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I don't know if Ed Zitron is right about allhis analysis, but it's nice to have an alternative, well-argued narrative to the gushing torrent of AI company propa
by bananamogul 2mo ago
I don't know if Ed Zitron is right about allhis analysis, but it's nice to have an alternative, well-argued narrative to the gushing torrent of AI company propaganda.
- Legend2440 2mo agoIs it though? He's more of a gushing torrent of anti-AI propaganda. He has an agenda too, it's just the opposite one.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- mossTechnician 2mo agoWhat specifically is that agenda?
- dan_gee 2mo agoA resolute anti-AI perspective is a breath of fresh air compared to the middle-of-the-road "AI made me 10x more productive BUT"-style comments. My professional opinion is that LLM technology doesn't work very well for software development and I'm not interested in hemming and hawing over its supposed benefits any longer.
- anthonyrstevens 2mo ago>> LLM technology doesn't work very well for software development This comment is so obviously false (in my experience) I'm wondering what sort of niche environment you're working in
- dan_gee 2mo agoJust my personal experience. I'm not really interested in giving up more personal details in this forum, apologies for that.
- kingstnap 2mo agoI'm generally pretty accepting of trust me bro style arguments where we some claims presented without evidence. Especially for AI, sure some model just rm -rf ed your home directy bro sounds bad. It works fine for online discourse. This is less agreeable. You kind of just made statements without even having claims (even without requirement of evidence or details) to back them up. This is like the illusion of contribution.
- twister2920 2mo agothis whole argument is illusory. nobody is arguing in good faith based on repeatable experiments. this debate is 100% based on how this technology makes one feel, and whether one is speculating for or against future economic returns from the technology
- whateveracct 2mo agoremember, how useful LLMs are is inversely proportional to your skills. i have yet to have an LLM beat me. i am forced to try regularly so i don't look like an AI anti at a company that is very much SV pilled
- Barbing 2mo agoI don’t think people like Linus Torvalds or Stephen Wolfram feel like language models beat them, just they’ve managed to find specific cases where flawed brainless workhorses serve their needs.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2mo agoLike so many things in life, It Depends (tm). Some developers work better with LLMs in their workflows than others. Some problems are easier for LLMs to generate a reasonable solution for than others. Some folks prompt minimally and see what the vibes bring. Others start with a detailed architecture and implementation plan. The individual results will depend quite a lot on the person, the problem, and the approach. It's not a guaranteed winning formula for everyone.
- satvikpendem 2mo agoAs I mentioned in this thread the other day, it's not worth debating AI skeptics anymore in 2026, with step changes like Fable and Sol. Maybe it was the case in 2025 and before but the field has improved rapidly that it doesn't make sense to listen to people with AI experiences prior to that who haven't touched it since. Does AI make mistakes, sure, but increasingly fewer. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49051369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49051369
- dan_gee 2mo ago> As I mentioned in this thread the other day, it's not worth debating AI skeptics anymore in 2026 This is pretty rude!
- satvikpendem 2mo agoWell that's my personal opinion. You might have a different one but I largely found it to be a waste of my own time, because it's just based on personal experiences.
- bigstrat2003 2mo agoMy dude. People like you have been making this same claim for literally years now. We've been getting it for every single model that came out ever since 2023. It's never yet been true. Don't act like it's the fault of your interlocutors when they are skeptical of a claim you make, instead pay attention to the fact that you are following up many people who falsely claimed the same thing. It's perfectly rational to be skeptical under those conditions.
- satvikpendem 2mo agoI don't know about "people like me" but I personally only felt the change myself in early 2026, before that I was like many people quite skeptical. Hence why I have the opinion I do, if it could change my mind I'm sure others could too. And anyway the state of affairs is not the same as 2023 so it always bears repeating one's experiences with the topic every year for an actually accurate assessment. Otherwise it's just he said she said as we're engaging in right now.
- rpdillon 2mo agoTalking with a friend of mine who's been in development for some time and I had been talking a little bit about the skill required to wield AI effectively and that people were expecting it to be something that required less skill than it does. He said his version of this observation is "your agents are only as good as you are." I think he's right, and the key is to practice and build the skill.
- twister2920 2mo ago> agents are only as good as you are that doesn't sound like a net benefit at all. I think mostly people just enjoy playing with these toys, and good developers are still good with them, bad developers still bad
- rpdillon 2mo agoI think there is a distinction between whether or not they require skill and whether or not they are a net benefit.
