the writer Nina Illingworth, whose work has been a constant source of inspiration, posted this excellent analysis of the reality of the AI bubble on Mastodon (featuring a shout-out to the recent articles on the subject from Amy Castor and @dgerard@awful.systems):
Naw, I figured it out; they absolutely don’t care if AI doesn’t work.
They really don’t. They’re pot-committed; these dudes aren’t tech pioneers, they’re money muppets playing the bubble game. They are invested in increasing the valuation of their investments and cashing out, it’s literally a massive scam. Reading a bunch of stuff by Amy Castor and David Gerard finally got me there in terms of understanding it’s not real and they don’t care. From there it was pretty easy to apply a historical analysis of the last 10 bubbles, who profited, at which point in the cycle, and where the real money was made.
The plan is more or less to foist AI on establishment actors who don’t know their ass from their elbow, causing investment valuations to soar, and then cash the fuck out before anyone really realizes it’s total gibberish and unlikely to get better at the rate and speed they were promised.
Particularly in the media, it’s all about adoption and cashing out, not actually replacing media. Nobody making decisions and investments here, particularly wants an informed populace, after all.
the linked mastodon thread also has a very interesting post from an AI skeptic who used to work at Microsoft and seems to have gotten laid off for their skepticism
Have a browse through some threads on this instance before you talk about what the “computer science industry” was thinking 5 years ago as if this is a group of infants.
If you feel open to it, consider why people who obviously enjoy computing, and know a lot about it, don’t share your enthusiasm for a particular group of tech products. Find the factors that make these things different.
You might still disagree, you might change your mind. Whatever the fuck happens, you’ll write more compelling posts than whatever the fuck this is.
You might even provoke constructive, grown-up, discussions.
I must note that the poster in question earned the fastest ever ban from this instance, as their post was a perfect storm of greasy smarmy bullshit that felt gross to read, and judging by their post history that’s unfortunately just how they engage with information
Oh good. Their history was why I relented and wrote something. A typical king shit.