Pundit ClaimsAI claims by Gary Marcus and Ed Zitron, with the evidence

Ed Zitron Where's Your Ed At Published

Reality Check

We recorded 20 claims from this post. 9 were checked against evidence. 11 can’t be checked. 27 more are held. Read the post at its source.

Claims from this post (20)

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.

  1. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “There seems to be little concern — or belief — that there is any kind of risk at the heart of OpenAI, a company that spent $9 billion in 2024 to lose $5 billion.”

    What we tested: OpenAI spent $9 billion in 2024 and lost $5 billion.

  2. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Agents do not exist as a product that can be sold at that scale.”

    What we tested: AI agents do not exist as a product that can be sold at that scale, meaning the $3 billion, mass-market sales level just discussed.

  3. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “In fact, I think we have reason to worry about whether OpenAI even makes its current projections.”

    What we tested: OpenAI may fail to meet its current 2025 revenue projections.

  4. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “As I wrote before, OpenAI effectively is the generative AI industry, and nothing about the rest of the generative AI industry suggests that the revenue exists to sustain these ridiculous, obscene and fantastical projections.”

    What we tested: OpenAI effectively is the generative AI industry, and nothing about the rest of the generative AI industry suggests that the revenue exists to sustain OpenAI's revenue projections.

  5. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Yes there is a degree here of marketing, of partnerships, of word of mouth, of some degree of utility, but remove the non-stop free media campaign and ChatGPT would've peetered out by now along with this stupid fucking bubble.”

    What we tested: ChatGPT's popularity is mainly due to nonstop media coverage; without it, ChatGPT and the AI bubble would have petered out.

  6. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Generative AI has never had the kind of meaningful business returns or utility that actually underpins something meaningful, but it has enough to make people give it a try.”

    What we tested: Generative AI has never had the kind of meaningful business returns or utility that underpins something meaningful, but it has enough to make people give it a try.

  7. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Generative AI is a remarkable con — a just-good-enough simulacrum of human expression to get it past the gatekeepers in finance and the media, knowing that neither will apply a second gear of critical thinking beyond "huh guess we're doing AI now."”

    What we tested: Generative AI is a con that passes just well enough to fool finance and the media.

  8. Assessment: ContradictedSaid

    “The expectation that generative AI will transform into something much, much more powerful requires you to first ignore the existing limitations, believing it to be more capable than it is, and also ignore the fact that these models have yet to show meaningful improvement over the past few years.”

    What we tested: Generative AI models have not shown meaningful improvement over the past few years.

    What happened: The original evaluation finds substantial growth in the duration of software and reasoning tasks agents can complete with 50% success. Its historical comparisons include the years preceding the post, although this is a restricted task distribution. (METR researchers, published on arXiv, )

  9. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “ChatGPT is, if I'm honest, better at processing search strings than Google Search, which is not so much a sign that ChatGPT is good at something as it is that Google has stopped innovating in any meaningful way.”

    What we tested: ChatGPT is better at processing search strings than Google Search, which is less a sign that ChatGPT is good than a sign that Google has stopped innovating in any meaningful way.

  10. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “And I'd argue that ChatGPT filled that void by doing the thing that people wanted Google Search to do: answer a question, even if the user isn't really sure how to ask it.”

    What we tested: Zitron argues that ChatGPT filled the void left by Google Search by doing what people wanted Google Search to do: answer a question even when the user isn't sure how to ask it.

  11. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “With all its data and all its talent, Google has put the laziest version of a Large Language Model on top of a questionably-functional search product as a means of impressing shareholders.”

    What we tested: Despite all its data and talent, Google has put the laziest version of a Large Language Model on top of a questionably-functional search product as a means of impressing shareholders.

  12. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Yes, I fundamentally believe that 500 million people a week could be using ChatGPT as some sort of search replacement, and no, I do not believe that's a functional business model, in part because if it was, ChatGPT would've been a functional business.”

    What we tested: Using ChatGPT as a search replacement is not a functional business model.

  13. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “SearchGPT will be significantly more expensive to run at Google's scale than ChatGPT — both infrastructurally and in the cost of revenue, with OpenAI forced to create a massive advertising arm that currently doesn't exist at the company.”

    What we tested: If run at Google's scale, SearchGPT will be significantly more expensive to run than ChatGPT, both infrastructurally and in cost of revenue, and OpenAI will be forced to create a massive advertising arm that it does not currently have.

  14. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “None of this ever resembled "artificial general intelligence," and if I'm honest, very little of it seems to even suggest it's a functional industry.”

    What we tested: Generative AI has never resembled AGI and barely suggests a functional industry.

  15. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “These companies don't care about your safety and they don't have any way to get to AGI.”

    What we tested: OpenAI and Anthropic don't care about your safety and don't have any way to get to AGI.

  16. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Oh, By The Way, The Bubble Might Be Bursting”

    What we tested: The generative AI bubble might be bursting.

  17. Assessment: ContradictedSaid

    “It also, at this point, is pretty obvious that generative AI isn't going to do much more than it does today.”

    What we tested: Generative AI will not become much more capable than it is today.

    What happened: The independently verified result demonstrates a large increase in successful abstract-reasoning task completion over the April baseline. The report also cautions that refinement harnesses are domain-specific and that benchmark-domain training may contribute to performance. (ARC Prize Foundation, )

  18. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “If Amazon is only making $5 billion in revenue from the literal only shiny new thing it has, sold on the world's premier cloud platform, at a time when businesses are hungry and desperate to integrate AI, then there's little chance this suddenly turns into a remarkable revenue-driver.”

    What we tested: If Amazon is only making $5 billion in revenue from AI, its only shiny new thing, sold on the world's premier cloud platform while businesses are desperate to integrate AI, there is little chance Amazon's AI business suddenly turns into a remarkable revenue driver.

  19. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta do not have any other ways to continue showing growth, and when the market works that out, there will be hell to pay, hell that will reverberate through the valuations of, at the very least, every public software company, and many of the hardware ones too.”

    What we tested: When the market realizes Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta have no growth source beyond generative AI, valuations of every public software company and many hardware companies will be hit hard.

  20. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “The longer this bubble inflates - the longer everybody pretends - the worse the consequences will be.”

    What we tested: The longer the AI bubble keeps inflating, the worse the consequences of its collapse will be.

Held from this post (27)

These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.