Let AI Burn
We recorded 17 claims from this post. 17 can’t be checked. 6 more are held. Read the post at its source.
Claims from this post (17)
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
Recommendation or value judgment
“No bailouts, no handouts, no special treatment, no tax breaks, no CHIPS act, and no sovereign wealth fund.”
Our reading: The AI industry should receive no bailouts, handouts, special treatment, tax breaks, CHIPS act support, or sovereign wealth fund.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“This industry is unworthy — a sham conjured up by a tech industry that’s run out of ideas, a trillion-dollars’ worth of manufactured consent and entirely-avoidable financial crises — and should not be protected under any circumstance.”
Our reading: The AI industry is a sham built on manufactured consent and should not be protected under any circumstance.
No horizon
Qualifier: under any circumstance
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“Every single time you hear somebody discuss “bailout” or “too big to fail” or “sovereign wealth funds,” know that this is the industry, on some level, attempting to create the air that it cannot die, when in fact every one of these companies is just as weak and brittle as any other startup.”
Our reading: Every time someone discusses a 'bailout', 'too big to fail' or 'sovereign wealth funds', it is the AI industry, on some level, trying to create the impression that it cannot die, when in fact every one of these companies is just as weak and brittle as any other startup.
No horizon
Scope: every time such terms are discussed
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“the AI industry is very different to the financial industry. It is inessential to the economy, and its relevance is only as large as the hype campaign that sits behind it.”
Our reading: The AI industry, unlike the financial industry, is inessential to the economy and its relevance is only as large as its hype.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“There has never been a tool or product in history sold with such hysteria and aggressive monocultural force that has ever turned out to be anything more than a grift.”
Our reading: No tool or product in history sold with such hysteria and aggressive monocultural force has ever turned out to be anything more than a grift.
No horizon
Scope: sold with such hysteria and aggressive monocultural force
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“all focused on one industry that has successfully created LLMs that are more expensive and significantly less useful than human beings.”
Our reading: LLMs are more expensive and significantly less useful than human beings.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“They need you to speak in the future tense, because nothing — absolutely nothing — about what’s been created so far justifies even a fraction of its financial and infrastructural cost.”
Our reading: Nothing, absolutely nothing, about what generative AI has created so far justifies even a fraction of its financial and infrastructural cost.
No horizon
Qualifier: so far
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“Anyway, my larger point is that there was real demand during the dot com bubble, and LLMs’ demand appears decidedly artificial outside of OpenAI and Anthropic, who cannot afford to pay without unlimited venture capital funding.”
Our reading: Unlike the dot-com era, LLM demand appears artificial outside OpenAI and Anthropic, who can't pay without unlimited VC funding.
No horizon
Qualifier: outside of OpenAI and Anthropic
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“While there are people that like and pay for ChatGPT or Claude, those who do so on a subscription basis are doing so because they can get $30 to $40 of compute for a dollar.”
Our reading: People who pay for ChatGPT or Claude on a subscription basis do so because they can get $30 to $40 of compute for a dollar.
No horizon
Scope: those who pay on a subscription basis
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“An AI startup bubble, where the vast majority of AI startups are both over-valued and have no foreseeable path to acquisition or a public offering.”
Our reading: The vast majority of AI startups are both over-valued and have no foreseeable path to acquisition or a public offering.
No horizon
Scope: vast majority
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“It’s also unclear what you’d bail out, unless the plan is to feed them capital for all eternity until they work out how to run a functional business (so, forever).”
Our reading: It is unclear what a bailout would rescue unless the plan is to feed OpenAI and Anthropic capital until they work out how to run a functional business, which he jokes would be forever.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“That being said, SoftBank is one of the largest companies on the Japanese stock market, and one of its largest investors is the Japanese government pension investment fund (GPIF), and thus might see some kind of bailout.”
Our reading: SoftBank might receive some kind of bailout because of its size and Japanese government pension fund ownership.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“These companies must be forced to stand on their own two feet and die with dignity if their wretched business models can’t keep up.”
Our reading: AI companies must stand on their own and be allowed to die if their business models fail.
No horizon
Qualifier: if their business models can't keep up
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“We do not need a “sovereign AI strategy,” nor do we need “a sovereign AI wealth fund,” nor do we need to “make sure America leads in AI,” at least not when we’re talking about large language models, the underlying technology of ChatGPT and Claude, two of the most over-hyped and deceptively-marketed pieces of software in history.”
Our reading: Governments do not need a sovereign AI strategy, sovereign AI wealth fund, or push for US AI leadership in LLMs.
No horizon
Qualifier: regarding large language models
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“The only reason it has gone anywhere is because the tech industry has united around it as a means of hiding from the fact it has no next big thing, and nothing — absolutely nothing — that a LLM can do remotely justifies the investment.”
Our reading: The only reason LLMs have gone anywhere is that the tech industry united around them to hide the fact that it has no next big thing, and nothing, absolutely nothing, an LLM can do remotely justifies the investment.
No horizon
Qualifier: the only reason
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“When the time comes, the AI industry must burn. It must be allowed to die.”
Our reading: When the bubble bursts, the AI industry must be allowed to collapse without rescue.
No horizon
Qualifier: when the time comes
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“This era must end, and all failures must be allowed to fail.”
Our reading: This era, the AI bubble era, must end, and all failures must be allowed to fail.
No horizon
Scope: all failures
Held from this post (6)
These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: More compute is not, and has not been, lowering the cost of AI, and newer GPUs are not lowering the cost.
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: He thinks what follows the AI bubble will be a greater revaluation of the tech industry, a necessary reckoning with reality for a Silicon Valley far more beholden to capital than to human progress.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: Trump cannot simply mobilize $50 billion or $100 billion for an AI bailout; it would go through the House and the Senate, and any AI-sector bailout would be incredibly unpopular, infuriating both the left and Republicans who claim to care about working Americans or fiscal probity.