alt Hacker NewsOne thing I’m observing in these comments is a willingness of folks to project their own predictions onto Ed’s statements when validating their plausibility. Eg. “I think he’s wrong about the timing but I do expect AI companies to go to zero.”
You can do that, but then you’re no longer discussing his predictions. You’re discussing your predictions, and your own positioning.
Those differ from Dan’s essay, which engages with the literal text of Ed’s numerous predictions during 2024 and 2025 which are demonstrably invalidated by their measurable outcomes.
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On the flip side, I also see many people taking this thread as an opportunity to shit on Zitron as a person, and not "discussing his prediction". Incompetent/ blow hard/ dishonest are ones I remember off the top of my head.
AI by itself, is surprisingly polarized; Ed Zitron even more so.
Here's two possible set of predictions:
- a list of predictions that are entirely wrong, from A-to-Z, and are not even resembling what ends up happening
- a list of predictions that are wrong, but where the underlying points are in fact interesting and have some predictive value, and it's just the "last step" that is wrong
For example, one person might say "oh it's raining in Dallas therefore I should buy some TI stock". And we'll say for sake of argument that they say that even though it's nice and sunny in Dallas at the moment.
Another person says "Oh its raining a lot in Idaho and that is going to increase potato yields and therefore I will buy McDonalds stocks cuz fries will be cheaper". In this hypothetical it turns out McDonalds buys all their potatoes from ... Kansas or something instead (and it's a specific kind of potato in a completely separate market)... but Idaho potato yields _did in fact go up_.
An even more straightforward point: the iphone 3GS comes out in 2010, people are very hyped, someone looks at how RIM _still_ hasn't gotten its shit together and declares "RIM isn't going to to be able to stay profitable 18 months from now, they're gonna have their lunch eaten".
Turns out that RIM still made a healthy profit in 2010. and 2011. And 2012. 2013 was their first loss in a while... and then it wasn't until 2014 that they really got kicked in the face.
The prediction was early, overestimated how long of a tail RIM would experience, but how wrong was it? Was the prediction of some utility?
I'm saying this... it would be helpful if _some_ more AI companies flamed out. In some sense he does himself no favors by focusing on the corps with the biggest war chest instead of the various AI companies that spend a bunch to go nowhere fast and then have just disappeared.
AI companies will never go to zero because AI is part of the Military Industrial Complex now. All the money is coming from the military and government for surveillance and power and war.
Why is Zitron’s repute evaluated entirely on the basis of failed predictions? Predictions are incredibly hard. AI enthusiasts and thought leaders have made so many demonstrably incorrect predictions it’s hard to keep track. Based on this metric, Altman and Amodei should never be taken seriously again.