Make Fun Of Them
We recorded 33 claims from this post. 14 were checked against evidence. 19 can’t be checked. 12 more are held. Read the post at its source.
Claims from this post (33)
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
“Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, a company allegedly worth $300 billion to venture capitalists and SoftBank, kind of sounds like a huge idiot!”
What we tested: Sam Altman kind of sounds like a huge idiot.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“This is gobbledygook, nonsense, bullshit peddled by a guy who has only the most tangential understanding of the technology his company is building.”
What we tested: Sam Altman has only a tangential understanding of the AI technology OpenAI is building.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Sundar Pichai, when asked one of Nilay Patel’s patented 100-word-plus-questions about Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s new (and likely heavily delayed) hardware startup:”
What we tested: The OpenAI/Jony Ive hardware venture is likely to be heavily delayed.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“This quote has been used as a means of suggesting that Nadella is saying that “generative AI is generating basically no value,” which, while somewhat true, obfuscates its true meaning: Satya Nadella isn’t saying a fucking thing.”
What we tested: It is somewhat true that generative AI is generating basically no value.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“The difference is that OpenAI has a consumer product that loses billions of dollars, and Lockheed Martin has products that makes billions of dollars by removing consumers from the Earth.”
What we tested: OpenAI's consumer product loses billions of dollars.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“you’d see that the user numbers weren’t there outside of the 500 million people using ChatGPT, of which very few are actually paying for the product, and that the term “user” encompasses everything from the most occasional users who log in out of curiosity, to people who are actually using it as part of their daily lives.”
What we tested: Very few of ChatGPT's 500 million users pay, and user numbers outside ChatGPT are not there.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“If covering OpenAI was about the tech, you’d read about how the tech itself doesn’t seem to have a ton of mass-market use cases, and those use cases aren’t really the kind of things that you’d pay for.”
What we tested: OpenAI's technology doesn't seem to have a ton of mass-market use cases, and those use cases aren't really the kind of things people would pay for.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Every member of the media covering this uncritically should feel ashamed of themselves.”
What we tested: Journalists who covered Anthropic's blackmail stories uncritically should be ashamed.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“Products like Word and Excel don’t need improving, but that doesn’t stop Microsoft from trying, bloating them with odd user interface choices and forcing users to fight with popups to use an AI-powered Copilot that most of them hate.”
What we tested: Microsoft bloats Word and Excel with odd interface choices and makes users fight with popups to use an AI-powered Copilot that most of them hate.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Put aside however you feel about generative AI for a second and face one very simple point: it doesn’t do enough, it’s really not cool at all, and we’re being forced to use it.”
What we tested: Generative AI doesn't do enough, is really not cool at all, and people are being forced to use it.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“OpenAI has — allegedly — hit “$10 billion in annualized revenue” (essentially the biggest month it can find, multiplied by 12), which is…not that much, really, considering it’s the most prominent company in the software world, with the biggest brand, and with the attention of the entirety of the world’s media.”
What we tested: OpenAI's alleged $10 billion in annualized revenue is not that much, really, given that it is the most prominent software company with the biggest brand and the whole world's media attention.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“It has, allegedly, 500 million weekly active users — and, by the last count, only 15.5 million paying subscribers, an absolutely putrid conversion rate even before you realize that the actual conversion rate would be monthly active subscribers.”
What we tested: ChatGPT's allegedly 500 million weekly active users against, by the last count, 15.5 million paying subscribers is an absolutely putrid conversion rate.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“These models are dangerous and chaotic, built with little intention or regard for the future, just like the rest of big tech’s products.”
What we tested: Generative AI models are dangerous and chaotic, built with little intention or regard for the future, just like the rest of big tech's products.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“ChatGPT would’ve been a much smaller deal if Google had any interest in turning Google Search into a product that truly answered a query (as opposed to generating more of them to show more impressions to advertisers) — a nuanced search engine that took a user’s query and spat out a series of websites that might help answer said question rather than just summarising a few of them for an answer.”
What we tested: ChatGPT would have been a much smaller deal if Google had had any interest in turning Google Search into a product that truly answered queries.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“And if you ever need proof that Google just doesn’t know how to fucking innovate anymore, look at AI Summaries, a product that both misunderstands search and why people use ChatGPT as a search replacement.”
What we tested: Google's AI Summaries misunderstand both search and why people use ChatGPT as a search replacement, which he offers as proof that Google no longer knows how to innovate.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“No matter how big ChatGPT is, the fact that there’s a product out there with hundreds of millions of users that constantly gets answers wrong is a genuinely worrying thing for society, and that’s before you get to the environmental damage, the fact it trained its models on millions of people’s art and writing, and oh, I dunno, the fact it plans to lose over a hundred billions of dollars before becoming profitable?”
What we tested: However big ChatGPT is, a product with hundreds of millions of users that constantly gets answers wrong is genuinely worrying for society.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“the fact it plans to lose over a hundred billions of dollars before becoming profitable?”
What we tested: OpenAI plans to lose over $100 billion before becoming profitable.
Assessment: SupportedSaid
“The most prominent company in the tech industry is an unstable monolith with a vague product that can only make $10 billion a year (revenue, not profit) as the very fabric of its existence is shoved down the throat of every executive in the world at once.”
What we tested: OpenAI is an unstable monolith with a vague product that can only make $10 billion a year in revenue, not profit.
