Claims that can’t be checked, page 25 of 37
Claims by Gary Marcus and Ed Zitron. Deadlines are judged as of 2026-10-29.
Claims that can’t be checked (3643)
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 25 of 37: claims 2401 to 2500 of 3643, ordered by the date first said, newest first. To find a claim by its words, use search.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“The world needs to up its software game massively. We need to invest in improving software reliability and methodology, not rushing out half-baked chatbots.”
Our reading: The world should invest in improving software reliability and methodology rather than rushing out half-baked chatbots.
No horizon
Source: Don’t look up: the massive Microsoft/Crowdstrike data outage is a huge wake-up call
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“And leaving more and more code writing to generative AI, which grasps syntax but not meaning, as a new benchmark from Stephen Wolfram shows, is not the answer, either.”
Our reading: Delegating more and more code writing to generative AI is not the right approach.
No horizon
Source: Don’t look up: the massive Microsoft/Crowdstrike data outage is a huge wake-up call
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“OpenAI is likely well aware that Large Language Models are incapable of reasoning, because Reuters reports that it’s got some sort of in-development model called Strawberry, which is designed to have human-like reasoning capabilities.”
Our reading: LLMs are incapable of reasoning, and OpenAI is likely aware of this.
No horizon
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“It claims it will "be trained on the best peer-reviewed science as well as Thrive's behavior change methodology," a mishmash of buzzwords and pseudoscientific pablum that means nothing because the company has produced no product and may likely never do so.”
Our reading: Thrive AI Health, the venture from the Thrive Global and OpenAI partnership, has produced no product and may likely never do so.
No horizon
Qualifier: may likely
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“There was nothing behind this, just like so much of the AI hype — a bunch of specious statements and empty promises in a wrapper of innovation despite creating nothing in the process.”
Our reading: Much of the AI hype is specious statements and empty promises that create nothing.
No horizon
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“I feel like the tech industry is currently in the midst of the most bizarre cognitive dissonance I've ever seen — more so than the metaverse, even — as company after company simply lies about their intentions and the power of AI.”
Our reading: The author feels that the tech industry is in the most bizarre cognitive dissonance he has ever seen, as company after company simply lies about its intentions and the power of AI.
No horizon
Qualifier: I feel like
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“They’re not getting “reasoning,” nor are they getting “sentience,” nor are they “part of the path to superintelligence.””
Our reading: Generative AI models are not gaining reasoning or sentience and are not on the path to superintelligence.
No horizon
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“It’s time to treat OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and any other company pushing generative AI with suspicion, to see their acts as an investor-approved act of deception, theft and destruction.”
Our reading: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and other generative AI companies should be treated with suspicion as engaged in deception, theft and destruction.
No horizon
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“other than the fact that OpenAI said it cared a lot about safety and only sort-of did, if it really cared at all, which I don't believe it does.”
Our reading: OpenAI does not really care about safety.
No horizon
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“And it’s time for the media to start pushing back and asking for real, tangible evidence that anything is actually happening.”
Our reading: The media should push back on AI claims and demand real, tangible evidence.
No horizon
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“I’d argue that the Bored Ape Yacht Club has a better chance of delivering, if only because “a blockchain game” would ostensibly use technology that exists.”
Our reading: The author would argue that the Bored Ape Yacht Club has a better chance of delivering its roadmap than OpenAI's Strawberry has of giving LLMs reasoning, if only because a blockchain game would ostensibly use technology that exists.
No horizon
Qualifier: I'd argue
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Generative AI's one real innovation is that it's allowed a certain class of scam artist to use the vague idea of "powerful automation" to hype companies to people that don't really know anything.”
Our reading: Generative AI's only real innovation is letting scam artists hype companies with vague promises of powerful automation.
No horizon
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“We don't need a story telling us it kind-of-sort-of-rushed a product to market, even though it didn't actually do that, but that this company, on a cultural level, operates without regard for the safety of its users, and is deliberately misrepresenting to outlets like Bloomberg that it is somehow on the path to creating AGI.”
Our reading: OpenAI operates without regard for user safety and deliberately misrepresents that it is on the path to AGI.
