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Ed's whole cornerstone thesis is that "AI doesn't work." Like, if I had to sum him up in a short sentence, that's what it'd be that or "Angry but doesn't know

by rrrx3 15d ago

Ed's whole cornerstone thesis is that "AI doesn't work." Like, if I had to sum him up in a short sentence, that's what it'd be that or "Angry but doesn't know much"

yousif_123123 15d ago
I think when cornered, he does say it works for coding and some other tasks. But to be honest it also makes a lot of bugs when writing code. I don't agree with everything he thinks, but I think I agree with him more than I do Sam Altman or Jensen.
- dd8601fn 14d ago
  I’d be interested in a real accounting of what he said, rather than what people say they’ve heard. If he says AI is changing work in some places but not-at-all in most… that’s defensible. Or at least we can look at that. Did he say it about the llm offerings from one or two providers or about (broad gesture) all AI efforts, everywhere? Etc. Certainly it’s changing sw development work. It’s less clear, most everywhere else.
DrewADesign 15d ago
No, the cornerstones of his thesis are: - LLM’s potential and capability are dramatically overstated - Business leaders are either driven by the Emperor’s New Clothes effect, or the legitimate fear of stock price or valuation drops, to admit it. - The amount of money being dumped into this industry will never pay off. He’s snide and condescending, to the detriment of his message. I can completely understand why people aren’t interested in listening to him. However, straw-manning his stances by oversimplifying or flat-out making uninformed assumptions about them isn’t a useful response to what he’s saying. Frankly, this industry squirts out enough bullshit to smother an active volcano every single day. If you think Ed isn’t credible, I sure hope you dismiss the industry leaders just as readily.
- JumpCrisscross 15d ago
  Zitron’s superpower is to get reasonable people like you to turn his bullshit into prose. He’s a scam artist. So is Altman. The correct answer is to not listen to either one, at least not on a regular basis and certainly not as a source of truth. > straw-manning his stances by oversimplifying He literally lies about numbers. The spreadsheet errors the article describes are either gross negligence or simple evidence of lying.
- Analemma_ 15d ago
  > No, the cornerstones of his thesis are: [...] The amount of money being dumped into this industry will never pay off. That has only been a cornerstone of his thesis for the last 10 months or so, once Claude Code and Codex began making gobs of revenue. Before that the cornerstone of his thesis was "nobody will ever pay for AI" and then he silently pivoted, without acknowledging any error, once it was clear that was not true. This is what bugs people about Zitron and why people aren't listening to him. He's has repeatedly been proven wrong, and every time it happens he just silently moves the goalposts and never admits any mistakes. It's fine-- actually, correct-- to write someone off once it's clear that every time they get disproven they'll just move to a new thesis instead of reflecting on what went wrong and what assumptions might be fundamentally incorrect about their thinking.
  - DrewADesign 14d ago
    Do you know anyone whose understanding of the LLM business has remained static for the past 10 months? Would it be a positive trait?
    - bdangubic 14d ago
      if you amass 115k subscribers by basically being wrong along the way just about everything and the shift as to "not remain static" and then continue to be full of shit, that is one thing - another things is going from "hm, what a great toy this is" to "holy shit, I can take on 4 contracts at the same time and run 25 terminals of CC is parallel" :)
    - 14d ago

by rrrx3 15d ago

Ed's whole cornerstone thesis is that "AI doesn't work." Like, if I had to sum him up in a short sentence, that's what it'd be that or "Angry but doesn't know much"

yousif_123123 15d ago

I think when cornered, he does say it works for coding and some other tasks. But to be honest it also makes a lot of bugs when writing code. I don't agree with everything he thinks, but I think I agree with him more than I do Sam Altman or Jensen.

dd8601fn 14d ago
I’d be interested in a real accounting of what he said, rather than what people say they’ve heard. If he says AI is changing work in some places but not-at-all in most… that’s defensible. Or at least we can look at that. Did he say it about the llm offerings from one or two providers or about (broad gesture) all AI efforts, everywhere? Etc. Certainly it’s changing sw development work. It’s less clear, most everywhere else.

DrewADesign 15d ago

No, the cornerstones of his thesis are: - LLM’s potential and capability are dramatically overstated - Business leaders are either driven by the Emperor’s New Clothes effect, or the legitimate fear of stock price or valuation drops, to admit it. - The amount of money being dumped into this industry will never pay off. He’s snide and condescending, to the detriment of his message. I can completely understand why people aren’t interested in listening to him. However, straw-manning his stances by oversimplifying or flat-out making uninformed assumptions about them isn’t a useful response to what he’s saying. Frankly, this industry squirts out enough bullshit to smother an active volcano every single day. If you think Ed isn’t credible, I sure hope you dismiss the industry leaders just as readily.

JumpCrisscross 15d ago
Zitron’s superpower is to get reasonable people like you to turn his bullshit into prose. He’s a scam artist. So is Altman. The correct answer is to not listen to either one, at least not on a regular basis and certainly not as a source of truth. > straw-manning his stances by oversimplifying He literally lies about numbers. The spreadsheet errors the article describes are either gross negligence or simple evidence of lying.
Analemma_ 15d ago
> No, the cornerstones of his thesis are: [...] The amount of money being dumped into this industry will never pay off. That has only been a cornerstone of his thesis for the last 10 months or so, once Claude Code and Codex began making gobs of revenue. Before that the cornerstone of his thesis was "nobody will ever pay for AI" and then he silently pivoted, without acknowledging any error, once it was clear that was not true. This is what bugs people about Zitron and why people aren't listening to him. He's has repeatedly been proven wrong, and every time it happens he just silently moves the goalposts and never admits any mistakes. It's fine-- actually, correct-- to write someone off once it's clear that every time they get disproven they'll just move to a new thesis instead of reflecting on what went wrong and what assumptions might be fundamentally incorrect about their thinking.
- DrewADesign 14d ago
  Do you know anyone whose understanding of the LLM business has remained static for the past 10 months? Would it be a positive trait?
  - bdangubic 14d ago
    if you amass 115k subscribers by basically being wrong along the way just about everything and the shift as to "not remain static" and then continue to be full of shit, that is one thing - another things is going from "hm, what a great toy this is" to "holy shit, I can take on 4 contracts at the same time and run 25 terminals of CC is parallel" :)
  - 14d ago