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

Ed Zitron Where's Your Ed At Published

The AI Bubble Is An Information War

We recorded 38 claims from this post. 14 were checked against evidence. 24 can’t be checked. 20 more are held. Read the post at its source.

Claims from this post (38)

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

    “Worse still, NVIDIA’s earnings also mentioned $27bn in cloud commitments — literally paying its customers to rent the chips it sells, heavily suggesting that there isn’t the underlying revenue.”

    What we tested: NVIDIA's $27bn in cloud commitments, which amount to paying customers to rent its chips, strongly suggest that the underlying demand revenue isn't there.

  2. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “It also suggests CoreWeave's customers — which include Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft (for OpenAI), Google, and a $6.3bn backstop from NVIDIA for any unsold capacity through 2032 — are paying like absolute crap.”

    What we tested: CoreWeave's falling revenue per megawatt suggests that its customers, which include Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and an NVIDIA backstop for unsold capacity, are paying very poorly.

  3. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “This suggests a fundamental weakness in the business model of renting out GPUs, which brings into question the value of NVIDIA’s $68.13bn in Q4 FY2026 revenue, or indeed, Coreweave’s $66.8bn revenue backlog.”

    What we tested: CoreWeave's results suggest a fundamental weakness in the GPU-rental business model, which brings into question the value of NVIDIA's $68.13bn Q4 FY2026 revenue and CoreWeave's $66.8bn revenue backlog.

  4. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Based on my own reporting, which has been ignored (I guess it’s easier to do that than think about it?) by much of the press, OpenAI made $4.33bn through the end of September, and spent $8.67bn on inference in that period.”

    What we tested: Through the end of September 2025, OpenAI made $4.33bn in revenue and spent $8.67bn on inference.

  5. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “software is not as simple as spitting out code, neither is it able to automatically clone the SaaS experience.”

    What we tested: Software is not as simple as generating code, and AI coding tools such as Claude Code cannot automatically clone the SaaS experience.

  6. Assessment: SupportedSaid

    “For some context, OpenAI raised around $42bn in 2025 alone.”

    What we tested: OpenAI raised around $42bn in 2025.

    What happened: SoftBank confirms completed aggregate funding of $41 billion, including third-party investors. This falls within the contract's approximation tolerance without adding an uncompleted investment. (SoftBank Group, )

  7. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Stop Reporting That It Raised $110bn, It Is Factually Incorrect”

    What we tested: Reporting that OpenAI raised $110bn is factually incorrect, because Amazon invested only $15bn (with $35bn contingent on AGI or an IPO) and NVIDIA and SoftBank are paying in installments.

  8. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “It’s so cool that OpenAI is just looting its non-profit!”

    What we tested: He sarcastically condemns OpenAI as looting its non-profit, over a reported plan in which the nonprofit may sell several billion dollars of its shares to investors.

  9. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “OpenAI and AI companies are not a ponzi scheme. There’s real revenues, people are paying it money.”

    What we tested: OpenAI and AI companies are not a ponzi scheme, because customers pay them real revenue.

  10. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “we’re at around $37bn — leaving OpenAI with about…$20bn in cash at the end of the year.”

    What we tested: By his estimates, OpenAI spent about $37bn in the second half of 2025 and ended the year with about $20bn in cash.

  11. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “In my mind, it’s far more likely that OpenAI’s losses were in excess of $10bn or even $20bn, especially when you factor in that OpenAI is paying an average of $1.5 million in yearly stock based compensation, per the Wall Street Journal.”

    What we tested: OpenAI's 2025 losses were probably over $10bn, possibly over $20bn, not the reported $8bn.

  12. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “There’s also another possible answer: I think OpenAI is lying to the media, because it knows the media won’t think too hard about the numbers or compare them.”

    What we tested: He offers as another possible answer that he thinks OpenAI is lying to the media because it knows the media won't think hard about or compare its numbers.