No horizon
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“While there's tons of evidence that they're impossible to fix, surely a safety-minded culture would be one that sought to fix or mitigate the most obvious and dangerous problem of Large Language Models.”
Our reading: A safety-minded OpenAI should be investing in mitigating hallucinations.
No horizon
Source: Put Up Or Shut Up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“I understand that big tech desperately needs this to be the next hypergrowth market as they haven't got any others, but pursuing this quasi-useful environmental disaster-causing cloud efficiency boondoggle will send shockwaves through the industry.”
Our reading: Big tech's pursuit of generative AI will send shockwaves through the tech industry.
No horizon
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“While one might argue that it'll mean faster generative processes, there really is no barometer for what "better" looks like, and perhaps that's why ChatGPT, Claude and other LLMs have yet to take a leap beyond being able to generate stuff.”
Our reading: ChatGPT, Claude and other LLMs have not progressed beyond generating content, possibly because there is no measure of what 'better' means.
No horizon
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“Generative AI is not the future, but a regurgitation of the past, a useful-yet-not-groundbreaking way to quickly generate "new" data from old that costs far too much to make the compute and energy demands worth it.”
Our reading: Generative AI is not the future but a regurgitation of the past: a useful but not groundbreaking way to quickly generate 'new' data from old, which costs far too much to make its compute and energy demands worth it.
No horizon
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“And fully replacing any creative is so very unlikely if you're doing so based on copying a million pieces of someone else's homework.”
Our reading: Fully replacing any creative worker is very unlikely if it is done by copying a million pieces of someone else's work.
No horizon
Only if: if the replacement is based on copying a million pieces of someone else's homework
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Generative AI at best processes information when it trains on data, but at no point does it "learn" or "understand," because everything it's doing is based on ingesting training data and developing answers based on a mathematical sense or probability rather than any appreciation or comprehension of the material itself.”
Our reading: Generative AI does not learn or understand; it produces answers probabilistically from training data.
No horizon
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“In essence, replacing humans with AI might break everything if you're one of those bosses that doesn't actually know what the fuck it is they're talking about.”
Our reading: Replacing human workers with AI may break operations when the managers doing it do not understand the work.
No horizon
Only if: if bosses don't understand the work
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“It's all a disgraceful waste.”
Our reading: The generative AI boom is a disgraceful waste.
No horizon
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“The training data crisis is one that doesn’t get enough attention, but it’s sufficiently dire that it has the potential to halt (or dramatically slow) any AI development in the near future.”
Our reading: The training data shortage could halt or dramatically slow AI development in the near future.
No horizon
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“Without a real, tangible breakthrough — one that would require them to leave the world of LLMs entirely, in my opinion — it's unclear how generative AI companies can survive.”
Our reading: Without a real, tangible breakthrough, which in the author's opinion would require leaving LLMs entirely, it is unclear how generative AI companies can survive.
No horizon
Only if: without a real, tangible breakthrough
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“LLMs are entirely different pieces of technology to that of "an artificial intelligence" in the sense that the AI bubble is hyping, and it's disgraceful that the AI industry has taken so much money and attention with such a flagrant, offensive lie.”
Our reading: LLMs are not 'artificial intelligence' as hyped, and the AI industry has raised money on a lie.
No horizon
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“Perhaps Sam Altman's energy breakthrough could be these fucking AI companies being made to pay for new power infrastructure.”
Our reading: AI companies should be made to pay for new power infrastructure.
No horizon
Source: Pop Culture
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“And once they do, the real fun will begin, as big tech reconciles with a lack of innovation”
Our reading: After markets punish generative AI investors, big tech will have to reckon with its lack of innovation and leaders who lack ideas for what comes next.
No horizon
Only if: once markets punish those most invested in generative AI
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Altman himself is a seedy charlatan, one that’s grown incredibly powerful in the Valley despite never really having done anything”
Our reading: Sam Altman is a charlatan who has grown powerful without really having done anything.
No horizon
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“It’s almost a little too on the nose — a tool that only seems revolutionary to people that haven’t written, or coded, or drawn, or sang, or created anything in years.”
