Claims that can’t be checked, page 1 of 37
Claims by Gary Marcus and Ed Zitron. Deadlines are judged as of 2026-10-29.
Claims that can’t be checked (3643)
Public evidence cannot settle these claims, so they are recorded and attributed, not scored. Most were screened out: both AI providers read the claim on its own and found it a value judgment, rhetoric, hedged, too vague to test, or about something no public evidence could show. The rest were found to be recommendations or too open to test in a full review.
Page 1 of 37: claims 1 to 100 of 3643, ordered by the date first said, newest first. To find a claim by its words, use search.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“The gaps in this S-1 filing are seemingly custom-built to obfuscate any ability to try and work out anything about its future.”
Our reading: The omissions in Anthropic's S-1 appear designed to obscure its future prospects.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“In other words, the Anthropic of Q2 2026 — the so-called “profitable,” compute-light firm that’s got boosters hot under the collar — is a moment in time specifically chosen so that people come away with a vision of a very, very different company to the one they’d be investing in.”
Our reading: Anthropic deliberately chose Q2 2026 to present a misleadingly favorable picture of the company.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“I should also be clear, as I discussed two weeks ago in my premium newsletter, that the only objective of this IPO is to dump Anthropic onto the public markets.”
Our reading: The sole objective of Anthropic's IPO is to dump the company onto public markets.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“That’s an abominable interest rate you take only when you’re convinced that the money is running out.”
Our reading: An interest rate as high as the up-to-8.75% on parts of Musk's chip debt is an abominable rate that a borrower takes only when convinced the money is running out.
No horizon
Qualifier: only when
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“In other words, while everybody in tech and AI is telling you to buy now and get in on the ground floor, their actual actions suggest an unwillingness to stick around and find out what might happen next.”
Our reading: While everybody in tech and AI is telling people to buy now and get in on the ground floor, their actual actions suggest an unwillingness to stick around and find out what happens next.
No horizon
Qualifier: suggest
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“Is there a version of Anthropic that could be truly economically viable? It’s unlikely given that so much of its revenue is dependent on venture capital.”
Our reading: Anthropic is unlikely to be truly economically viable because so much of its revenue depends on venture capital.
No horizon
Qualifier: revenue dependent on venture capital
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“With the vast majority of its revenue coming from venture backed startups, it’s reasonable to question whether there’s fundamental demand for AI writ large”
Our reading: With the vast majority of Anthropic's revenue coming from venture-backed startups, it is reasonable to question whether there is fundamental demand for AI, and the 'it's just the early days' defense is laughable for a company with nearly half a trillion dollars in commitments that claims a $30 trillion addressable market.
No horizon
Qualifier: vast majority of its revenue from venture-backed startups
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“And it’s clear that Anthropic offered temporary discounts to pump its revenues through IPO, only to discontinue them unless the startup committed to spending more on the platform through tactics I’d describe as a little brutal:”
Our reading: Anthropic offered temporary discounts to inflate revenue through its IPO, then withdrew them unless customers committed to more spend.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“And I imagine the reason Anthropic is doing so is that it realizes it’s bitten off more than it can chew with its compute commitments.”
Our reading: He imagines Anthropic is pressing customers for minimum spends because it realizes it has bitten off more than it can chew with its compute commitments.
No horizon
Qualifier: I imagine
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“While some of this is fairly standard, the sheer speed at which insiders and shareholders can exit this company is remarkable, purpose-built to allow insiders to use retail investors to financialize their early bets in a company that’s been drained of any opportunity or value.”
Our reading: Anthropic's lock-up schedule is designed to let insiders exit quickly by selling to retail investors.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Anthropic was smart enough to realize that post-IPO fundraising would be difficult, and chose to fill its boots at the height of its hype, with $65 billion or so coming in at the height of its valuation without any of the messiness of a public at-the-market offering.”
Our reading: Anthropic possibly raised about $65B pre-IPO at peak valuation because it foresaw post-IPO fundraising would be hard.
No horizon
Qualifier: one of two possible reasons
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“While Tan had to pay an indeterminately-higher interest rate on the deal, his urgency tells me that he’s well aware that the party is winding down and he needs to get as much money out of the system as possible.”
Our reading: Hock Tan's urgency over the Broadcom debt deal tells the author that Tan is well aware the party is winding down and that he needs to get as much money out of the system as possible.
