LLMs are real, AI is fake
This commentary argues that AI industry leaders are unreliable narrators who use fear-mongering about existential risks to secure investment capital. The author suggests that the hype surrounding AI capabilities is often disconnected from the technical reality of the products.
Why it matters
It highlights the tension between corporate marketing, venture capital incentives, and the actual technical limitations of current AI models.
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Once you understand the corporate culture of AI "hyperscalers" consists primarily of everyone cooking their brains by locking themselves in the bathroom, holding flashlights under their chins, and saying "Aaaaaaaaaay Eyeeeeeee" until they wet themselves in terror, a lot of things snap into focus:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/ayyyyyy-eyeeeee/
It explains how a company can simultaneously be staffing up an enterprise sales division while also constantly freaking out at the thought that its product has "a 10% chance of ending humanity":
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-09-11/is-there-really-10-chance-ai-could-kill-us-all
Given that AI insiders have mostly cooked their brains in this fashion, it behooves us all to treat these people as unreliable narrators of their own products' capabilities. Remember: every time you repeat a story about how awfully, terribly dangerous their products are, you help them raise more investment capital, which is a key input for their business (hooking up statistical engines to money-furnaces):
https://peoples-things.ghost.io/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype/
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