Our reading: Generative AI only seems revolutionary to people who haven't created anything in years.
No horizon
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“They don’t care that the output is mediocre, that the product is unprofitable, that there is a quickly-approaching wall that generative AI can’t leap over as it runs out of training data, or that the transformer-based architecture of Large Language Models has hard limitations that are impossible to overcome.”
Our reading: The transformer architecture of LLMs has hard limitations that cannot be overcome.
No horizon
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“It doesn’t matter that data centers might end up using as much power as India by 2034, or that generative AI isn’t actually that useful.”
Our reading: Generative AI isn't actually that useful.
No horizon
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“It doesn’t matter that data centers might end up using as much power as India by 2034, or that generative AI isn’t actually that useful.”
Our reading: Data centers might use as much power as India by 2034.
No horizon
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“In some respects, generative AI is morally worse than Welch’s odious anti-worker philosophy.”
Our reading: In some respects, generative AI is morally worse than Jack Welch's odious anti-worker philosophy.
No horizon
Qualifier: in some respects
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“When you have a society and economy dominated by people who neither create nor understand the things they’re selling, people that don’t experience or respect labor, their natural thought will be that any form of creativity or “work” can (and should) be automated.”
Our reading: The rush to boost AI is explained by an economy run by people disconnected from labor who think all creative work can and should be automated.
No horizon
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“There is no prompt that could have told a generative AI to write what I’ve written”
Our reading: No prompt could have told a generative AI to write what the author wrote in this essay, because great writing comes from the labor of choosing words and finding the theories behind what one sees, not from probabilistic generation trained on other people's text.
No horizon
Scope: what I've written (this essay)
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“Generative AI is an act of theft in and of itself, perpetuated by people that have stolen innovation in the name of Shareholder Supremacy, creating a degenerative form of innovation that optimizes the tech industry to create things that sound cool rather than actually help people.”
Our reading: Generative AI is an act of theft in and of itself, carried on by people who have stolen innovation in the name of Shareholder Supremacy, creating a degenerative form of innovation that optimizes the tech industry to make things that sound cool rather than actually help people.
No horizon
Qualifier: in and of itself
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“OpenAI is run by Sam Altman, an unqualified non-technical founder who has conned his way to the heights of Silicon Valley.”
Our reading: OpenAI is run by Sam Altman, whom the author calls an unqualified non-technical founder who has conned his way to the heights of Silicon Valley.
No horizon
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“The law, I note, tends to regard actual contracts more seriously than unspoken (and, let’s face it, imaginary) social contracts, and I desperately look forward to the day when Suleyman’s ideas are tested in court. I don’t fancy his chances.”
Our reading: If tested in court, the claim that online content is freeware for training AI is unlikely to prevail.
No horizon
Only if: if tested in court
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“The AI bubble has been inflated by people excited about the prospect of not having to deal with those filthy “laborers” that “do work,””
Our reading: AI is a bubble, inflated by executives eager to avoid dealing with workers.
No horizon
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Sam Altman gave them something to do, and he packaged it in a way that told them how to think about it — and, of course, lie about it.”
Our reading: Sam Altman gave big tech generative AI as something to do and packaged it in a way that told them how to think about it and, of course, lie about it.
No horizon
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Generative AI is exciting to the disconnected business freaks running our economy because it’s a way to abstract and outsource even more forms of labor.”
Our reading: Executives are excited by generative AI because it lets them abstract and outsource more labor.
No horizon
Source: The Shareholder Supremacy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“Spending upwards of 100 billion dollars on the current approach, which is what two more iterations of scaling would likely require, given that is unlikely to get to AGI (or ever be reliable) seems wasteful to me.”
Our reading: The current scaling approach is unlikely ever to reach AGI or become reliable.
No horizon
Source: Marcus goes gaga over Gates clip
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“Spending upwards of 100 billion dollars on the current approach, which is what two more iterations of scaling would likely require, given that is unlikely to get to AGI (or ever be reliable) seems wasteful to me.”
Our reading: Two more iterations of scaling would likely require upwards of $100 billion in spending.