No horizon
Qualifier: tells me
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“You see, this was an opportunistically-timed S-1, as the vast majority of Anthropic’s big compute contracts only got started in or around Q2 2026, with $224.5 billion in non-cancellable agreements with Amazon and Google starting in April and May.”
Our reading: Anthropic's S-1 was timed opportunistically because most of its big compute contracts only started around Q2 2026.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“The era of token-maxxing — when companies like Meta incentivized their employees to burn as many tokens as possible, only to pull back after costs skyrocketed — ended somewhere in Q2 or Q3 2026, which is why Anthropic is so keen to push this company out the door”
Our reading: Enterprise token-maxxing ended around Q2–Q3 2026, and that is why Anthropic is rushing to IPO before investors learn about its latest quarter.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“The fact that Anthropic doesn’t include the exact breakdowns is an insult to basically every investor putting money in this IPO.”
Our reading: Anthropic's failure to include exact breakdowns of its compute commitments is an insult to basically every investor putting money into its IPO.
No horizon
Scope: basically every investor
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“other than Anthropic’s IPO, which I believe is an egregious swindle of retail investors”
Our reading: He believes Anthropic's IPO is an egregious swindle of retail investors.
No horizon
Qualifier: I believe
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“Sidenote: Should Anthropic debut at $1.4 trillion, it would no doubt be a massive disappointment for those that invested when the company was targeting a paper valuation of $960 billion.”
Our reading: If Anthropic debuts at $1.4 trillion, it would no doubt be a massive disappointment for those who invested when the company was targeting a $960 billion paper valuation.
No horizon
Only if: if Anthropic debuts at $1.4 trillion
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“We’re In A Bubble, And The Longer It Goes On, The Worse It Gets”
Our reading: AI is a bubble, and the longer it lasts, the worse the damage will be.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“I’m going to be a little more brutal, as I believe that Anthropic is intentionally misleading investors at a scale unseen in the history of IPOs.”
Our reading: Anthropic is intentionally misleading IPO investors at an unprecedented scale.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“At some point the money runs out — the funds behind the venture-backed customers of OpenAI and Anthropic, the debt underlying AI data centers, and the willingness of investors to tolerate endless quarters of eleven-digit capital expenditures — and once it does, everything I’ve been saying will become consensus.”
Our reading: Eventually the money funding AI (VC for customers, data-center debt, investor tolerance of capex) will run out, and his skeptical view will then become consensus.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Anthropic signed those deals to help boost the neoclouds’ IPOs, the capacity doesn’t currently exist, and building it will require debt from a market that, if you believe Elon Musk, has stopped lending money.”
Our reading: Anthropic signed its Nscale and Lambda deals to help boost those neoclouds' IPOs; the capacity doesn't currently exist, and building it will require debt from a market that, if you believe Elon Musk, has stopped lending money.
No horizon
Qualifier: if you believe Elon Musk
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“And that’s because this entire industry is sold with a genuine contempt for the end customer or investor.”
Our reading: The AI industry is sold with genuine contempt for end customers and investors.
No horizon
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“Yet if we (sigh) annualize Anthropic’s Q3 2026 compute spend, this means that Anthropic is likely on the hook to nearly double how much it’s spending on chip rentals at precisely the moment it’s slowing down.”
Our reading: Anthropic is likely committed to nearly doubling its chip-rental spending just as its growth slows.
No horizon
Qualifier: annualizing Q3 2026 compute spend
Source: Exit Liquidity
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Rhetoric
“Buckle up! Turbulence ahead.”
Our reading: Turbulent times lie ahead regarding generative AI.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“And I certainly have friends who have gotten a lot out of generative AI (mainly for coding), but at this point it’s not hard to make the argument that it has on the whole been a net detriment to society.”
Our reading: At this point it is not hard to make the argument that generative AI has on the whole been a net detriment to society, although some of his friends have gotten a lot out of it, mainly for coding.
No horizon
Scope: at this point
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“And there is still the chance it will pull down the entire economy.”
Our reading: Generative AI may pull down the entire economy.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Right now, the negative argument against generative AI—the ledger of bad things—is quite serious.”
Our reading: Right now (October 2026), the case against generative AI, the ledger of its harms, is quite serious.
No horizon
Scope: right now
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Clearly, regulatory efforts should not be focused solely on the frontier, nor solely focused on concerns about what future models might do.”
