Claims that can’t be checked, page 7 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 7 of 37: claims 601 to 700 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 Observation
“OpenAI is in trouble, and may not make it.”
Our reading: OpenAI is in trouble.
No horizon
Source: An entire industry is being propped up by math that is insane.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“OpenAI is in trouble, and may not make it.”
Our reading: OpenAI may not survive.
No horizon
Source: An entire industry is being propped up by math that is insane.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Conditional forecast
“If there is a boost in productivity, we will perhaps see it first in coding, but 2.7x relative to the entire economy is an enormous ask.”
Our reading: If AI boosts productivity, the boost may appear first in coding.
No horizon
Only if: if there is a boost in productivity
Source: An entire industry is being propped up by math that is insane.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Those excited about generative AI are either the victim or the perpetrator of a con centered around a technology to ingratiate at the highest cost possible.”
Our reading: Generative AI enthusiasm is the product of a con, and its enthusiasts are either its victims or its perpetrators.
No horizon
Source: AI Is Slowing Down
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“One of my sources has come forward and brought me a story that will possibly burst the AI bubble.”
Our reading: A story he expects to publish within two weeks may burst the AI bubble.
No horizon
Qualifier: once his upcoming story is published
Source: AI Is Slowing Down
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Sidenote: Amazon and Meta barely have AI stories.”
Our reading: Amazon and Meta barely have AI stories.
No horizon
Source: AI Is Slowing Down
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“I think that’s by design. AI labs want their costs to be high so that they can continue growing at ridiculous rates, all so that they can keep feeding money to their hyperscaler compute partners who then invest that money right back into them, creating further reasons to keep buying NVIDIA GPUs, so that NVIDIA can then invest that money back into either AI compute providers (who OpenAI and Anthropic pay) or the AI labs themselves.”
Our reading: He thinks it is by design that AI labs want their costs to be high, so they can keep growing fast and feeding money to hyperscaler compute partners, who invest it back into the labs and buy more NVIDIA GPUs, while NVIDIA in turn invests in compute providers or the labs.
No horizon
Qualifier: I think
Source: AI Is Slowing Down
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“These are signs that AI’s revenue growth is slowing, and it’s likely going to slow further, because we currently live in an era where Anthropic and OpenAI are straight-up abusing its clients, providing limited-to-no visibility into spend, per the Wall Street Journal:”
Our reading: AI revenue growth will likely slow further, because Anthropic and OpenAI give customers little or no visibility into what they are spending.
No horizon
Qualifier: because Anthropic and OpenAI give customers little visibility into spend
Source: AI Is Slowing Down
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“OpenAI expects to spend $50 billion on compute in 2026, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Anthropic spends anywhere from $30 billion to $50 billion.”
Our reading: Anthropic may spend $30 billion to $50 billion on compute in 2026.
No horizon
Source: AI Is Slowing Down
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“But you could make similar graphs in many domains: loads of nominal productivity, but not much real world impact.”
Our reading: In many domains AI produces lots of nominal productivity but little real-world impact.
No horizon
Qualifier: in many domains
Source: Slop, productivity, and why the AI-fueled world is going nowhere mighty fast
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“The graphs from FT and The Washington Post show the same thing over and over; we are being flooded with AI-generated content, from apps to music to scientific papers, but that doesn’t make any of it any good. Most of it (in fairness, not all) isn’t.”
Our reading: We are being flooded with AI-generated content, from apps to music to scientific papers, but that does not make it good, and most of it, though not all, is not good.
No horizon
Scope: most of it (in fairness, not all)
Source: Slop, productivity, and why the AI-fueled world is going nowhere mighty fast
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“But all too often that content — created by a giant but unreliable word prediction machine that is more regurgitative than innovative — is of little lasting value.”
Our reading: All too often, content from generative AI, a giant but unreliable word prediction machine that is more regurgitative than innovative, is of little lasting value.
No horizon
Qualifier: all too often
Source: Slop, productivity, and why the AI-fueled world is going nowhere mighty fast
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Most of it is slop (and in some cases work slop):”
Our reading: Most of the AI-generated content is slop, and in some cases work slop.
No horizon
Scope: most of it
Source: Slop, productivity, and why the AI-fueled world is going nowhere mighty fast
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Maybe the biggest exception is coding, but even there, it’s not yet clear how many of the systems that have been created with the help of agentic coding will endure.”