No horizon
Source: Marcus goes gaga over Gates clip
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“I fully 100% agree, and have said as much before.”
Our reading: Marcus fully agrees with Gates that, after perhaps two more turns of the crank for scaling, scaling is not the most interesting dimension and AI needs techniques such as metacognition, and says he has said as much before.
No horizon
Qualifier: after that (after perhaps two more turns of scaling)
Source: Marcus goes gaga over Gates clip
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Causal claim
“Not unrelatedly, meanwhile, many tech leaders have discovered that the best way to raise valuations is to hint that AGI is imminent, always on the dubious premise that scaling will keep going indefinitely; it behooves them financially to pretend.”
Our reading: Many tech leaders hint that AGI is imminent in order to raise valuations, relying on the dubious premise that scaling continues indefinitely.
No horizon
Source: Marcus goes gaga over Gates clip
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“AI is going to change everything, if not tomorrow, sometime over the next 5-20 years, some ways for good, some for bad.”
Our reading: AI will change everything, for good and bad, sometime within the next 5 to 20 years.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“And we need a President who can get Congress (which has this far dithered) to recognize the true urgency of the moment, since Executive Orders alone are not enough.”
Our reading: We need a President who can get Congress, which has thus far dithered, to recognize the true urgency of the moment on AI, since executive orders alone are not enough.
No horizon
Scope: in the context of US AI policy
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“the whole Generative AI thing is looking more and more like a dud.”
Our reading: The whole generative AI thing is looking more and more like a dud.
No horizon
Qualifier: more and more (increasing trend)
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“We need a President who can recognize when corporate leaders are promising things far beyond is currently realistic, who can sort truth from bullshit, in order to develop AI policies that are grounded in reality.”
Our reading: The US needs a President who can tell when corporate AI promises are unrealistic, so that AI policy is grounded in reality.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“We also need a President who can stand up to big tech, and resist regulatory capture.”
Our reading: The US needs a President who stands up to big tech and resists regulatory capture.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“We cannot afford to have a President in 2024 that doesn’t fully grasp this.”
Our reading: The US must elect a President in 2024 who fully grasps AI's transformative impact.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“We do need new approaches to AI.”
Our reading: New approaches to AI are needed.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“OpenAI may in fact yet turn out to be the WeWork of AI.”
Our reading: OpenAI may yet turn out to be the WeWork of AI.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“It would now appear that Business Insider’s sources were confused, or overstating what they knew.”
Our reading: Business Insider's sources on an imminent GPT-5 release appear to have been confused or overstated their knowledge.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“(Probably for the third or fourth time, if my hunch is correct, with GPT 4-Turbo and 4o perhaps being failed attempts that didn’t seem worthy of the name, with another earlier attempt halting before Sam’s time speaking to the Senate in May 2023.)”
Our reading: OpenAI has probably started training GPT-5 three or four times, with GPT-4 Turbo and GPT-4o perhaps being failed attempts not worthy of the name.
No horizon
Qualifier: if his hunch is correct
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“It’s also a genuinely dangerous deal for OpenAI, and shows that while Sam Altman might be capable of swindling Silicon Valley startups, he doesn’t have what it takes to bend Apple to his will.”
Our reading: The Apple deal is a genuinely dangerous deal for OpenAI, and it shows that while Sam Altman might be capable of swindling Silicon Valley startups, he doesn't have what it takes to bend Apple to his will.
No horizon
Qualifier: while Sam Altman might be capable of swindling Silicon Valley startups
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“This deal is equal parts perilous and hilarious, and something that could genuinely end up hurting OpenAI, all while insulating Apple.”
Our reading: The Apple-OpenAI deal could end up hurting OpenAI while insulating Apple.
No horizon
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“While Sam Altman is regularly described as a tier-one operator and a superior intellect, this is one of the single-worst deals I’ve seen in my life, one that shows that while it might have domain over the startup world, OpenAI lacks any real leverage.”
Our reading: OpenAI's deal with Apple is one of the single-worst deals he has seen in his life, and it shows that OpenAI, while it might have domain over the startup world, lacks any real leverage.
