Ed Zitron: There Is No AI Revolution (DAMNING analysis of a house of cards built by con men & venture capitalists) [View all]

[highplainsdem]

This is extremely long, but still well worth reading in its entirety. Zitron analyzes all the info available on AI usage by individuals and businesses, and how much AI companies are spending - and losing - on a myth of the importance of generative AI and LLMs that was spun mostly by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Just a few excerpts below. I hope you'll read the whole thing. Not only is the analysis important, but Zitron is a brilliant writer. His scathing newsletters remind me at times of Harlan Ellison's best rants.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/wheres-the-money/

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Put aside whatever fantastical beliefs you may have about the future and tell me, right now, what business use case exists that justifies burning hundreds of billions of dollars, damaging our power grid, hurting our planet, and stealing from millions of people?

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Do you not see that this kind of sucks? Do you not see that generative AI runs contrary to the basic tenets of what makes science fiction cool? It doesn’t make humans better, it reduces their work to a stagnant, unremarkable slop in every way it can, and reduces the cognition of those who come to rely on it, and it costs hundreds of billions of dollars and a return to fossil fuels for some reason.

It isn’t working. The users aren’t there. The revenue isn’t there. The best time to stop this was two years ago, and the next best time is as soon as humanly possible.

I have said that generative AI is a group delusion in the past, and I repeat that claim today. What you are seeing in the news is not the “success“ of the artificial intelligence industry, but a runaway narrative created by and sustained by Sam Altman and OpenAI.

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