Our reading: Coding may be the biggest exception to AI's low value, but it is not yet clear how many systems built with agentic coding will endure.
No horizon
Qualifier: coding may be the biggest exception
Source: Slop, productivity, and why the AI-fueled world is going nowhere mighty fast
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Conditional forecast
“It could well be that once the providers (Open AI, Anthropic, Cursor, etc) attempt to charge enough money to cover their losses, the cost of AI could become more expensive than the humans it is replacing.”
Our reading: It could well be that once AI providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Cursor attempt to charge enough to cover their losses, AI could become more expensive than the humans it is replacing.
No horizon
Only if: once providers attempt to charge enough money to cover their losses
Source: Slop, productivity, and why the AI-fueled world is going nowhere mighty fast
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Rhetoric
“Talk about digging holes without creating real value.”
Our reading: The AI spending and losses he has just described amount to digging holes without creating real value.
No horizon
Source: Slop, productivity, and why the AI-fueled world is going nowhere mighty fast
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“It’s hard even to say how the chip companies are doing, once you factor out all the circular financing and shrinking cash flow.”
Our reading: It is hard even to say how the chip companies are doing once circular financing and shrinking cash flow are factored out.
No horizon
Qualifier: once you factor out circular financing and shrinking cash flow
Source: Slop, productivity, and why the AI-fueled world is going nowhere mighty fast
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“It is very likely that the same thing is happening in math.”
Our reading: It is very likely that math research is being flooded with low-quality AI-generated work.
No horizon
Source: Slop, productivity, and why the AI-fueled world is going nowhere mighty fast
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“The new cold war will be about AI.”
Our reading: The new cold war will be about AI.
No horizon
Source: AI’s Black Friday
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“(And Google might perhaps be wise not to accept Trump’s proffered investment, given how much of their income is global; OpenAI may be so desperate they have no choice.)”
Our reading: Google might be wise not to accept Trump's offered government investment, because so much of its income is global.
No horizon
Qualifier: given how much of Google's income is global
Source: AI’s Black Friday
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“(And Google might perhaps be wise not to accept Trump’s proffered investment, given how much of their income is global; OpenAI may be so desperate they have no choice.)”
Our reading: OpenAI may be so financially desperate that it has no choice but to accept government investment.
No horizon
Source: AI’s Black Friday
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“I doubt Friday was as bad as it will get, so the title of this essay (“AI’s Black Friday”) is a bit tongue in cheek.”
Our reading: Marcus doubts that Friday, June 5, 2026 was as bad as the AI-related market downturn will get.
No horizon
Qualifier: I doubt
Source: AI’s Black Friday
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Bailing out OpenAI is crony socialism and corruption (remember those $25M donations from Greg Brockman and his wife?), preventing capitalism from taking its natural course.”
Our reading: Bailing out OpenAI is crony socialism and corruption that prevents capitalism from taking its natural course.
No horizon
Source: AI’s Black Friday
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“I have no idea whether Monday’s market will continue the downward trends we saw Friday. But it should.”
Our reading: The market ought to keep falling on Monday, June 8, 2026, though Marcus says he does not know whether it will.
No horizon
Source: AI’s Black Friday
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Causal claim
“This year, SpaceX’s AI division is leasing GPUs left, right, and center, because they can’t figure out what to do with them.”
Our reading: SpaceX's AI division is leasing out large numbers of GPUs in 2026 because it cannot figure out what to do with them.
No horizon
Source: AI’s Black Friday
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“Who can forget the hapless Meta, which may ultimately win the prize for most money burned vs least results?”
Our reading: Meta may end up burning the most money on AI for the least results.
No horizon
Source: AI’s Black Friday
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“Instead, they want people to talk about an “option” they don’t actually plan to take, and are unlikely to ever take.”
Our reading: Anthropic does not plan to pause AI development and is unlikely ever to do so.
No horizon
Source: No, Anthropic did not call for a pause on AI development
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“(More likely, they will like always hint at China, and continue rush ahead.)”
Our reading: Anthropic will likely point to China, as it always does, and keep rushing ahead with AI development.
No horizon
Source: No, Anthropic did not call for a pause on AI development
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“They *don’t* actually want a pause - at least for now.”
Our reading: Anthropic does not actually want a pause on AI development, at least for now.