No horizon
Scope: one of the single-worst deals I've seen in my life
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“While it remains to be seen exactly how often you’ll be prompted to use it, ChatGPT’s addition to Apple products feels far more like something cooked up to please Wall Street rather than address a specific need”
Our reading: ChatGPT's addition to Apple products feels far more like something cooked up to please Wall Street than something meant to address a specific need.
No horizon
Qualifier: feels far more like
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Apple has decided that ChatGPT is a feature, not a product, and one that isn’t trustworthy or useful enough to run without a user’s permission, or even pay for.”
Our reading: Apple has decided that ChatGPT is a feature, not a product, and one that isn't trustworthy or useful enough to run without a user's permission, or even to pay for.
No horizon
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“Apple can (and likely will) dump ChatGPT at a moment’s notice, replacing it with another generative AI, or ripping the feature out entirely thanks to the fact it introduced it as a feature at the end of a presentation of better, more useful features.”
Our reading: Apple can, and likely will, dump ChatGPT at a moment's notice, either replacing it with another generative AI or ripping the feature out entirely, because it introduced ChatGPT as a feature at the end of a presentation of better, more useful features.
No horizon
Qualifier: (and likely will)
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“This was a humiliating moment for the generative AI movement, and especially so for OpenAI, a company that desperately needs good news at a time when the world has become deeply suspicious of its product and its CEO.”
Our reading: This year's WWDC was a humiliating moment for the generative AI movement, and especially for OpenAI, a company that desperately needs good news at a time when the world has become deeply suspicious of its product and its CEO.
No horizon
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“While this might not kill OpenAI immediately, it’s a brutal moment that proves how little the world actually cares about ChatGPT.”
Our reading: Although it might not kill OpenAI immediately, the Apple deal is a brutal moment that proves how little the world actually cares about ChatGPT.
No horizon
Qualifier: while this might not kill OpenAI immediately
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“especially as I imagine most users will only ask it the occasional question and find no reason to opt for a $20-a-month subscription.”
Our reading: He imagines that most users of ChatGPT on Apple devices will only ask it the occasional question and will find no reason to opt for a $20-a-month subscription.
No horizon
Qualifier: I imagine
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“If Apple iced out OpenAI or Anthropic, they could conceivably complain to the European Commission, who might rule in favor of them and order Apple to start supporting their models, in addition to levying a huge multi-billion Euro fine.”
Our reading: If Apple excluded OpenAI or Anthropic, the European Commission might order Apple to support their models and fine it billions of euros.
No horizon
Only if: if Apple iced out OpenAI or Anthropic
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“These are not world-changing integrations, but useful ones”
Our reading: Apple's AI integrations are not world-changing, but they are useful.
No horizon
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Apple likely hopes that its privacy-focused media blitz will hide the fact that it’s ripping off everybody’s work just like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic”
Our reading: Apple is ripping off everybody's work, just like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, and likely hopes its privacy-focused media blitz will hide that fact.
No horizon
Scope: just like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Despite this ostensibly being Apple’s big AI play, CEO Tim Cook and SVP of Engineering, Craig Federighi spent far more time explaining how much Apple loved privacy, before clunkily launching into a series of product updates that appear to both sound useful and heartily suggest that Apple is intentionally trying to distance itself from the AI bubble.”
Our reading: Apple's WWDC 2024 updates suggest Apple is intentionally trying to distance itself from the AI bubble.
No horizon
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“I’d also speculate that Apple likely requires some sort of Service Level Agreement for its partners — meaning that OpenAI has to dedicate resources to maintain uptime for Apple devices, which will in turn be incredibly expensive to maintain, burning money with every query on a product that Apple will offer only when Apple’s services can’t do the job.”
Our reading: He speculates that Apple likely requires some sort of Service Level Agreement for its partners, meaning OpenAI has to dedicate resources to keep Apple devices served, which will be incredibly expensive and will burn money on every query for a product Apple offers only when its own services can't do the job.
No horizon
Qualifier: I'd also speculate
Source: Let Tim Cook
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“Expect more revisionism and downsized expectations throughout 2024 and 2025.”