  13. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Sure you can say “it’s projections,” but there is a clear attempt to use the media to misinform investors and the general public. For example, OpenAI claimed SoftBank would spend $3bn a year on agents in 2025. That never happened!”

    What we tested: There is a clear attempt by OpenAI to use the media to misinform investors and the public; for example, OpenAI claimed SoftBank would spend $3bn a year on agents in 2025, which never happened.

  14. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “What I’m trying to get at is that OpenAI (and, for that matter, Anthropic) has spent the last two years increasingly obfuscating the truth through leak after leak to the media.”

    What we tested: For the past two years, OpenAI and Anthropic have increasingly hidden the truth about their finances through repeated leaks to the media.

  15. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “The numbers do not make any sense when you actually put them together, and the reason that these companies continue to do this is that they’re confident that these outlets will never say a thing, or cover for the discrepancies by saying “these are projections!””

    What we tested: OpenAI's and Anthropic's leaked numbers are inconsistent with each other, and they keep leaking them because they expect the media not to challenge the discrepancies.

  16. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “But the biggest thing to take away from this is that one of the classic arguments against my work is that “costs will just come down,” but the costs never come down.”

    What we tested: Contrary to the argument that AI costs will fall, the AI labs' costs have never come down.

  17. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “That, and it appears that both of these companies are deliberately obfuscating their real numbers as a means of making themselves look better.”

    What we tested: OpenAI and Anthropic appear to deliberately obscure their real numbers to make themselves look better.

  18. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “There are members of the media who defend OpenAI saying that “these are annualized figures,” but OpenAI does not state that, because OpenAI loves to lie.”

    What we tested: OpenAI's December 2025 revenue graphic was designed to mislead because it does not say its figures are annualized.

  19. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Chief Executive Dario Amodei has spent the last few years massively overstating what LLMs can do in the pursuit of eternal growth.”

    What we tested: For the last few years, Dario Amodei has greatly overstated what LLMs can do in order to drive growth.

  20. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “The military’s demands were for “all lawful uses,” though I don’t think Anthropic really gives a shit about whether the war in Iran is legal, because if it did it would have shut down the chatbot rather than supported the conflict.”

    What we tested: He does not think Anthropic really cares whether the war in Iran is legal, because if it did it would have shut down the chatbot rather than supported the conflict.

  21. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “In reality, Claude is likely being used to go through a bunch of images and to answer questions about particular scenarios. There is very little specialized military training data, and I imagine many of the demands for “full access to powerful AI” have come as a result of Amodei and Altman’s bloviating about the “incredible power of AI.””

    What we tested: Claude is likely being used to go through images and answer questions about particular scenarios, there is very little specialized military training data, and he imagines many of the demands for 'full access to powerful AI' came from Amodei and Altman's bloviating about AI's power.

  22. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Nevertheless, Dario Amodei gets fawning press about being a patriot that deeply cares about safety less than a week after Anthropic dropped its safety pledge to not train an AI system unless it could guarantee in advance that its safety measures were accurate.”

    What we tested: Amodei gets fawning press as a patriot who deeply cares about safety less than a week after Anthropic dropped its pledge not to train an AI system unless it could guarantee in advance that its safety measures were accurate.

  23. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Let’s stop pretending that Anthropic is some sort of ethical paragon! It’s the same old shit!”

    What we tested: People should stop pretending Anthropic is some sort of ethical paragon, because it is the same old shit.

  24. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “While I think it’s far more likely that the US government itself shuts the door on Anthropic working with it for the foreseeable future even without the supply chain risk designation”

    What we tested: The US government is more likely to stop working with Anthropic for the foreseeable future, even without the designation, than to make contractors cut it off.

  25. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “If Hegseth and the administration were to truly want to punish Anthropic, they could put pressure on Amazon, Microsoft and Google to cut off Anthropic, which would cut it off from its entire compute operation”

    What we tested: If the administration wanted to punish Anthropic, it could pressure Amazon, Microsoft and Google to cut Anthropic off from all of its compute.