No horizon
Qualifier: at least for now
Source: No, Anthropic did not call for a pause on AI development
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“A faster coding tool will probably not end the world.”
Our reading: A faster AI coding tool will probably not end the world.
No horizon
Source: No need to panic about Anthropic’s new blog, and some more good news
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“So we don’t need to panic yet.”
Our reading: There is no need to panic yet about Anthropic's results.
No horizon
Source: No need to panic about Anthropic’s new blog, and some more good news
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“The blog, which shows considerable advances in the ability of their systems to write code, is interesting, and make an argument for slowing down AI research that should be considered.”
Our reading: Anthropic's blog shows considerable coding advances, and its argument for slowing down AI research should be considered.
No horizon
Source: No need to panic about Anthropic’s new blog, and some more good news
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“AGI is *harder* than “recursive self improvement” [RSI]”
Our reading: Achieving AGI is harder than achieving recursive self-improvement.
No horizon
Source: No need to panic about Anthropic’s new blog, and some more good news
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Pure deep learning has largely hit a wall; neurosymbolic AI is rescuing it.”
Our reading: Pure deep learning has largely hit a wall, and neurosymbolic AI is rescuing it.
No horizon
Qualifier: largely
Source: No need to panic about Anthropic’s new blog, and some more good news
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“May any such oversight be bipartisan, and in the interest of American citizens, and in the interests of humanity as a whole.”
Our reading: Any preflight-style oversight of AI models like that in President Trump's executive order should be bipartisan and in the interests of American citizens and of humanity as a whole.
No horizon
Scope: any such oversight, meaning the preflight-check oversight described in the executive order
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Number one on my list was preflight checks, similar to the FDA review for drugs, for models with large commercial impact:”
Our reading: AI models with large commercial impact should be subject to preflight checks similar to FDA review of drugs.
No horizon
Qualifier: for models with large commercial impact
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Timing when all this might fall apart is hard, but the economics don’t make sense, and more and more people are starting to notice.”
Our reading: The economics of AI don't make sense, and more and more people are starting to notice, though it is hard to time when all this might fall apart.
No horizon
Qualifier: timing when all this might fall apart is hard
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“What is most upsetting though, is how retail investors and retirement funds are likely to be taken advantage of in all of this.”
Our reading: Retail investors and retirement funds are likely to be taken advantage of in the AI financing boom.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“The only way to inflate the AI bubble both on a hardware and software level was to mislead the general public and investors on the costs and efficacy of AI models.”
Our reading: The AI bubble could only be inflated by misleading the public and investors about the costs and efficacy of AI models.
No horizon
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Nevertheless, the threat of AI job loss has been enough to allow both Sam Altman and Dario Amodei to raise hundreds of billions of dollars lying about it”
Our reading: The threat of AI job loss allowed Sam Altman and Dario Amodei to raise hundreds of billions of dollars while lying about it, and both have since walked back their job-loss claims.
No horizon
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“They didn’t raise hundreds of billions of dollars by talking about any product currently on the market, and that’s because the current products are not very good products.”
Our reading: AI companies did not raise hundreds of billions of dollars by talking about any product currently on the market, because current products are not very good.
No horizon
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“In fact, I’d be willing to believe that AI had a negative economic impact, increasing operating expenses across the board and giving some software engineers prompt-based concussions by automating some coding in a way that makes them lazy and bad at writing software”
Our reading: AI may have had a negative economic impact, raising operating expenses and making some software engineers worse at writing software.
No horizon
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Anthropic, OpenAI and every other AI company deliberately obfuscated these costs because they knew that the second a user actually had to pay for the fuckups of an AI model they’d scream like they were being stung to death by bees.”
Our reading: Anthropic, OpenAI and every other AI company deliberately obscured the costs of AI use because they knew that as soon as users had to pay for a model's mistakes they would scream in protest.
No horizon
Scope: every other AI company
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Every different prompt and project and interaction can go wrong in a way that is hard to predict or plan for other than having an eternal vigilance that the supposed “intelligence” doesn’t do something catastrophically stupid, because LLMs have no thoughts, consciousness or ability to learn outside of pre and post-training.”
Our reading: Every LLM prompt, project and interaction can go wrong in ways that are hard to predict or plan for, short of constant vigilance against catastrophically stupid behaviour, because LLMs have no thoughts, consciousness or ability to learn outside pre-training and post-training.