- whateveracct 2mo agohis agenda is less existential and backed by less money and power than Sam A and Dario's
- eej71 2mo agoWhile that's true - it does not impute Ed's position with greater accuracy or authority. I don't know if Ed is wrong, but I get this vague sense that he is being led on by his emotions. I am sympathetic to some of his criticisms that the enthusiasm and financial commitment has run far ahead what can be delivered. But I don't quite share his intensity over the doom and gloom. There probably will be a correction. It will probably sting. But I don't expect it to be the near wipe-out that Ed's passionate voice seems to steer towards.
- tptacek 2mo agoThere are good sources of well-argued AI skepticism, and then there's Ed Zitron.
- ofjcihen 2mo agoAt this point I have yet to hear a solid argument against his arguments that use half as much evidence as he does. That isn’t to say that he’s right, that’s just to say that while he gets creative in his phrasing numbers don’t lie and I haven’t seen anyone else present competing numbers that make sense. If anyone has them to the degree with which he provides them then please, by all means, I’m interested.
- hparadiz 2mo ago[flagged]
- dragontamer 2mo agoI thought Ed Zitrons argument was just corroborated by Nikkei last Friday with the new report that 1.6 Trillion in SPVs accounts for off-books debt, on top of the $1.4 Trillion of on-books debt that's in these AI companies? The main argument of Ed Zitron is just that. Huge huge amounts of debt that's due "soonish". Every SPV is different but we are fast approaching the point where this all starts to become real. Now I dunno why Ed Zitron feels the need to write 10,000++++ word articles that only says "more leverage than people expect", but that's really the crux of things.
- tptacek 2mo agoIf that's all Zitron wrote, I don't think he'd be as polarizing (or as dunked on). But he goes way, way past that.
- ghjkghjkghj 2mo agoI don't understand how that affects what he has written here? How does his data not make sense?
- awakeasleep 2mo agoRead a little more of what he's written before you praise him, so you don't end up looking as dumb as I did. Ed may be right about some of his claims, but he is 100% a crank, and he makes so many incoherent claims I'd say that if he's right, it's in the nature of a broken clock.
- dan_gee 2mo agoCan you elaborate on what happened that made you look dumb?
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- Fricken 2mo ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago> Show us on the doll where Zitron touched you Comment read sensibly until this bit.
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- Jackpillar 2mo agoLet me guess, you disagree with his views on the utility of Ai (which he's pretty bad about) and you use that as cover and/or to negate his real journalism that is based in facts (Ai being an unprecedented & unrecoupable bubble littered with unprofitable companies thats likely to crash our economy unless these Ai conglomerates cozy up lawmakers to situate themselves for a bail out)
- 2mo ago
- solenoid0937 2mo agoThe entire internet is full of anti-AI discussion and a straight up disbelief in any chance of success. Implying there is a "gushing torrent" of pro AI narrative is bizarrely out of touch. We both know this isn't true.
- karahime 2mo agoIt is rather sad, actually.
- whateveracct 2mo agothat's an organic thing the pro-AI side on the other hand has poured billions into ads and marketing and CEOs are forcing it on people due to a combo of FOMO, personal investments in AI (CEO, board, investor), etc
- sodapopcan 2mo agoWhile I don't really care one way or another, Zitron isn't arguing AI as a technology is going to fail and go away, but that the numbers of the American companies make no sense and there is a good chance they, or at least some of them, will go away. He does argue that there are large amounts of people who just don't care enough about "AI," and this is likely true. The thing to keep in mind though is that he is not talking about software developers here. What is evident about some of the comments in this thread (and HN comments in general) is that many people on this site seems to think that whenever anyone says anything along the lines of "AI doesn't work for me" that they automatically assume they are talking about "in software development" when they aren't.
- parpfish 2mo agoI think AI discourse is revealing some new contours to the information bubbles that we all live in. folks in the US have been pretty aware that bubbles based on political opinions -- we're all surrounded by news from "our side" yet we know the other side exists in some other bubble. but for AI, we're all either surrounded by pro- or anti- opinions and its a little shocking to learn that theres a parallel internet with the opposite stance. especially shocking when you find somebody that lives in teh same political bubble but opposite AI bubble.
- skwirl 2mo agoThe vast majority of what I see out there is relentlessly negative about AI. It is kind of absurd to call this the "alternative" unless the implication is that the rest of AI skeptical writing is not "well-argued."
- serchinastico 2mo agoI find it weird/funny you are getting so many hate responses towards Ed, still no counter-arguments at all. When asked why he is wrong, they vanish. From the outside it looks like a coordinated campaign to try to discredit him. Happy to read why is he wrong, and change my mind, as long as the arguments provide the same level of analysis he provides.
- budsniffer952 2mo ago75% of comments on every article you read about AI on hacker news is talking about the bubble. But everyone thinks the bubble talk is contrarian.
- kpennell 2mo agoCal Newport is another great person to follow on this and I think he understands the CS fundamentals much better.