  26. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “The Department of Defense had agreed to terms around not using Claude for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous killing machines (the former of which it’s not particularly good at and the latter of which it flat out cannot do)”

    What we tested: Claude is not very good at mass domestic surveillance and cannot run fully autonomous weapons at all.

  27. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “All of this is to say that Altman definitely, absolutely loves war, and wants OpenAI to make money off of it”

    What we tested: Altman definitely, absolutely loves war and wants OpenAI to make money off of it.

  28. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Forgive me for being cynical about something from Sam fucking Altman, but I just don’t trust the guy, and this is an (as of writing this sentence) unsigned contract with bus-sized loopholes.”

    What we tested: OpenAI's revised Pentagon contract language was unsigned at the time of writing and contains huge loopholes that allow domestic surveillance.

  29. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “This is ultimately a PR move to make Altman seem more ethical, and position Amodei as a pedant that rejects his patriotism and prioritizes legalese over freedom.”

    What we tested: OpenAI's strengthened contract language is a PR move to make Altman look more ethical and to cast Amodei as a pedant.

  30. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “In reality, we should loathe both Altman and Amodei for their natural jingoism and continual deception.”

    What we tested: People should loathe both Altman and Amodei for their jingoism and constant deception.

  31. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Both of them are willing and able to provide technology that will surveil or kill people, and while Amodei may have blushed at something to do with autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance, neither appear to have an issue with the actual harms that their models perpetuate.”

    What we tested: Altman and Amodei are both willing and able to provide technology that will surveil or kill people, and although Amodei may have balked at autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance, neither appears to have an issue with the actual harms their models perpetuate.

  32. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Neither of these men deserve a shred of credit or celebration. Both of them were and are ready and willing to monetize war, as long as it sort-of-kind-of follows the law.”

    What we tested: Neither Altman nor Amodei deserves a shred of credit or celebration, because both were and are ready and willing to monetize war as long as it sort-of-kind-of follows the law.

  33. Assessment: SupportedSaid

    “Both of these companies are enthusiastic parts of America’s war machine.”

    What we tested: OpenAI and Anthropic are both enthusiastic participants in America's war machine.

    What happened: Anthropic described existing military deployments and explicitly endorsed continuing that work. The same statement opposed domestic mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, qualifying the breadth of its support. (Anthropic, )

  34. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Dario Amodei seems far more interested in creating a world dictated by what the United States of America deems to be legal or just, and providing services to help pursue those goals, as does OpenAI and, I’d argue, basically every AI lab.”

    What we tested: Amodei seems far more interested in a world dictated by what the US deems legal or just, and in providing services to pursue those goals, than in benevolent AI, as does OpenAI and, he would argue, basically every AI lab.

  35. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Generative AI isn’t intelligent, but it allows people to pretend that it is, especially when the people selling the software — Altman and Amodei — so regularly overstate what it can do.”

    What we tested: Generative AI is not intelligent, and Altman and Amodei regularly overstate what it can do.

  36. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “None of this would be possible without the consistent repetition of the falsehoods peddled by OpenAI and Anthropic.”

    What we tested: Military reliance on chatbots would not be possible without the falsehoods OpenAI and Anthropic keep repeating about AI.

  37. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Nothing about the military’s use of Claude makes it more useful or powerful than it was before — they’re probably just loading files into it and asking it long questions about things and going “huh” at the end.”

    What we tested: Military use does not make Claude more capable; the military is probably just loading files into it and asking questions.

  38. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “The vulgar dishonesty of Altman and Amodei puts blood on both of their hands, and it’s the duty of every single member of the media to remind people of this whenever you discuss their software.”

    What we tested: Altman and Amodei have blood on their hands because of their dishonesty, and the media should point this out whenever it covers their software.

Held from this post (20)

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