The Enshittifinancial Crisis
We recorded 13 claims from this post. 13 can’t be checked. 4 more are held. Read the post at its source.
Claims from this post (13)
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
Forecast
“It turns out the deal didn’t exist and everybody fell for it! NVIDIA hasn’t sent a dime and likely won’t.”
Our reading: NVIDIA has not sent any money under its letter of intent to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, and likely will not.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“Similarly, it’s time for everybody — analysts, the media, members of congress, the fucking pope, I don’t care — to start treating these companies with suspicion, and to start demanding timelines.”
Our reading: Everybody, including analysts, the media and members of Congress, should start treating these companies with suspicion and start demanding timelines.
No horizon
Scope: everybody — analysts, the media, members of congress, the pope
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“These subtle details suggest that the deal is not going to be for $15 billion, and the lack of activity suggests it might not happen at all.”
Our reading: The NVIDIA/Microsoft investment in Anthropic will likely not total $15 billion and might not happen at all.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“These deals are announced with the intention of suggesting there is more revenue and money in generative AI than actually exists.”
Our reading: AI deal announcements are made to suggest more revenue and money exist in generative AI than actually do.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“In reality, venture capital shouldn’t have touched LLMs with a fifteen foot pole, because the margins were obviously, blatantly bad from the very beginning.”
Our reading: Venture capital should not have invested in LLMs because their margins were obviously bad from the start.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“In really simple terms, I believe that almost every investment in a data center or AI startup may go to zero.”
Our reading: Almost every investment in a data center or AI startup may go to zero.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“The likelihood of the majority of these projects being A) completed within the next year and B) completed on budget is very, very small.”
Our reading: The likelihood is very, very small that most of the data center projects covered by his modeled ~$171.5 billion of data center debt (about 3.2GW) will be completed both within the next year and on budget.
No horizon
Scope: these projects: the modeled debt-funded data center capacity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“It is time to wake up. These are the real-life costs of running an AI company. OpenAI and Anthropic are going to be even worse.”
Our reading: OpenAI's and Anthropic's financials will look even worse than the heavy losses of Zhipu and MiniMax.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“Generative AI is not a functional industry, and once the money works that out, everything burns.”
Our reading: Generative AI is not a functional industry, and it will collapse once investors realise this.
No horizon
Only if: once investors realise it is not functional
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“Before then, NVIDIA’s bubble is likely to burst.”
Our reading: NVIDIA's bubble is likely to burst before debt and venture funding for AI run out.
No horizon
Qualifier: before debt and venture money run out
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“LLMs are not good enough for people to pay regular software prices at any scale, and the consequences of this will be that every single dollar spent on GPUs has been for exactly one point: manipulating the value of their stocks.”
Our reading: LLMs are not good enough for people to pay regular software prices at any scale, and as a consequence every single dollar spent on GPUs will turn out to have been for exactly one purpose: manipulating the value of their stocks.
No horizon
Scope: every single dollar spent on GPUs
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“AI does not have the business returns and may have negative gross margins.”
Our reading: AI lacks business returns and may have negative gross margins.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“The tech industry has run out of hypergrowth ideas, and in its desperation hitched itself to the least-profitable hardware and software in history, then spent three straight years lying about what was possible to the media, analysts and shareholders.”
Our reading: Out of hypergrowth ideas, the tech industry bet on AI, the least-profitable hardware and software in history, and spent three years lying about what it could do.
No horizon
Held from this post (4)
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 read the claim differently
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: Other than NVIDIA's revenue from GPU sales and data center construction, investments in AI do not appear to be driving much economic growth at all.
- The two reviews read the claim differently