Our reading: AI regulation should not focus only on frontier models or only on risks from future models.
No horizon
Source: Breaking news: U.S. banks are taking hits from AI agents
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“No matter how much chaos generative AI causes, the AI industry will not take real responsibility”
Our reading: However much chaos generative AI causes, the AI industry will not take real responsibility.
No horizon
Qualifier: no matter how much chaos generative AI causes
Source: Breaking news: U.S. banks are taking hits from AI agents
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Rhetoric
“Well, here we are.”
Our reading: He suggests that the situation he warned about has now arrived, without saying which of his predictions have come true.
No horizon
Source: Breaking news: U.S. banks are taking hits from AI agents
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Conditional forecast
“Even if we were to stop the development of future frontier models, we would still face serious problems from the misuse of existing models.”
Our reading: Even if development of future frontier models stopped, misuse of existing models would still cause serious problems.
No horizon
Only if: even if development of future frontier models were stopped
Source: Breaking news: U.S. banks are taking hits from AI agents
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Ignoring all that entirely in favor of speculative futures would be a mistake.”
Our reading: Regulators should not ignore current AI harms in favor of speculative future risks.
No horizon
Source: Breaking news: U.S. banks are taking hits from AI agents
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“On October 11, there were attacks on refrigeration systems in France that may have been facilitated by agents.”
Our reading: AI agents may have facilitated the October 11, 2026 attacks on refrigeration systems in France.
No horizon
Source: Breaking news: U.S. banks are taking hits from AI agents
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“Things will get worse.”
Our reading: Things will get worse.
No horizon
Scope: referent of 'things' unspecified; stated in the context of chaos caused by generative AI
Source: Breaking news: U.S. banks are taking hits from AI agents
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“At this point, the sheer scale of the AI bubble is too large and unwieldy for things, to quote Mr. Slok, “work out,” and yes, I believe we “have a problem.””
Our reading: The AI bubble is too large and unwieldy for things to 'work out,' and Zitron believes 'we have a problem.'
No horizon
Qualifier: I believe
Source: AI Had Better Work Out
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“The US government cannot bail out NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, CoreWeave or Meta’s future misses of analyst expectations, nor can it cover every single bankrupt data center, nor can it bail out investor sentiment when it realizes the AI “boom” was yet another tech-based bust.”
Our reading: The US government cannot bail out future misses of analyst expectations by NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, CoreWeave or Meta, cannot cover every single bankrupt data center, and cannot bail out investor sentiment once investors realise the AI boom was another tech bust.
No horizon
Scope: every single bankrupt data center
Source: AI Had Better Work Out
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“However you might hand-wave away the AI bubble’s economic issues by saying it’s “just like the Dot-Com Bubble” — when the NASDAQ 100 fell 77% from its peak — the consequences are now global, at a scale unseen in history, flowing into both direct stocks and indices.”
Our reading: The consequences of the AI bubble are global and at a scale unseen in history, larger than the Dot-Com Bubble.
No horizon
Source: AI Had Better Work Out
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Everything is more annoying, expensive and worse on some level because of generative AI, down to the price of fucking US treasuries.”
Our reading: Generative AI has made everything more annoying, expensive and worse, including US Treasury prices.
No horizon
Source: AI Had Better Work Out
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“It appears that NVIDIA is channel stuffing.”
Our reading: NVIDIA appears to be channel stuffing by pushing customers to take early delivery of GPUs.
No horizon
Source: AI Had Better Work Out
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“Every problem that burst the Dot-Com Bubble is here, but it’s worse, bigger and uglier, with global contagion risk that I basically never see discussed.”
Our reading: The AI bubble has every problem that burst the Dot-Com Bubble, in worse and bigger form, with global contagion risk.
No horizon
Source: AI Had Better Work Out
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“This is extremely bad and extremely important to resolve.”
Our reading: The lack of knowledge about AI companies' financial condition is very bad and should be resolved.
No horizon
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Most coverage of AI lives in its own bubble where nothing bad has happened or could happen, and that every promise will come true.”
Our reading: Most AI coverage lives in its own bubble in which nothing bad has happened or could happen and every promise will come true.
No horizon
Scope: most coverage of AI
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Investors are fucking stupid for using it.”
Our reading: Investors are stupid for using annualized run rates.