Our reading: During 2024 and 2025, leading AI figures will further revise and lower their public expectations for AI, such as AGI timelines.
Deadline passed Evidence as of
Limitation: On 22 June 2024 Marcus added an update to the post that, in his words, 'somewhat undermines the thesis of this essay': Kurzweil wrote to him that he still expects AGI by 2029.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“It was always going to happen; the ludicrously high expectations from last 18 ChatGPT-drenched months were never going to be met.”
Our reading: The ludicrously high expectations for AI from the previous 18 ChatGPT-dominated months were never going to be met, and their failure was always going to happen.
No horizon
Scope: expectations from the last 18 ChatGPT-drenched months
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Altman has taken advantage of the fact that the tech industry might not have any hyper-growth markets left, knowing that ChatGPT is, much like Altman, incredibly adept at mimicking depth and experience by parroting the experiences of those who have actually done things.”
Our reading: ChatGPT mimics depth and experience by parroting others, and Altman exploits a tech industry that may have no hyper-growth markets left.
No horizon
Source: Silicon Valley's False Prophet
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“The tech industry has craved a messiah since the death of Steve Jobs, but in OpenAI CEO Sam Altman they’ve discovered more of a false prophet — a seedy grifter that uses his remarkable ability to impress and manipulate Silicon Valley’s elite to mask a total lack of technical or business acumen.”
Our reading: Sam Altman is a false prophet who manipulates Silicon Valley's elite to hide a total lack of technical or business acumen.
No horizon
Source: Silicon Valley's False Prophet
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“When Altman says something genuinely, truly insane — like how he wants to raise $7tn, which is the combined GDP of Germany and France, to build up a dedicated AI semiconductor manufacturing capacity — the response isn’t to immediately dismiss it with a chorus of derisive laughter, but to actually discuss it with a level of seriousness that isn’t even remotely warranted.”
Our reading: Altman's stated wish to raise $7tn to build dedicated AI semiconductor manufacturing capacity is genuinely insane, and the serious discussion it gets, rather than dismissal, is not even remotely warranted.
No horizon
Source: Silicon Valley's False Prophet
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“My hope is that venture capital finally learns to back companies that make a profit building software and hardware that actually helps people.”
Our reading: Venture capital should back companies that make a profit building software and hardware that actually helps people.
No horizon
Source: Silicon Valley's False Prophet
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“While there are genuine safety issues with artificial intelligence to consider, these people are desperately afraid of the computer coming alive and killing them when they should fear the non-technical manipulator getting rich making egregious promises about what AI can actually do.”
Our reading: AI company insiders should worry less about AI coming alive and more about Altman getting rich on egregious promises about AI, though real AI safety issues exist.
No horizon
Source: Silicon Valley's False Prophet
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“And I’d argue that this is exceedingly dangerous for Silicon Valley and the tech industry writ large as executives disconnected from the process of creating software follow another non-technical founder hocking unprofitable, unsustainable and hallucination-prone software.”
Our reading: He argues that Altman pushing OpenAI to sell into as many industries as possible is exceedingly dangerous for Silicon Valley and the wider tech industry, as executives disconnected from creating software follow another non-technical founder hawking unprofitable, unsustainable, hallucination-prone software.
No horizon
Qualifier: I'd argue
Source: Silicon Valley's False Prophet
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Sam Altman is dangerous to artificial intelligence not because he’s building artificial general intelligence — a kind of AI that meets or surpasses human cognitive capabilities, and potentially mimics human sentience, a bit like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation — but because Sam Altman’s focus is on what Sam Altman can build to grow the power and influence of Sam Altman.”
Our reading: Altman is dangerous to artificial intelligence not because he is building AGI but because his focus is on what he can build to grow his own power and influence.
No horizon
Source: Silicon Valley's False Prophet
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“While ChatGPT isn’t inherently useless, Altman realizes that it’s impossible to generate the kind of funding and hype he needs based on its actual achievements, and that to continue to accumulate power and money, he must speciously hype it to wealthy and powerful people who don’t participate in the creation of anything.”
