massively diminishing returns.
No horizon Evidence as of
Limitation: The launch comparisons do not isolate the contribution of pretraining scale or provide a controlled measure of returns to additional resources. [e1]
Held from this post (6)
These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: In Marcus's view, as any reasonable person with a scientific mind would say, scaling was a hypothesis, roughly twice the Apollo Project's inflation-adjusted cost was invested in it, and there is still not that much to show for it.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: GPT-5 still does not exist; it remains a fantasy.
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: On some measures, GPT-4.5 is only barely better than the latest Claude.
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: After half a trillion dollars, there is still no viable business model in AI, profits are modest at best for everyone except Nvidia and some consulting firms, there is still basically no moat, and there is still no GPT-5.