No horizon
Qualifier: hard to predict or plan for
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“These users — much like the users of effectively every subsidized AI subscription — never really knew how much anything they did cost, because Microsoft intentionally hid the actual cost of prompts and allowed users to spend obscene amounts as a way of boosting growth for GitHub Copilot.”
Our reading: Microsoft intentionally hid the actual cost of GitHub Copilot prompts and let users overspend in order to boost growth.
No horizon
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“I realize I’m painting with a broad brush, so let me get a broader one: I believe anyone who relies on LLMs for anything is a mark.”
Our reading: Anyone who relies on LLMs for anything is a mark.
No horizon
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“That fact AI companies backed by the full manufactured consent of the markets and most of the economy still had to subsidize their products shows exactly how flimsy their value truly is.”
Our reading: The fact that AI companies, backed by the full manufactured consent of the markets and most of the economy, still had to subsidize their products shows exactly how flimsy their value is.
No horizon
Qualifier: backed by the full manufactured consent of the markets and most of the economy
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“This shit needs to work every time without fail and be absolutely flawless and autonomous.”
Our reading: AI needs to work every time without fail and be absolutely flawless and autonomous.
No horizon
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Sam Altman’s comments about “intelligence too cheap to meter” were lies.”
Our reading: Sam Altman's claims about 'intelligence too cheap to meter' were lies.
No horizon
Source: AI Doesn't Have ROI
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“LLM researchers are NOT creating beings.”
Our reading: LLM researchers are not creating beings.
No horizon
Source: The Pope appears to understand AI better than Geoffrey Hinton does.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Claude’s outputs are the product of a form of mimicry, rather than as a report of genuine internal states.”
Our reading: Claude's outputs come from a form of mimicry and are not reports of genuine internal states.
No horizon
Source: The Pope appears to understand AI better than Geoffrey Hinton does.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Consciousness is about internal states; the mimicry, no matter how rich, proves very little.”
Our reading: However rich it is, LLM mimicry of human output proves very little about consciousness, because consciousness is about internal states.
No horizon
Qualifier: no matter how rich the mimicry
Source: The Pope appears to understand AI better than Geoffrey Hinton does.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“You can’t just look at the outputs, without investigating the underlying mechanisms, and conclude that two entities with similar outputs reach those similar outputs by similar means.”
Our reading: One must not look only at the outputs of two entities with similar outputs, without investigating the underlying mechanisms, and conclude that they reach those outputs by similar means.
No horizon
Scope: two entities with similar outputs
Source: The Pope appears to understand AI better than Geoffrey Hinton does.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“a. That’s the very Eliza illusion I am pointing out. It is possible to fool people into seeing things that aren’t real (e.g., pareidolia, and”
Our reading: Grimes's subjective impression that there is something there in AI is the Eliza illusion Marcus is pointing out, and it is possible to fool people into seeing things that aren't real.
No horizon
Scope: Grimes's subjective impression
Source: The Pope appears to understand AI better than Geoffrey Hinton does.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“And Hinton should know better.”
Our reading: Geoffrey Hinton should know better than to treat what LLM researchers create as beings.
No horizon
Source: The Pope appears to understand AI better than Geoffrey Hinton does.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“A month later, it already looks like the moment has passed; tokenmaxxing may have jacked up Anthropic’s second quarter, but it looks like it won’t last.”
Our reading: The tokenmaxxing trend that may have boosted Anthropic's second quarter already seems to have passed and probably will not last.
No horizon
Source: Breaking: bad news for three of the biggest IPOs in history
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“The second sentence— “Tokens got burned for millions of dollars without any real significant ROI to show for it” – might well turn out to be the epitaph for an era.”
Our reading: The current era of AI spending may well be remembered as one in which millions of dollars of tokens were burned without significant ROI.
No horizon
Source: Breaking: bad news for three of the biggest IPOs in history
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Conditional forecast
“And it could get worse, if tokenmaxxing is indeed a fad whose time has already begun to pass.”
Our reading: If tokenmaxxing is indeed a fad whose time has already begun to pass, the poor AI-return picture in the projections he cites, and its possible fallout for the economy, could get worse.
No horizon
Only if: if tokenmaxxing is indeed a fad whose time has already begun to pass
Source: Breaking: bad news for three of the biggest IPOs in history
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Tokenmaxxing is stupid.”