No horizon
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“The entire AI bubble is inflated based on stupid, made up numbers that only exist to pump the bags of investors and make the AI startups look more successful than they are.”
Our reading: The entire AI bubble is inflated based on made-up numbers that exist only to pump investors' holdings and make AI startups look more successful than they are.
No horizon
Scope: the entire AI bubble
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“The problem — and the reason I’d argue that the actual revenues of these companies are so shrouded in secrecy — is that the underlying economics do not match up when you consider that effectively every AI startup has to resell tokens at a discount.”
Our reading: AI startups' revenues are kept secret because effectively every one must resell tokens at a discount, so the economics do not work.
No horizon
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“We are basing the vast majority of words written and billions invested in the AI bubble on assumptions built on assumptions built on assumptions, several of which fall apart when you ask simple questions like “how does that work?” or “how did you get that number?””
Our reading: The vast majority of words written and billions invested in the AI bubble rest on stacked assumptions, several of which fall apart when you ask simple questions such as how something works or how a number was derived.
No horizon
Scope: several of which
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“The AI bubble is inflated by bullshit numbers peddled by the ignorant, craven or easily-led. Your ability to distinguish between which of them you’re talking to is critical to not losing your shirt.”
Our reading: The AI bubble is inflated by bogus numbers pushed by the ignorant, the craven or the easily led, and being able to tell which of these you are talking to is critical to avoiding heavy losses.
No horizon
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“I must also say how utterly disappointed I was to see how Bloomberg credulously reported that OpenAI “expected to hit $70 billion in annualized revenue by end of 2026,” a transparent attempt to send the markets back up with a story that tells the world less than nothing.”
Our reading: OpenAI's projection of $70 billion annualized revenue by end of 2026, credulously reported by Bloomberg, was a transparent attempt to lift markets and conveys no information.
No horizon
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“The obfuscation of the actual underlying financial of these companies is intentional, because it makes it harder to do the kinds of comparisons I’ve done today,”
Our reading: The obscuring of AI startups' actual underlying financials is intentional, because it makes the kinds of comparisons he made in the post harder to do.
No horizon
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“There is absolutely no value in using “annualized run rates” for anyone other than the company and its investors, and the fact that modern tech and business journalism continues to accept it for what are meant to be the largest and most-important companies in the world is a sign that something is very wrong with how we cover the tech industry.”
Our reading: Annualized run rates have absolutely no value for anyone other than the company and its investors, and tech and business journalism's continued acceptance of them for the largest companies is a sign that something is very wrong with tech coverage.
No horizon
Scope: for anyone other than the company and its investors
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Causal claim
“Let’s be clear about something: the reason we’re not getting these numbers is that these companies are not actually making these amounts on an annual basis.”
Our reading: AI startups withhold real revenue figures because they do not actually earn their claimed annualized amounts.
No horizon
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“Reporting “run rates” is a marketing exercise, and if you disagree, please answer me the following: what does a “$65 billion annualized run rate” tell you about Anthropic, exactly?”
Our reading: Reporting run rates, such as Anthropic's '$65 billion annualized run rate', is a marketing exercise.
No horizon
Source: Annualized Enron Rate
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Until they can be fixed, they should be removed from the market, just like a car with defective brakes.”
Our reading: The current generation of AI agents should be removed from the market until they can be fixed.
No horizon Evidence as of
Limitation: The factual premise, that current agents 'simply cannot be trusted', and the report of an incident at Anthropic are separate statements and are not assessed here.
Source: We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Until they can be fixed, they should be removed from the market, just like a car with defective brakes.”
Our reading: Current AI agents should be removed from the market until they can be fixed.
No horizon
Qualifier: until they can be fixed
Source: We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“It’s well past the point at which they should be imposing a temporary recall on an obviously dangerous technology.”
Our reading: The administration should already have imposed a temporary recall on open-ended AI agents, which are obviously dangerous.
No horizon
Source: We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Each day the administration fails to take stronger action is a mistake, inviting worse problems.”
Our reading: Each day the administration fails to take stronger action is a mistake, inviting worse problems.
No horizon
Source: We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“The Trump administration’s anemic request for more disclosure is not enough, akin to blandly asking criminals to file monthly reports regarding which crimes they have committed.”
Our reading: The Trump administration's anemic request for more disclosure is not enough, much like blandly asking criminals to file monthly reports on their crimes.
