Hacker News Reader

Comment by smashspectacle | Hacker News Reader

Ed Zitron is going to become the Simpsons of ai critiques...

Lots of respect for him for staying unwaveringly principled while knowing when and how to adjust his expectations and predictions. He is really well informed and it's something else to watch him speaking live on the podcasts and be so specific with numbers. He really knows his stuff.

He really does not.

Good point, very well structured argument here

Go read "Some Zitron predictions" here: https://danluu.com/zitron/

His track record of prediction on this topic is stunningly bad, and he's made a job out of being counter to the AI hype, so he seems likely unable to honestly update his beliefs to adapt to changing evidence without jeopardizing the attention people pay to him.

Predicting global events is next to impossible. Don't look at the predictions, as his prediction game has slowed and he has recently admitted that he was wrong on his predictions. Look at his exposing of financial shenanigans which let the bubble grow.

The specifics are tough, but the rough shape isn't impossible. But it's hard, which is part of why most people try not to do it publicly with much confidence, lest they look like they're not worth listening to on the topic. Like, why are we listening to his opinions on this when he so clearly isn't an expert, and so many of his past opinions on it have been so far off?

And I think a big part of why you shouldn't listen to him is that he's said repeatedly that he doesn't really use generative AI outside of occasional experiments - he hasn't seen its potential enough to bother using it himself beyond some initial tests. Which is fine, but I think it also means that he likely doesn't have a good intuition of the likely future demand, which is pretty key in figuring out whether debt loads are likely to be sustainable or not. Investing is fundamentally about trying to predict the future and putting your money into the things that will likely be successful there. And he's demonstrably been terrible at predicting the future of this stuff.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day" Ralph Waldo Emerson.

It would be one thing if he once admitted that he was wrong and adapted his world view to account for new information, but he just doubles and triples down.

“Was” isn’t the right word. As for “will be”, I guess we will see.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com