Ed Zitron has featured here several times before, for his analysis of the business side of the generative AI bubble.
Because he’s good at this.
And now he’s done a massive post pulling together everything he’s been saying about this particular naked emperor for the past few years: The Case Against Generative AI.
It’s a long-read, certainly, longer than anything else of his that I’ve linked to, but since it’s an attempt to bring together all the various lines of evidence and analysis on the generative AI business that’s not surprising.
The conclusion should come as no surprise either: that for all the hype, there’s not really much business going on here.
And this is going to be a big problem.
A problem for the companies involved, and the wider tech industry and the whole economy as well.
It’s not a hopeful or happy essay, no.
And it leaves aside the (to me) fundamental problem that the technology involved is not what its boosters claim it is and it cannot become that either. There is no “artificial intelligence”, and there is no path for generative AI to become one.
Oh, and it uses just absurd amounts of resources too. Just, really, really crazy amounts of electricity.
Because arguing about whether it works isn’t Zitron’s point.
His point is that even if it did work, or could be made to work, it is not a viable business and there’s no reason to think that it can become one.
And we appear to be risking a huge part of our economy on betting that it will.
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