No horizon
Source: We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“I have long felt that OpenAI is handling this inadequately.”
Our reading: Marcus has long felt that OpenAI is handling "this" (apparently the agent-caused incidents) inadequately.
No horizon
Qualifier: I have long felt
Source: We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“only furthers my sense that these companies are in wildly over their heads:”
Our reading: Marcus's sense is that these AI companies, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, are wildly in over their heads.
No horizon
Qualifier: my sense
Source: We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Seeing the same kind of incidents at Anthropic makes it absolutely clear that the current generation of synthetic agents simply cannot be trusted.”
Our reading: The current generation of AI agents cannot be trusted, as shown by incidents at both OpenAI and Anthropic.
No horizon
Source: We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“AI once tried to be a science. Now we get stuff like the completely vague report from OpenAI below:”
Our reading: AI used to try to be a science, but OpenAI's report on its math results is completely vague.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“The new system could be a legitimate step toward AGI. Or it could just be a clever leveraging of Lean and synthetic data in a verifiable domain with no generality whatsoever.”
Our reading: OpenAI's new math system could be a real step toward AGI, or it could be a clever use of Lean and synthetic data in a verifiable domain with no generality at all.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“This all makes pontifications that data center spending will increase to $32 trillion by 2050 equal parts stupid and wasteful, on top of the overall problem that there isn’t even enough demand right now for hyperscalers to break even on their 2026 and 2027 capex plans.”
Our reading: Pontifications that data center spending will increase to $32 trillion by 2050 are equal parts stupid and wasteful.
No horizon
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“Anthropic and OpenAI Should Not Be Allowed To Go Public, and Allowing Them To Do So Actively Harms Investors”
Our reading: OpenAI and Anthropic should not be allowed to go public because doing so harms investors.
No horizon
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“I’ll add that if this happens, it will be a catastrophic failure of regulation and ratings agencies at a level unseen in the equities markets.”
Our reading: If OpenAI or Anthropic get an investment-grade rating, it will be a catastrophic failure of regulation and ratings agencies at a level unseen in the equities markets.
No horizon
Only if: if OpenAI or Anthropic get an investment-grade rating
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“In other words, stop making these comparisons, they are not accurate.”
Our reading: People should stop comparing OpenAI and Anthropic to Amazon and Uber at their IPOs, because those comparisons are not accurate.
No horizon
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“It’s hard to gauge this based on the unknowns of its trading volume, but if I had to guess, there’s maybe $20 billion in annual share sales it could do.”
Our reading: At a $2 trillion valuation with a roughly 5% float, Anthropic could maybe do about $20 billion in annual share sales, as a tentative guess given unknown trading volume.
No horizon
Only if: at a $2 trillion valuation
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“This means that it’s unlikely that we’ll have a “booming open source AI market” in the end, and at best we’ll have some sort of handicapped Google monstrosity, though even that seems less likely based on the fallout I fear.”
Our reading: Once the AI bubble bursts, a booming open-source AI market is unlikely; at best there will be some sort of handicapped Google monstrosity, though even that seems less likely given the fallout he fears.
No horizon
Only if: once the AI bubble bursts
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“OpenAI and Anthropic represent 80%+ of all compute demand, and their customers — unprofitable venture-backed AI startups — make up 80% of their enterprise revenues, which means they’re likely to die before OpenAI and Anthropic.”
Our reading: OpenAI and Anthropic account for 80%+ of compute demand, and their startup customers (80% of enterprise revenue) are likely to die before them.
No horizon
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“I’m not sure venture capital — or anyone covering venture capital — has actually conceptualized how significant the losses may be, because I can see a world where virtually every AI investment goes to zero at a time when venture capital is facing an historic losing streak.”
Our reading: Virtually every AI venture investment could go to zero.
No horizon
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Recommendation or value judgment
“I’ll add that the only thing worse than allowing them to go public will be to allow them to raise debt at anything other than the junkiest levels that the market has to offer.”
Our reading: OpenAI and Anthropic should not be allowed to raise debt at anything but the junkiest levels.
No horizon
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Even if you think AI is the most wonderful, beautiful software tool ever imagined, there is no rational basis under which you can look at the current economic picture and say that everything will be fine.”
Our reading: There is no rational basis for believing the AI industry's economics will turn out fine.