Our reading: Tokenmaxxing is stupid.
No horizon
Source: Breaking: bad news for three of the biggest IPOs in history
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“A lot of banks may take a hint as well.”
Our reading: A lot of banks may take a hint as well.
No horizon
Qualifier: as well, following the scenario described just before
Source: If enough other companies report the same, the bubble pops. 🫧
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“While I’m not saying every LLM user is an imbecile, they’re built to convince the mediocre and incurious that they’re remarkable, and it turns out that a great many of them run venture capital firms and Fortune 500 companies.”
Our reading: LLMs are built to convince the mediocre and incurious that they are remarkable, and a great many such people run venture capital firms and Fortune 500 companies.
No horizon
Qualifier: not every LLM user is an imbecile
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“I don’t think LLMs, as a tool, are a grift. There are use cases, though those use cases are miniscule compared to the egregious promises and extrapolations made by the majority of the media and the executive sect, and absolutely nothing about them warrants the amount of money invested in them.”
Our reading: LLMs as a tool are not a grift and have use cases, but those use cases are minuscule compared to the promises and extrapolations of most of the media and executives, and nothing about them warrants the amount of money invested in them.
No horizon
Qualifier: compared to the egregious promises and extrapolations
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“And they want you to do that because they’re losing.”
Our reading: The AI industry is losing.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Anthropic is either the single-most successful grifter of all time or speed-running a con where it fudges together numbers to raise endless amounts of money to keep its billion-dollar burn going.”
Our reading: Anthropic is either the most successful grifter of all time or speed-running a con in which it fudges numbers to raise endless money to keep its billion-dollar burn going.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“It is inefficient, power-intensive, environmentally destructive, and inherently sold based on things that it might do, providing far more value to scam artists and con men than it does to its end users.”
Our reading: The AI industry and its LLMs are inefficient, power-intensive, environmentally destructive, inherently sold on what they might do, and provide far more value to scam artists and con men than to end users.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Organizations aren’t burning millions or hundreds of millions of dollars a year on AI because it’s good, they’re doing it because they are run by people who do not know what the fuck they’re doing.”
Our reading: Organizations spend heavily on AI because of incompetent leadership, not because AI is good.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Only an economy oriented around coveting and coddling losers would have let AI get this far.”
Our reading: Only an economy oriented around coveting and coddling losers would have let AI get this far.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“That’s because underneath the puffery and the propaganda and the pervasive sense of inevitability, the AI industry is losing. Anthropic and OpenAI’s revenue growth is only possible thanks to a near-perpetual misinformation campaign that overstates both the current and future capabilities of LLMs, and a near-society-wide ignorance at the executive level.”
Our reading: The AI industry is losing; Anthropic and OpenAI revenue growth depends on misinformation that overstates LLM capabilities and on executive ignorance.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“This is what an industry does when it’s in distinct, existential distress.”
Our reading: The AI industry is in existential distress.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“LLMs were meant to be the thing that replaced all workers, but the actual outputs and outcomes don’t seem to be resulting in anything changing other than lots of things becoming worse or more-expensive.”
Our reading: LLMs were meant to replace all workers, but their actual outputs and outcomes don't seem to be changing anything other than making lots of things worse or more expensive.
No horizon
Qualifier: don't seem to be
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“It’s very likely that Dario Amodei and Sam Altman’s plan is to keep burning money until somebody who works for them comes up with a way not to, and in the interim their plan is to get as many users as they can to keep raising money.”
Our reading: It is very likely that Dario Amodei's and Sam Altman's plan is to keep burning money until someone who works for them finds a way not to, and in the meantime to get as many users as they can so they can keep raising money.
No horizon
Qualifier: very likely
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“And yet none of it’s really working, because Business Idiots don’t really know how anything works.”
Our reading: None of the Business Idiots' push to have AI automate work and remove other people is really working, because Business Idiots don't really know how anything works.
No horizon
Qualifier: really
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“AI is a perfect storm of failed concepts and organizations, and the apex of the Era of the Business Idiot, an epoch where we’re ruled by people so thoroughly disconnected from the actual workforce that it was inevitable that a technology would be created specifically to grift them.”
Our reading: AI is a combination of failed concepts and organizations and a technology made to grift disconnected executives.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“No CEO that talks of a theoretical future as a means of selling you software in the present should be trusted. No technology that makes mistakes with regularity should be defended.”
