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He doesn't need AI background to commentate on financials. Your post reads like a personal attack. His record talking about stock market doesn't matter either.

He doesn't need AI background to commentate on financials. Your post reads like a personal attack. His record talking about stock market doesn't matter either. There is about 0 information in anyone talking about what stock market is going to do. So his point is that big % of cloud revenue of Microsoft/Google/Amazon come from companies that: 1)are very unprofitable 2)need to raise staggering amount of capital to survive 3)are financed by their suppliers and that money is circling back to them Your counter-argument is this: >> It truly doesn't matter whether closed source Frontier lab models are spewing tokens or large foreign open weight models are doing it, the token factories will be just fine, and that's really all I care about. This might be true but there are 2 majors questions here. One is exposure to Anthropic/OpenAI. If they go bust/can't IPO at expected price it's a big loss hyperscalars will need to admit. The second question is how much of that cloud revenue comes from training. This part of the demand is going shrink or disappear in the bad scenario.

tim333 2mo ago
He doesn't have a finance background either and it's quite a job going through the 7482 words or whatever he's rattled off this week to analyse where he's gone wrong. His fundamental error I think, illustrated here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Gcx-6hJJw&t=196s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Gcx-6hJJw&t=196s is he thinks AI is just another tech product to hype rather than a comparable revolution to the industrial one.
- surgical_fire 2mo ago
  This is the thing - I enjoy Zitron's work. His criticism to AI has two angles. The weak angle is on AI usability. I think he is wrong there; AI is clearly useful. Now, there is a discussion if it is multi-trillion dollar useful; I think it isn't, but it is useful nonetheless. Now, there is a strong angle, which is the economic viability of AI, and the gargantuan amount of money being burned in what is a very risky bet. There, his arguments have proven so far rock solid. The fact that you (as all his critics) chose to attack only the weak angle says something.
  - dwaltrip 2mo ago
    I don’t trust someone who is dumb enough to think LLMs aren’t useful at all. Of course, he may just be deceiving himself or his audience about this belief. I don’t think he is actually dumb. But this alternative is equally problematic.
    - surgical_fire 2mo ago
      I choose evaluate claims on their merit. Many times in the past I was convinced by good arguments that came from people I dislike. I think Zitron is wrong in the usefulness of AI; but then again, so are the people hyping AI way beyond its capabilities. The numbers he brings up in the article are solid though. That said, if Zitron irks you, you can watch the most recent Patrick Boyle video on the big tech debt: https://youtu.be/NufJ7g63KSY?is=2Eh70U7gleoriLO9 https://youtu.be/NufJ7g63KSY?is=2Eh70U7gleoriLO9 This is a guy that comes purely from the financial angle as has no obvious ideological stance in being either pro or against AI. Also pretty balanced in his delivery. Some numbers he brings up should make even AI hypers question the sanity of this whole thing.
      - dwaltrip 2mo ago
        Thanks for an alternative source! I’ll check it out.
      - LogicFailsMe 2mo ago
        Great video, thank you. But why do you think everyone in AI is hyping it beyond its capabilities? That's a specific San Francisco-driven AGI cult and a handful of annoying billionaires. I'm doing what Patrick Boyle said is the biggest use case: running a one person consultancy on $400/month of AI services. It's working far better than I expected. And if the rates go up too much down the road, I'll pivot to running locally. I suppose if you still consume influencer content, it's pretty bleak slop right now too, but then there are occasional slopcore geniuses that manage something entertaining so I say let the future work itself out. No worries, it will. As for the sanity of the gold rush phase of anything... Are you kidding me? Really... The global GDP annually is ~$120T. $2T is not that big a number at that scale. It's interesting that the critics stick to the domestic tech GDP when the global tech GDP is ~$20T to insist AI hitting $2T annually is impossible.

tim333 2mo ago

He doesn't have a finance background either and it's quite a job going through the 7482 words or whatever he's rattled off this week to analyse where he's gone wrong. His fundamental error I think, illustrated here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Gcx-6hJJw&t=196s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Gcx-6hJJw&t=196s is he thinks AI is just another tech product to hype rather than a comparable revolution to the industrial one.

surgical_fire 2mo ago
This is the thing - I enjoy Zitron's work. His criticism to AI has two angles. The weak angle is on AI usability. I think he is wrong there; AI is clearly useful. Now, there is a discussion if it is multi-trillion dollar useful; I think it isn't, but it is useful nonetheless. Now, there is a strong angle, which is the economic viability of AI, and the gargantuan amount of money being burned in what is a very risky bet. There, his arguments have proven so far rock solid. The fact that you (as all his critics) chose to attack only the weak angle says something.
- dwaltrip 2mo ago
  I don’t trust someone who is dumb enough to think LLMs aren’t useful at all. Of course, he may just be deceiving himself or his audience about this belief. I don’t think he is actually dumb. But this alternative is equally problematic.
  - surgical_fire 2mo ago
    I choose evaluate claims on their merit. Many times in the past I was convinced by good arguments that came from people I dislike. I think Zitron is wrong in the usefulness of AI; but then again, so are the people hyping AI way beyond its capabilities. The numbers he brings up in the article are solid though. That said, if Zitron irks you, you can watch the most recent Patrick Boyle video on the big tech debt: https://youtu.be/NufJ7g63KSY?is=2Eh70U7gleoriLO9 https://youtu.be/NufJ7g63KSY?is=2Eh70U7gleoriLO9 This is a guy that comes purely from the financial angle as has no obvious ideological stance in being either pro or against AI. Also pretty balanced in his delivery. Some numbers he brings up should make even AI hypers question the sanity of this whole thing.
    - dwaltrip 2mo ago
      Thanks for an alternative source! I’ll check it out.
    - LogicFailsMe 2mo ago
      Great video, thank you. But why do you think everyone in AI is hyping it beyond its capabilities? That's a specific San Francisco-driven AGI cult and a handful of annoying billionaires. I'm doing what Patrick Boyle said is the biggest use case: running a one person consultancy on $400/month of AI services. It's working far better than I expected. And if the rates go up too much down the road, I'll pivot to running locally. I suppose if you still consume influencer content, it's pretty bleak slop right now too, but then there are occasional slopcore geniuses that manage something entertaining so I say let the future work itself out. No worries, it will. As for the sanity of the gold rush phase of anything... Are you kidding me? Really... The global GDP annually is ~$120T. $2T is not that big a number at that scale. It's interesting that the critics stick to the domestic tech GDP when the global tech GDP is ~$20T to insist AI hitting $2T annually is impossible.