The Hater's Guide to the AI Bubble

Summary

Hey! Before we go any further — if you want to support my work, please sign up for the premium version of Where’s Your Ed At, it’s a $7-a-month (or $70-a-year) paid product where every week you get a premium newsletter, all while supporting my free work too. Also, subscribe to my podcast Better Offline, which is free. Go and subscribe then download every single episode. One last thing: This newsletter is nearly 14,500 words. It’s long. Perhaps consider making a pot of coffee before you start reading. Good journalism is making sure that history is actively captured and appropriately described and assessed, and it's accurate to describe things as they currently are as alarming.And I am alarmed.Alarm is not a state of weakness, or belligerence, or myopia. My concern does not dull my vision, even though it's convenient to frame it as somehow alarmist, like I have some hidden agenda or bias toward doom. I profoundly dislike the financial waste, the environmental destruction, and, fundamentally, I dislike the attempt to gaslight people into swearing fealty to a sickly and frail psuedo-industry where everybody but NVIDIA and consultancies lose money.I also dislike the fact that I, and others like me, are held to a remarkably different standard to those who paint themselves as "optimists," which typically means "people that agree with what the market wishes were true." Critics are continually badgered, prodded, poked, mocked, and jeered at for not automatically aligning with the idea that generative AI will be this massive industry, constantly having to prove themselves, as if somehow there's something malevolent or craven about criticism, that critics "do this for clicks" or "to be a contrarian."I don't do anything for clicks. I don't have any stocks or short positions. My agenda is simple: I like writing, it comes to me naturally, I have a podcast, and it is, on some level, my job to try and understand what the tech industry is doing on a day-to-day basis. It is easy to t...