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

Ed Zitron Where's Your Ed At Published

Subprime Intelligence

We recorded 26 claims from this post. 16 were checked against evidence. 10 can’t be checked. 20 more are held. Read the post at its source.

Claims from this post (26)

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: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Sora's outputs can mimic real-life objects in a genuinely chilling way, but its outputs — like DALL-E, like ChatGPT — are marred by the fact that these models do not actually know anything.”

    What we tested: Generative models like Sora, DALL-E and ChatGPT do not actually know anything.

  2. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “These things are not "learning," or "understanding," or even "intelligent" — they're giant math machines that, while impressive at first, can never assail the limits of a technology that doesn't actually know anything.”

    What we tested: Generative AI models are not learning, understanding or intelligent and can never overcome the limits of a technology without knowledge.

  3. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “The assumption is that audiences are stupid, and ignorant, and "just won't care," and I firmly disagree — I think regular people will find this stuff deeply offensive.”

    What we tested: Regular audiences will find AI-generated video with visual hallucinations deeply offensive rather than ignore it.

  4. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “I believe artificial intelligence companies deeply underestimate how perfect the things around us are, and how deeply we base our understanding and acceptance of the world on knowledge and context.”

    What we tested: Zitron believes AI companies deeply underestimate how perfect the things around us are and how deeply we base our understanding and acceptance of the world on knowledge and context.

  5. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “AI fanatics are currently fantasizing over a world where they can put a few sentences into a prompt and create an entire series of TV, unable to realize that we are rapidly approaching the top of generative AI's S-curve, where after a period of rapid growth things begin to slow down dramatically.”

    What we tested: Generative AI is rapidly approaching the top of its S-curve, after which progress will slow down dramatically.

  6. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “And as I've suggested above, while these models might "improve," the billions of dollars burned by OpenAI, Anthropic and Stability AI's models have found few ways to mitigate the restrictions of an artificial intelligence that doesn't have an intellect.”

    What we tested: Billions spent by OpenAI, Anthropic and Stability AI have found few ways to mitigate the limitations of AI without intellect.

  7. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “As I discussed in my last newsletter, media entities are increasingly normalizing their content to please search engine algorithms, and the jobs that involve pooling affiliate links and answering where you can watch the Super Bowl are very much at risk.”

    What we tested: Media jobs producing SEO-driven generic content, like affiliate-link pooling, are very much at risk from generative AI.

  8. Assessment: ContradictedSaid

    “ChatGPT can spin up piles of anodyne business copy, yet its outputs always require enough editing that it's questionable how much time you've actually saved.”

    What we tested: ChatGPT can spin up piles of anodyne business copy, but those outputs always require enough editing that it is questionable how much time is actually saved.

    What happened: The randomized experiment involved 453 professionals completing occupation-specific writing assignments. Substantial savings on completed work, accompanied by higher assessed quality, contradict the blanket claim under the stated reading of business copy. (Science; abstract reproduced by Stanford SCALE, )

  9. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Despite the frothy tales and visions of how generative artificial intelligence will automate our entire existence, there's a distinct lack of practical outputs that suggest that it is even capable of doing so.”

    What we tested: Despite frothy visions of generative AI automating our entire existence, there is a distinct lack of practical outputs suggesting it is even capable of doing so.

  10. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “I don't argue it will, at least not in such a way that anybody's lives will be improved.”

    What we tested: Zitron doubts that generative AI, a product that can only sort-of-kind-of do something, will create trillions of dollars of economic value, at least not in a way that improves anybody's lives.

  11. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “I believe that once reality catches up with artificial intelligence's marketing, there will be a dramatic knock-on effect that savages the entire tech industry.”

    What we tested: Zitron believes that once reality catches up with AI's marketing, there will be a dramatic knock-on effect that savages the entire tech industry.

  12. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “I'd argue that a generative AI's inability to reliably generate stuff is an existential threat that should have smothered these companies early in their lives.”

    What we tested: Zitron argues that generative AI's inability to reliably generate output is an existential threat that should have smothered AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic early in their lives.

  13. Assessment: SupportedSaid

    “And there are so many stories about how unreliable this technology is.”

    What we tested: Generative AI is unreliable, as shown by many stories.