No horizon
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“With most of the demand for AI driven by endless media and peer pressure, once the AI bubble bursts, the “demand” for AI services will be entirely driven by utility…and considering most services lose money even during the hype cycle, it’s hard to see what post-bubble economy even exists.”
Our reading: Most AI demand is driven by hype; once the bubble bursts, demand will depend only on utility and little post-bubble AI economy may exist.
No horizon
Only if: once the AI bubble bursts
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“It’s time to talk about why that’s very, very unlikely.”
Our reading: It is very unlikely that OpenAI and Anthropic will go public, grow forever, raise whatever debt they need, and that every data center investment works out fine.
No horizon
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“The fact we can’t cleanly answer this question as hundreds of billions of dollars get sunk into AI data centers may be the most glaring miss in the history of finance.”
Our reading: The fact that we can't cleanly answer who will pay for AI services, as hundreds of billions of dollars are sunk into AI data centers, may be the most glaring miss in the history of finance.
No horizon
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“In any case, if either gets an investment-grade rating, it’s likely that a hyperscaler has stepped up and guaranteed some or all of the debt, but in doing so, they’d likely sacrifice part of their own credit rating in the process.”
Our reading: If OpenAI or Anthropic gets an investment-grade rating, a hyperscaler has likely guaranteed the debt and would likely sacrifice part of its own credit rating.
No horizon
Only if: if either gets an investment-grade rating
Source: Credit Crunch
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Conditional forecast
“It would protect New York’s Citizens from some of the harms from AI, and could allow New York to be a global leader, much as California has been a global leader around clean energy standards.”
Our reading: If passed, NYC's third-party validation bill would protect New Yorkers from some AI harms and could make New York a global leader on AI regulation.
No horizon
Only if: if the third party validation bill is passed
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Conditional forecast
“In sum by protecting whistleblowers, and demanding independent validation of new AI models, New York City can help lead the way to a positive, rather than negative, AI future.”
Our reading: If NYC protects whistleblowers and demands independent validation of new AI models, it can help lead toward a positive AI future.
No horizon
Only if: protecting whistleblowers
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“AI developers should be obligated to demonstrate that the benefits for their new products outweigh the risks — and not have market access otherwise.”
Our reading: AI developers should have to show their new products' benefits outweigh their risks, and should be denied market access if they cannot.
No horizon
Qualifier: no market access otherwise
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“In the strongest possible terms, I urge council to support this bill.”
Our reading: The NYC City Council should support the bill on third-party validation of AI.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Forecast
“I rather doubt that human extinction is imminent, despite all the headlines”
Our reading: Human extinction from AI is unlikely to be imminent.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Rhetoric
“Without strong protections from whistleblowing, like New York City is considering, we are all in trouble.”
Our reading: Without strong whistleblower protections like those New York City is considering, we are all in trouble.
No horizon
Qualifier: without strong protections for whistleblowers like those New York City is considering
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Finally, events of recent days suggest OpenAI may have fired employees who were whistleblowing.”
Our reading: Recent events suggest OpenAI may have fired employees who were whistleblowing.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“What we need, above all else, is an FDA-like regulatory regime for AI, in which AI developers bring their software to independent review, much as drug manufacturers bring their new drugs to the FDA for a review.”
Our reading: The top priority should be an FDA-like regulatory regime in which AI developers submit their software for independent review.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Contemporary AI is like a bull in a china shop, powerful and impressive, but difficult to control.”
Our reading: Contemporary AI is powerful and impressive but difficult to control.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Conditional forecast
“The consequences of letting them run free of serious regulation could be literally disastrous.”
Our reading: Leaving OpenAI free of serious regulation could have disastrous consequences.
No horizon
Only if: if OpenAI is left free of serious regulation
Source: BREAKING: OpenAI was warned, months before the Hugging Face incident
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Management should be replaced, and if the board does nothing (which I assume it will not), it should be held liable for allowing this mess to proceed.”
Our reading: OpenAI's management should be replaced, and if the board does nothing it should be held liable for allowing the security failures.
No horizon
Qualifier: board liability if the board does nothing
Source: BREAKING: OpenAI was warned, months before the Hugging Face incident
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Observation
“Altman probably never told him how much warning he got, or how bad things were. Huang should not have trusted him.”
Our reading: Altman probably never told Jensen Huang how much warning Altman himself got or how bad things were, and Huang should not have trusted Altman.