Our reading: ChatGPT isn't inherently useless, but Altman realizes that its actual achievements cannot generate the funding and hype he needs, and that to keep accumulating power and money he must speciously hype it to wealthy, powerful people who don't create anything.
No horizon
Qualifier: to continue to accumulate power and money
Source: Silicon Valley's False Prophet
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“The tech industry has spent years pissing off customers, with platforms like Facebook and Google actively making their products less useful in the pursuit of perpetual growth, unashamedly turning their backs on the people that made them rich and acting with such contempt for users that I truly believe society will turn on the tech industry.”
Our reading: Society will turn on the tech industry because of its contempt for users.
No horizon
Source: Silicon Valley's False Prophet
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“It won’t, however, be the apocalypse. It’ll just be a brutal realignment for an industry that has needed one.”
Our reading: When the deck of cards collapses, it will not be an apocalypse but just a brutal realignment for a tech industry that has needed one.
No horizon
Only if: when the deck of cards collapses
Source: Silicon Valley's False Prophet
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Rhetoric
“Big tech seemingly will not be content until they have squeezed out every last cent of profit, whilst socializing the costs of every last risk.”
Our reading: Marcus says, in deliberately exaggerated terms, that Big Tech seemingly will not be content until it has squeezed out every last cent of profit while socializing the costs of every last risk.
No horizon
Qualifier: seemingly
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“None of that is unreasonable, and the CEO of OpenAI himself said that we need regulation on AI.”
Our reading: The requirements of SB-1047 (safety testing, liability in extreme cases, a shutdown path) are not unreasonable.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“We should be making SB-1047 stronger, not weaker.”
Our reading: SB-1047 should be strengthened rather than weakened.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Fine to talk big in front of the Senate, but when push comes to shove, nobody in the industry seems to actually want the kind of regulation they previously hinted at.”
Our reading: Nobody in the AI industry appears to actually want the regulation they previously hinted at supporting before the Senate.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“The thing is, we should be worried, no matter how much time we have.”
Our reading: We should be worried about AGI preparedness regardless of how long until AGI arrives.
No horizon
Qualifier: no matter how much time we have
Source: AGI by 2027?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“we are (as Eliezer Yudkowsky has rightly argued for years) woefully underprepared for AGI whenever it comes.”
Our reading: We are woefully underprepared for AGI, whenever it comes, as Eliezer Yudkowsky has rightly argued for years.
No horizon
Qualifier: whenever AGI comes
Source: AGI by 2027?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“It’s imperative that we do better.”
Our reading: It is imperative that we do better at reining in Silicon Valley than we have so far.
No horizon
Scope: in the context of the self-regulation and legislative failures just described
Source: AGI by 2027?
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Gary Marcus wishes AI these days was more about research than money, politics, and ego.”
Our reading: Gary Marcus wishes that AI these days were more about research than about money, politics, and ego.
No horizon
Scope: AI these days
Source: AI as Reality Television
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“The irony of all of this is that you and I are among the minority of people who have come to fully understand just how limited LLMs are, and what we need to do next.”
Our reading: Marcus and LeCun are among the minority of people who have come to fully understand just how limited LLMs are and what needs to be done next.
No horizon
Scope: among the minority of people
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Of course my biggest (and most difficult to confirm or reject) positive conjectures, all made in 2001 in The Algebraic Mind, remain speculative: the importance of representing kinds distinctly from individuals, separating reasoning from latent representations, incorporating explicit compositional structure and explicit operations over variables, incorporating some degree of innate pre learning, and exploiting explicit knowledge databases. I stand by all of them.”
Our reading: Marcus stands by his speculative 2001 conjectures, which he says are hard to confirm or reject, that it is important to represent kinds distinctly from individuals, separate reasoning from latent representations, incorporate explicit compositional structure and explicit operations over variables, incorporate some degree of innate pre-learning, and exploit explicit knowledge databases.
No horizon
Qualifier: conjectures remain speculative and difficult to confirm or reject
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“To take a different kind of example, I have long argued that models need to innately be more structured than pure multilayer perceptions, even prior to learning.”
Our reading: AI models need more innate structure than pure multilayer perceptrons, even before learning.
