5 ms·

My favorite conspiracy theory is that these projects/blog posts are secretly backed by big-AI tech companies, to offset their staggering losses by convincing ex

by gassi 7mo ago

My favorite conspiracy theory is that these projects/blog posts are secretly backed by big-AI tech companies, to offset their staggering losses by convincing executives to shovel pools of money into AI tools.

nosuchthing 7mo ago
Slop influencers like Peter Steinberger get paid to promote AI vibe coding startups and the agentic token burning hype. Ironically they're so deep into the impulsivity of it all that they can't even hide it. The latest frontier models all continue to suffer from hallucinations and slop at scale. - Factory, unconvinced. Their marketing videos are just too cringe, and any company that tries to get my attentions with free tokens in my DMs reduce my respect for them. If you're that good, you don't need to convince me by giving me free stuff. Additionally, some posts on Twitter about it have this paid influencer smell. If you use claude code tho, you'll feel right at home with the [signature flicker](https://x.com/badlogicgames/status/1977103325192667323). + Factory, unconvinced. Their videos are a bit cringe, I do hear good things in my timeline about it tho, even if images aren't supported (yet) and they have the [signature flicker](https://x.com/badlogicgames/status/1977103325192667323). https://github.com/steipete/steipete.me/commit/725a3cb372bc2483b84cd805b5d1accf3d0013dd https://github.com/steipete/steipete.me/commit/725a3cb372bc2...
coffeefirst 7mo ago
Like this? https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/google-microsoft-pay-creators-500000-and-more-to-promote-ai.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/google-microsoft-pay-creator...
- simonw 7mo ago
  Provided the sponsored content is labelled "sponsored content" this is above board. If it's not labelled it's in violation of FTC regulations, for both the companies and the individuals. [ That said... I'm surprised at this example on LinkedIn that was linked to by the Washington Post - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/meganlieu_claudepartner-activity-7341094842136969216-_2Qs/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/meganlieu_claudepartner-activ... - the only hint it's sponsored content is the #ClaudePartner hashtag at the end, is that enough? Oh wait! There's text under the profile that says "Brand partnership" which I missed, I guess that's the LinkedIn standard for this? Feels a bit weak to me! https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1627083 https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1627083 ]
- pydry 7mo ago
  There's about a hundred new posts on reddit every day that im sure are also paid for from this same pile of cash. It feels like it really started in earnest around october.
  - direwolf20 7mo ago
    It's Reddit — 99% of posts and comments are paid shills for something.
sesm 7mo ago
Secretly? Most blog posts praising coding agents put something like 'I use $200 Claude subscription' in bold in 2nd-3rd paragraph.
zozbot234 7mo ago
Is it really a secret, when Anthropic posted a project of building a C compiler totally from scratch for $20k equivalent token spend, as an official article on their own blog? $20k is quite insane for such a self-contained project, if that's genuinely the amount that these tools require that's literally the best possible argument for running something open and leveraging competitive 3rd party inference.
- smaudet 7mo ago
  An article over, these claims are exaggerated - they have dumped the tinycc compiler, not written one from scratch.
  - simonw 7mo ago
    tinycc wasn't written in Rust.
  - dboreham 7mo ago
    I don't think tinycc can compile the Linux kernel into a bootable image.
    - Calavar 7mo ago
      It could once upon a time: https://www.bellard.org/tcc/tccboot.html https://www.bellard.org/tcc/tccboot.html It can't do that today though. Linux uses C11 features and also many GCC extensions that tcc doesn't implement.
- direwolf20 7mo ago
  If you get paid $120k and could do it in 2 months, seems about right
7777332215 7mo ago
They have to be. And the others writing this stuff likely do not deal with real systems with thousands of customers, a team who needs to get paid, and a reputation to uphold. Fatal errors that cause permanent damage to a business are unacceptable. Designing reliable, stable, and correct systems is already a high level task. When you actually need to write the code for it, it's not a lot and you should write it with precision. When creating novel or differently complex systems, you should (or need to) be doing it yourself anyway.
- flaminHotSpeedo 7mo ago
  I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding where executives mistake software engineering for "code monkey with a fancy inflated title" And coding agents are making that disconnect painfully obvious
- Zakodiac 7mo ago
  [dead]
yoyohello13 7mo ago
I'm also convinced that any post in an AI thread that ends with "What a time to be alive!" is a bot. Seriously, look in any thread and you'll see it.
habinero 7mo ago
I don't think that's really a conspiracy theory lol. As long as you're playing Money Chicken, why not toss some at some influencers to keep driving up the FOMO?
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
anileated 7mo ago
The implication of "you have to have spent $1000 in tokens per engineer, or you have failed" is that you must fire any engineer who works fine by themselves or with other people and who doesn't require LLM crutch (at least if you don't want to be "failed" according to some random guy's opinion). Getting rid of such naysayers is important for the industry.