No horizon
Qualifier: probably
Source: BREAKING: OpenAI was warned, months before the Hugging Face incident
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Media should be asking Huang some very hard questions about why he stood up for these companies and what he knew and when — and why we should trust his judgment going forward.”
Our reading: The media should press Jensen Huang on why he defended AI companies, what he knew, and why his judgment should be trusted.
No horizon
Source: BREAKING: OpenAI was warned, months before the Hugging Face incident
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“We have to stop pretending that the folks at OpenAI are good stewards of the technology they are developing.”
Our reading: We have to stop pretending that the folks at OpenAI are good stewards of the technology they are developing, because they plainly are not.
No horizon
Scope: the folks at OpenAI
Source: BREAKING: OpenAI was warned, months before the Hugging Face incident
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“Most importantly, it’s abundantly clear that we simply cannot trust OpenAI.”
Our reading: It is abundantly clear that we simply cannot trust OpenAI.
No horizon
Qualifier: abundantly clear
Source: BREAKING: OpenAI was warned, months before the Hugging Face incident
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Recommendation or value judgment
“His proposal to leave things to the companies clearly makes little sense in light of reality.”
Our reading: Jensen Huang's proposal to leave AI safety to the companies makes little sense given the evidence.
No horizon
Source: BREAKING: OpenAI was warned, months before the Hugging Face incident
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Gary Marcus Rhetoric
“We agree not be regulated”
Our reading: Read between the lines, the White House Accord means the signing AI companies agree not to be regulated.
No horizon
Qualifier: reading the Accord between the lines
Source: Hot take on a weak White House Accord on “Super Intelligence”
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Rhetoric
“Anthropic is not the future of technology, nor is it the next Google, nor is it the next Microsoft, nor is it, to quote Reuters, capable of “[transforming] the global economy more profoundly than industrialization, electricity and the internet.””
Our reading: Anthropic is not the future of technology, not the next Google or Microsoft, and not capable of transforming the global economy more profoundly than industrialization, electricity and the internet.
No horizon
Source: Dead Money
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“As Oracle sits exactly one rung above junk — and its debt trades at junk rates (meaning that the markets buy and sell it as if the yields were junk (an average of 7.8%) — it would likely see its debt priced at around 25-50bps more than what we’ve seen here.”
Our reading: Because Oracle sits one rung above junk and its debt trades at junk rates, it would likely see new debt priced around 25–50bps above the flat repricing estimate.
No horizon
Only if: if Oracle issued this debt today
Source: Dead Money
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“Every single day — even on the weekends — someone asks me either how or when all of this breaks, and my answer is simple: when the money runs out.”
Our reading: The AI bubble will break when the money runs out.
No horizon
Only if: when the money runs out
Source: Dead Money
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Conditional forecast
“And if Oracle raises more debt, it runs the risk that two ratings agencies could downgrade it to “junk,” immediately forcing investment funds and indices that cannot hold junk debt to dump it, turning it into a “fallen angel” (as I covered a few months ago).”
Our reading: If Oracle raises more debt, it could be downgraded to junk by two agencies, forcing funds to dump its bonds.
No horizon
Only if: if Oracle raises more debt
Source: Dead Money
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Observation
“In fact, I’d argue that the last year and a half’s worth of AI capex is fundamentally speculative, because there has never been any proof — even with Anthropic and OpenAI’s compute spend — that spending a trillion or more dollars on GPUs and data centers would ever pay off.”
Our reading: The last 18 months of AI capex is fundamentally speculative because there was never proof that trillion-dollar GPU and data center spending would pay off.
No horizon
Qualifier: last year and a half
Source: Dead Money
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“Even then, at the end of the five year period, we’ll theoretically have multiple new generations of NVIDIA GPUs (Vera Rubin and Feynman), which will further suppress the ongoing rates that your data center earns”
Our reading: At the end of the five-year period there will theoretically be multiple new NVIDIA GPU generations (Vera Rubin and Feynman), which will further suppress the ongoing rates a data center earns.
No horizon
Qualifier: theoretically
Source: Dead Money
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Ed Zitron Forecast
“Said customers are brittle, unprofitable and unsustainable, with the very real risk that they simply won’t exist by the time construction is complete.”
Our reading: AI data center customers are brittle and unprofitable, and may not exist by the time construction is complete.
No horizon
Source: Dead Money