Our reading: CEOs who sell software on a theoretical future should not be trusted, and technology that regularly makes mistakes should not be defended.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“There is no other plan. They do not have a secret invention coming. They do not have AGI in a box in their office.”
Our reading: Microsoft, Google, Meta and Amazon have no plan other than building data centers in the hope of having a use for them, no secret invention coming, and no AGI in a box in their offices.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“These men have no other hypergrowth ideas, and are more willing to annihilate their cashflows and dominate the Earth with half-finished data centers than to admit that their core businesses will eventually decline.”
Our reading: Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella and Andy Jassy have no other hypergrowth ideas and are more willing to annihilate their cashflows and fill the Earth with half-finished data centers than to admit that their core businesses will eventually decline.
No horizon
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“In a rational society, Salesforce’s stock would take a beating and the SEC would open an immediate and brutal investigation.”
Our reading: Salesforce's marketing of AI capabilities that are not live should cause its stock to fall and prompt an SEC investigation.
No horizon
Qualifier: in a rational society
Source: Revenge of The Business Idiot
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Conditional forecast
“Same logic may well apply to the upcoming IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic.”
Our reading: If the S&P 500 rule changes are adopted, OpenAI's and Anthropic's IPOs may likewise be added quickly to index funds at fantasy-level early valuations, leaving retirement investors exposed to rapid price drops.
No horizon
Only if: if S&P 500 adopts proposed rule changes
Source: This one weird trick might cost your retirement fund billions
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“If you have a mutual fund and don’t want a significant part of your holdings to flip essentially automatically into speculative, not yet proven big tech plays like SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic, you might want to call your congressperson ASAP to complain about this rule, and the risks it could pose to your retirement.”
Our reading: Mutual fund holders who don't want a significant part of their holdings to flip essentially automatically into speculative, not yet proven big tech plays like SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic might want to call their congressperson ASAP to complain about the proposed S&P 500 rule change and the risks it could pose to their retirement.
No horizon
Scope: for mutual fund holders who don't want a significant part of their holdings to flip essentially automatically into speculative big tech plays
Source: This one weird trick might cost your retirement fund billions
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“I’ve also speculated that the reason why OpenAI has favored this metric is because it’s easy to manipulate.”
Our reading: OpenAI may favor the weekly active users metric because it is easy to manipulate.
No horizon
Qualifier: speculation
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“If I had to guess, it’s likely that investors have begun to demand firmer, more “real company”-adjacent numbers, and while Anthropic was able to find a clever way to manipulate them as a means of raising funding, OpenAI was forced to share numbers a little closer to reality.”
Our reading: Investors have likely begun demanding firmer financials, with Anthropic manipulating its numbers to raise funding and OpenAI forced to share numbers closer to reality.
No horizon
Qualifier: a guess
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Perhaps that’s why OpenAI is rushing to go public - it realizes it might have tapped out private investors.”
Our reading: OpenAI is rushing to go public, and perhaps it is doing so because it realizes it might have tapped out private investors.
No horizon
Qualifier: perhaps
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“While OpenAI brought in a billion dollars more than Anthropic in Q1 2026, The Information couldn’t get ahold of OpenAI’s numbers for Q2 2026, but at $45 billion in ARR - $3.75 billion in a month - Anthropic may have taken the lead.”
Our reading: Anthropic may have overtaken OpenAI in revenue in Q2 2026, if its reported numbers are accurate.
No horizon
Qualifier: if Anthropic's numbers are accurate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Nevertheless, while this represents an improvement over the 2.583% rate in February of last year, it’s likely improved as a result of cheaper ad-supported ChatGPT “Go” subscribers at $5 or $8 a month, depending on geography.”
Our reading: ChatGPT's improved conversion rate is likely due to cheaper ad-supported ChatGPT Go subscriptions.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“The exact number is not given but that discount may well be bigger than the projected $559M profit.”
Our reading: Although the exact figure is not given, SpaceX's one-time compute discount to Anthropic may well be bigger than Anthropic's projected $559M quarterly profit.
No horizon
Qualifier: the exact discount figure is not given
Source: Checking the math behind OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest headlines
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Caveat emptor, IPO buyers.”
Our reading: IPO buyers should beware.