No horizon
Qualifier: prior to learning
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“The letter itself, cosigned by Bengio, Hinton, and Russell, can be found here https://righttowarn.ai. I fully endorse its four recommendations:”
Our reading: Marcus fully endorses the four recommendations of the righttowarn.ai letter by OpenAI insiders, cosigned by Bengio, Hinton and Russell, about AI employees' right to warn of risks.
No horizon
Source: “OpenAI Insiders Warn of a ‘Reckless’ Race for Dominance”
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“It's the same reason that Sundar Pichai and Liz Reid are forcing generative AI into Google Search even as it actively misinforms their customers, recommending people introduce glue and rocks to their diet, claiming former U.S. President Barack Obama is a muslim, and regurgitating stories from satirical news outlet The Onion as indisputable fact.”
Our reading: Sundar Pichai and Liz Reid are forcing generative AI into Google Search, even as it actively misinforms their customers, for the same reason Zuckerberg pushes it: the hope of getting more hyper-growth.
No horizon
Source: The Rot-Com Bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“When the bubble bursts, I imagine these firms will be absorbed by the massive tech companies that have put billions of dollars into them in exactly the same way that Microsoft absorbed Inflection, quietly hiding their shameful failures and repurposing the massive compute investments to bolster the already-existent cloud infrastructure.”
Our reading: When the AI bubble bursts, OpenAI and Anthropic will probably be absorbed by the big tech companies that invested in them, as Microsoft absorbed Inflection.
No horizon
Only if: when the AI bubble bursts
Source: The Rot-Com Bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“The Rabbit R1 and Humane Pin both raised incredible sums of capital based on the vaguest of ideas — that people feel overwhelmed by their smartphones — to build products that range from extremely bad to potentially fraudulent, failing to build a product that nobody asked for based on some combination of ignorance and ambivalence.”
Our reading: The Rabbit R1 and Humane Pin raised incredible sums of capital on the vaguest of ideas to build products that range from extremely bad to potentially fraudulent.
No horizon
Qualifier: potentially (applies to fraudulent)
Source: The Rot-Com Bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“I just don't think that anyone in big tech is prepared for the bubble to burst.”
Our reading: He doesn't think that anyone in big tech is prepared for the bubble to burst.
No horizon
Qualifier: I just don't think
Source: The Rot-Com Bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“And now, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office — the nation’s privacy watchdog, with powers to impose steep fines on violators — is probing whether the technology presents an unacceptable risk to consumers. Which, as anyone with a modicum of common sense can confirm, it does.”
Our reading: Microsoft Recall presents an unacceptable risk to consumers.
No horizon
Source: The Rot-Com Bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“They can generate images, quickly query datasets (albeit with no guarantees of accuracy), and craft poetry, but there is no endearing reason to pick up one of them every day and use them.”
Our reading: LLMs such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude can generate images, quickly query datasets (with no guarantees of accuracy) and craft poetry, but there is no endearing reason to pick one up and use it every day.
No horizon
Qualifier: no guarantees of accuracy (applies to dataset queries)
Source: The Rot-Com Bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Every single company chasing the generative AI dragon is hoping that it's the next Amazon Web Services — the ubiquitous cloud product that went from a side project to a bigger revenue-driver than Amazon's store, and today underpins much of the Internet — because it sort of, kind of seems like it's "the next big thing in cloud," even if it doesn't actually seem to do anything useful, let alone incredible.”
Our reading: Generative AI does not appear to do anything useful, despite companies hoping it will be the next AWS.
No horizon
Source: The Rot-Com Bubble
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“For the best part of 15 years we've assumed that the tech industry would always have something up its sleeves, but what's become painfully apparent is that the tech industry might have run out of big, sexy things to sell us, and the "disruption" that tech has become so well-known for was predicated on there being markets for them to disrupt, and ideas that they could fund to do so.”
Our reading: It has become painfully apparent that the tech industry might have run out of big, sexy things to sell, and the disruption tech is known for depended on there being markets to disrupt and ideas to fund.
No horizon
Qualifier: might have run out
Source: The Rot-Com Bubble