I refuse to sit here and pretend that any of this matters. OpenAI and Anthropic are not innovators, and are antithetical to the spirit of Silicon Valley. They are management consultants dressed as founders, cynical con artists raising money for products that will never exist while peddling software that destroys our planet and diverts attention and capital away from things that might solve real problems.
I’m tired of the delusion. I’m tired of being forced to take these men seriously. I’m tired of being told by the media and investors that these men are building the future when the only things they build are mediocre and expensive. There is no joy here, no mystery, no magic, no problems solved, no lives saved, and very few lives changed other than new people added to Forbes’ Midas list.
None of this is powerful, or impressive, other than in how big a con it’s become. Look at the products and the actual outputs and tell me — does any of this actually feel like the future? Isn’t it kind of weird that the big, scary threats they’ve made about how AI will take our jobs never seem to translate to an actual product? Isn’t it strange that despite all of their money and power they’re yet to make anything truly useful?
My heart darkens, albeit briefly, when I think of how cynical all of this is. Corporations building products that don’t really do much that are being sold on the idea that one day they might, peddled by reporters that want to believe their narratives — and in some cases actively champion them. The damage will be tens of thousands of people fired, long-term environmental and infrastructural chaos, and a profound depression in Silicon Valley that I believe will dwarf the dot-com bust.
And when this all falls apart — and I believe it will — there will be a very public reckoning for the tech industry.
The author seems to think that OpenAI having an unsustainable business model means generative AI is a con. Generative AI doesn’t mean OpenAI 🤦♂️ There is a good chance that the VC funds invested in OpenAI will have evaporated in 5 years. But generative AI will exist in 5 years, it will be orders of magnitude more useful, and it will help solve many problems.
The level of user sophistication required to use modern “Ai” in a productive useful way puts it squarely beyond the reach of the masses. Alphafold is fucking awesome, chatGPT O3 is nothing but a gimmick.
100% and like any tool, it can be used poorly resulting in AI bit rot, bugs, unmaintainable code, etc. But when used well, given appropriate context, by users that know what good solutions looks like, it can increase developer efficiency.
And will make many jobs redundant.
It will. So has just about every other major technical development ever. Eventually those lost jobs should be replaced by even more jobs made possible by the new technology, but in the meantime it will suck.
Thats how you know its not just a gimmick. How many jobs did blockchain replace? Just about zero. How many jobs did computers or the Internet or the mechanical loom or the freaking steam engine replace? Tons.
except genAI has proven no purpose. this is like saying “look at how many jobs bankers replaced! we just used to eat for free, now we have to work our entire lives for it or starve!”
Im pretty sure most of us already have to work our whole lives or starve.
great, now enjoy that 10 times worse when genAI is used to make skeleton crews an even bigger issue and increase worker exploitation
Generative AI has spawned an awful amount of AI slop and companies are forcing incomplete products on users. But don’t judge the technology by shitty implementations. There are loads of use cases where when used correctly, generative AI brings value. For example, in document discovery in legal proceedings.