What happened: CNBC directly reports the company-disclosed $10 billion rate and identifies the included products and exclusions. No standalone primary financial statement was found. (CNBC, )
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“The reality is far simpler: we have an industry that has spent nearly half a trillion dollars between its capital expenditures and venture capital funding to create another industry with the combined revenue of the fucking smartwatch industry.”
What we tested: Nearly $500 billion in capex and VC has produced a generative AI industry with revenue comparable to the smartwatch industry.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“Meta is not making any money from generative AI.”
What we tested: Meta is not making any money from generative AI.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Even if every single one of these companies was making $18 billion in revenue a year from this it wouldn’t be great, but it’s more than likely that these chunderfucks can’t even pull together the projected revenue ($32 billion) of the global smartwatch industry!”
What we tested: Big Tech's combined AI revenue most likely won't reach the $32 billion projected revenue of the smartwatch industry.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“No, the cost that people are being charged is going down, we have no firm data on the actual costs because the companies don’t want to talk about it, and yes, it will absolutely lower prices to compete with other companies.”
What we tested: OpenAI will lower its prices to compete with other companies.
Assessment: MixedSaid
“So what, OpenAI makes $12.7 billion this year, but loses $14 billion, what does that mean to you, exactly?”
What we tested: OpenAI will make about $12.7 billion in revenue in 2025 but lose about $14 billion.
What held: The independently confirmed financial reporting places realized revenue within the contract's tolerance. This supports the revenue component only. (Financial Times, syndicated by Yahoo Finance, )
What did not: The reported net loss is well outside the forecast's tolerance. This contradicts the loss component under the stated net-loss reading. (Ars Technica, )
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“Less than $39 billion dollars of total revenue in the entire generative AI industry.”
What we tested: By his tally of run rates and projections, the entire generative AI industry has less than $39 billion in total revenue.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“According to The Information, generative AI companies have raised more than $18.8 billion in the first quarter of 2025, after investing $21 billion in Q4 2024 and $4 billion in Q3 2024 for a grand total of $43.8 billion, or a total of $370.8 billion of investment and capital expenditures for an industry that, despite being the single-most talked about thing on the planet, cannot even create a tenth of the dollars it requires to make it work.”
What we tested: The generative AI industry cannot generate even a tenth of the $370.8 billion in investment and capex it requires.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“I’m terribly, horribly bored, and if you’re interested in this shit I am genuinely curious why, especially if you’re a reporter, because right now the “innovation” happening in AI is, at best, further mutations of the Software As A Service business model, providing far less value than previous innovations at a calamitous cost.”
What we tested: Right now, AI 'innovation' is at best further variations on the software-as-a-service business model, giving far less value than previous innovations at a calamitous cost.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“agents as a concept are fucked because large language models are inherently unreliable”
What we tested: AI agents are fundamentally unworkable because LLMs are inherently unreliable and break down on multi-step tasks.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“So, here’s my radical suggestion: start making fun of these people.”
What we tested: People should start mocking AI and tech leaders.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“Sam Altman is nowhere near delivering a functioning agent, let alone anything approaching intelligence, and really only has one skill: making other companies risk a bunch of money on his stupid ideas.”
What we tested: OpenAI under Altman is nowhere near delivering a functioning agent, let alone anything approaching intelligence.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“SoftBank and Microsoft pay all of OpenAI’s bills, and the media does his marketing for him.”
What we tested: SoftBank and Microsoft pay all of OpenAI's bills.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, Wario Amodei, Tim Cook, Andy Jassy — they deserve to be laughed at, mocked, or at the very least interrogated vigorously, because their combined might has produced no exciting or interesting products outside of, at best, what will amount to a productivity upgrade for integrated development environments and faster ways to throw out code that may or may not be reliable.”
What we tested: The combined might of Nadella, Altman, Amodei, Cook and Jassy has produced no exciting or interesting products, apart from, at best, what will amount to a productivity upgrade for coding tools (IDEs) and faster ways to produce code that may or may not be reliable.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, Wario Amodei, Tim Cook, Andy Jassy — they deserve to be laughed at, mocked, or at the very least interrogated vigorously”
What we tested: Nadella, Altman, Amodei, Cook and Jassy should be mocked or at least questioned vigorously.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“They can yammer at you all they want about “lots of people using ChatGPT,” but that doesn’t change the fact that ChatGPT just isn’t that revolutionary, and their only play here is to make you feel stupid rather than actually showing you why it’s so fucking revolutionary.”
What we tested: However many people use ChatGPT, it just isn't that revolutionary.
Held from this post (12)
These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The record does not meet the current rules. Our reading, not assessed: Microsoft's AI revenue appears to have stalled around a $13 billion annual projection.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The criteria are ambiguous. Our reading, not assessed: Anthropic's reported model blackmail behavior is obviously the result of the company prompting its models to do so.
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: If OpenAI does not receive $20-40 billion in funding a year, it will die.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: For the capital invested in generative AI to make sense, the industry would need revenue that dwarfed the smartphone and enterprise SaaS markets combined, but its revenue is less than half that of mobile gaming.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The criteria are ambiguous. Our reading, not assessed: Unlike humans, generative AI does not know what a coding mistake looks like, because as a probabilistic model it doesn't know what anything is.
- The record does not meet the current rules. Our reading, not assessed: Projected 2025 Big Tech capital spending totals about $327 billion, against what he roughly estimates at about $18 billion of AI revenue.