    What happened: The court found that ChatGPT fabricated cases used in the March 1 filing. This is a primary judicial finding of incorrect generated material, rather than an allegation repeated by the speaker. (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, reproduced by FindLaw, )

  14. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “What these stories don't seem to discuss are whether these companies are making a profit, likely because generative AI is a deeply unprofitable product, demanding massive amounts of cloud computing power”

    What we tested: Generative AI is a deeply unprofitable product that demands massive amounts of cloud computing power.

  15. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Tech's largest cash cow since the cloud computing boom of the 2000s is based on a technology that is impossibly unreliable, a technology with a potent inverted Midas touch that burns far more money than it makes.”

    What we tested: Generative AI is impossibly unreliable and burns far more money than it makes.

  16. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “As the use of artificial intelligence grows, so do these revenue streams, forcing almost every single dollar spent on AI into the hands of a few trillion-dollar tech firms.”

    What we tested: Growing AI use forces almost every dollar spent on AI to a few trillion-dollar tech firms.

  17. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “As a result, every interaction with ChatGPT or Claude is, on some level, guaranteed revenue for one of the big tech firms.”

    What we tested: Every interaction with ChatGPT or Claude is, on some level, guaranteed revenue for one of the big tech firms.

  18. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Moreover, the scale is different, and serving a webpage will always cost less than processing a request sent to a generative AI model.”

    What we tested: Processing a generative AI request will always cost more than serving a webpage.

  19. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Google's investment in Anthropic was made in the hopes that it’d see a similar revenue multiplier, and I'd argue Amazon's was made in the same vein — though it was too late to force Anthropic to use AWS as their preferred vendor.”

    What we tested: Google's investment in Anthropic was made hoping for a revenue multiplier like Microsoft's, and Zitron argues Amazon's was made in the same vein, though too late to force Anthropic to use AWS as its preferred vendor.

  20. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Big tech has turned the startup ecosystem into a giant goldmine, one that guarantees that almost every dollar spent on any AI product is eventually shared with one of a few multi-trillion dollar tech firms.”

    What we tested: Almost every dollar spent on AI products is eventually shared with a few multi-trillion-dollar tech firms.

  21. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “I consider myself relatively tuned into the tech ecosystem, and I read every single tech publication regularly, yet I'm struggling to point to anything that generative AI has done other than reignite the flames of venture capital.”

    What we tested: Zitron, who says he reads every tech publication regularly, is struggling to point to anything generative AI has done other than reignite venture capital.

  22. Assessment: SupportedSaid

    “There are cool little app integrations, interesting things like live translation in Samsung devices, but these are features, not applications.”

    What we tested: Generative AI integrations like live translation are features, not applications.

    What happened: Samsung's launch documentation places Live Translate inside its existing Phone app. That supports the feature-versus-standalone-product distinction for the named example. (Samsung Electronics, )

  23. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Yet even with thousands of headlines, billions of dollars of investment, and trillions of tokens run through various large language models, there are no essential artificial intelligence use cases, and no killer apps outside of non-generative assistants like Alexa that are now having generative AI forced into them for no apparent reason.”

    What we tested: Despite thousands of headlines, billions of dollars of investment and trillions of tokens, there are no essential AI use cases and no killer apps apart from non-generative assistants like Alexa.

  24. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Public companies are pumping their valuations and executive salaries off the back of artificial intelligence hype, yet nobody is saying the blatantly obvious — that this industry is deeply unprofitable and yet to prove its worth.”

    What we tested: The AI industry is deeply unprofitable and has yet to prove its worth.

  25. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “This industry is money-hungry, energy-hungry, and compute-hungry, yet it doesn't seem to be doing anything to sustain these otherworldly financial and infrastructural demands, other than the fact that people keep saying that "artificial intelligence is the future."”

    What we tested: The AI industry is money-, energy- and compute-hungry, yet it does not seem to be doing anything to sustain those demands other than people repeating that AI is the future.

  26. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “As it stands, OpenAI and Anthropic are heavily dependent on companies believing that they have to integrate AI into their products, which will require these companies to be able to find ways to integrate AI that users actually care about.”

    What we tested: OpenAI and Anthropic depend heavily on companies believing they must integrate AI, which requires finding integrations users care about.

Held from this post (20)

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