No horizon
Source: Checking the math behind OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest headlines
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Clearly impressive. But as with so much else, it should be viewed with skepticism.”
Our reading: OpenAI's claimed result on the Erdős planar unit distance problem, though impressive, should be viewed with skepticism.
No horizon
Source: Checking the math behind OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest headlines
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Context matters, and it is unclear whether subsequent quarters will be profitable.”
Our reading: It is unclear whether Anthropic's quarters after the projected profitable one will be profitable.
No horizon
Source: Checking the math behind OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest headlines
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“For large enterprises, Anthropic is taking prepayment of tokens —-- say, $50 million intended to be spread over 12 months that it takes in as revenue.This would both inflate revenue numbers and depress costs, because Anthropic wouldn’t have actually provided the compute necessary to earn that revenue yet.”
Our reading: Zitron guesses Anthropic may be booking enterprise token prepayments as revenue up front, which would inflate revenue and depress costs.
No horizon
Qualifier: offered as a guess
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“If Anthropic paid full-rate for its compute in those two months, its economics would shift back to what they’ve always been per my reporting from last year on its AWS costs — a business that has costs that linearly increase with its revenue growth.”
Our reading: Without the discounted compute rate in May and June 2026, Anthropic would again be a business whose costs rise linearly with revenue.
No horizon
Qualifier: if Anthropic paid full-rate for compute in May and June
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“There’s also a very compelling argument that Anthropic’s costs will increase and will eat up that profitability, to once again quote the Wall Street Journal:”
Our reading: Zitron says there is a very compelling argument that Anthropic's costs will increase and will eat up its reported profitability.
No horizon
Qualifier: supported by the WSJ note that it might not remain profitable for the full year
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Anthropic timed this leak to focus on a specific quarter where it artificially suppressed costs, and gave you the flimsiest proof imaginable, specifically-crafted for you to share it as a triumph and spread the idea that “AI labs are actually profitable,” when their core economics haven’t changed.”
Our reading: Anthropic timed this leak to focus on a specific quarter where it artificially suppressed costs, giving the flimsiest proof imaginable, crafted for people to spread the idea that AI labs are actually profitable, when their core economics haven't changed.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“I will give Dario Amodei credit: nobody does financial engineering and a press-led information war better than Anthropic.”
Our reading: Anthropic is unmatched at financial engineering and waging information wars through the press.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Anthropic could have ratcheted down training to ease the burden on its infrastructure to provide inference.”
Our reading: One possible explanation is that Anthropic could have ratcheted down training to ease the burden on its infrastructure to provide inference.
No horizon
Qualifier: offered as one of several guesses
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Anthropic could be front-loading annual commitments of any kind —– subscriptions to Claude, enterprise or team agreements, and so on.”
Our reading: Anthropic could be front-loading annual commitments as revenue.
No horizon
Qualifier: offered as a guess
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“While I wouldn’t say this is cooking the books, it’s definitely a shiatsu-grade massaging of the numbers.”
Our reading: Zitron would not call Anthropic's profitability figure cooking the books, but says it is definitely a heavy ('shiatsu-grade') massaging of the numbers.
No horizon
Qualifier: I wouldn't say this is cooking the books
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“That’s right —-- Anthropic is possibly going to be EBITDA profitable for a single quarter, on a non-GAAP basis.”
Our reading: Anthropic is possibly going to be EBITDA profitable for a single quarter, the second quarter of 2026, on a non-GAAP basis.
No horizon
Qualifier: for a single quarter
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Nevertheless, the revenue side is where the real problems lie.”
Our reading: The real problems with Anthropic's profitability claim are in its revenue figures.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Anthropic has deliberately leaked a quarterly “profit” where it knows it can suppress its costs, specifically made sure that the journalist gave it the out of “costs might increase,” and released it on the day of NVIDIA’s earnings as a means of keeping the AI bubble inflated.”
Our reading: Anthropic deliberately leaked a quarterly 'profit' for a quarter where it knew it could suppress its costs, made sure the journalist gave it the out that 'costs might increase', and released it on the day of NVIDIA's earnings as a means of keeping the AI bubble inflated.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“Let me speak directly and with more empathy than usual: if you want Anthropic to win, you should be just as skeptical of these numbers as I am.”
Our reading: People who want Anthropic to win should be just as skeptical of its reported numbers as Zitron is.
No horizon
Qualifier: if you want Anthropic to win