by gassi 7mo ago

nosuchthing 7mo ago

Slop influencers like Peter Steinberger get paid to promote AI vibe coding startups and the agentic token burning hype. Ironically they're so deep into the impulsivity of it all that they can't even hide it. The latest frontier models all continue to suffer from hallucinations and slop at scale. - Factory, unconvinced. Their marketing videos are just too cringe, and any company that tries to get my attentions with free tokens in my DMs reduce my respect for them. If you're that good, you don't need to convince me by giving me free stuff. Additionally, some posts on Twitter about it have this paid influencer smell. If you use claude code tho, you'll feel right at home with the [signature flicker](https://x.com/badlogicgames/status/1977103325192667323). + Factory, unconvinced. Their videos are a bit cringe, I do hear good things in my timeline about it tho, even if images aren't supported (yet) and they have the [signature flicker](https://x.com/badlogicgames/status/1977103325192667323). https://github.com/steipete/steipete.me/commit/725a3cb372bc2483b84cd805b5d1accf3d0013dd https://github.com/steipete/steipete.me/commit/725a3cb372bc2...

coffeefirst 7mo ago

Like this? https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/google-microsoft-pay-creators-500000-and-more-to-promote-ai.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/google-microsoft-pay-creator...

simonw 7mo ago
Provided the sponsored content is labelled "sponsored content" this is above board. If it's not labelled it's in violation of FTC regulations, for both the companies and the individuals. [ That said... I'm surprised at this example on LinkedIn that was linked to by the Washington Post - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/meganlieu_claudepartner-activity-7341094842136969216-_2Qs/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/meganlieu_claudepartner-activ... - the only hint it's sponsored content is the #ClaudePartner hashtag at the end, is that enough? Oh wait! There's text under the profile that says "Brand partnership" which I missed, I guess that's the LinkedIn standard for this? Feels a bit weak to me! https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1627083 https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1627083 ]
pydry 7mo ago
There's about a hundred new posts on reddit every day that im sure are also paid for from this same pile of cash. It feels like it really started in earnest around october.
- direwolf20 7mo ago
  It's Reddit — 99% of posts and comments are paid shills for something.

sesm 7mo ago

Secretly? Most blog posts praising coding agents put something like 'I use $200 Claude subscription' in bold in 2nd-3rd paragraph.

zozbot234 7mo ago

Is it really a secret, when Anthropic posted a project of building a C compiler totally from scratch for $20k equivalent token spend, as an official article on their own blog? $20k is quite insane for such a self-contained project, if that's genuinely the amount that these tools require that's literally the best possible argument for running something open and leveraging competitive 3rd party inference.

smaudet 7mo ago
An article over, these claims are exaggerated - they have dumped the tinycc compiler, not written one from scratch.
- simonw 7mo ago
  tinycc wasn't written in Rust.
- dboreham 7mo ago
  I don't think tinycc can compile the Linux kernel into a bootable image.
  - Calavar 7mo ago
    It could once upon a time: https://www.bellard.org/tcc/tccboot.html https://www.bellard.org/tcc/tccboot.html It can't do that today though. Linux uses C11 features and also many GCC extensions that tcc doesn't implement.
direwolf20 7mo ago
If you get paid $120k and could do it in 2 months, seems about right

7777332215 7mo ago

They have to be. And the others writing this stuff likely do not deal with real systems with thousands of customers, a team who needs to get paid, and a reputation to uphold. Fatal errors that cause permanent damage to a business are unacceptable. Designing reliable, stable, and correct systems is already a high level task. When you actually need to write the code for it, it's not a lot and you should write it with precision. When creating novel or differently complex systems, you should (or need to) be doing it yourself anyway.

flaminHotSpeedo 7mo ago
I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding where executives mistake software engineering for "code monkey with a fancy inflated title" And coding agents are making that disconnect painfully obvious
Zakodiac 7mo ago
[dead]

yoyohello13 7mo ago

I'm also convinced that any post in an AI thread that ends with "What a time to be alive!" is a bot. Seriously, look in any thread and you'll see it.

habinero 7mo ago

I don't think that's really a conspiracy theory lol. As long as you're playing Money Chicken, why not toss some at some influencers to keep driving up the FOMO?

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

anileated 7mo ago

The implication of "you have to have spent $1000 in tokens per engineer, or you have failed" is that you must fire any engineer who works fine by themselves or with other people and who doesn't require LLM crutch (at least if you don't want to be "failed" according to some random guy's opinion). Getting rid of such naysayers is important for the industry.