But Ed Zitron is not it. Here's an example [1] of him fumbling on simple arithmetic. He's also perpetually bearish without any sense of principles on his message.
This is what he wrote in 2024 [2]
> You can fight with me on semantics, on claiming valuations are high and how many users ChatGPT has, but look at the products and tell me any of this is really the future.
I think the industry really needs someone better with principles.
[1] https://x.com/binarybits/status/2034376359909130249
[2] https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forget-what-theyve-done/
Edit: here's another example https://x.com/blader/status/2031216372169191678
I get that people make mistakes but it really does seem like there are no principles behind the guy. It seems like he can write whatever.
Not incidentally, he's a PR guy by trade--who still runs his own PR firm! And that firm has done PR for AI companies!
https://archive.ph/2025.10.27-195752/https://www.wired.com/s...
I'm firmly on the skeptic side of the AI skeptic/booster divide, but I wish we had better mouthpieces on the skeptic side. I get the feeling that Zitron is more concerned with getting his newsletter numbers up than anything else.
Unfortunately though I can't really find anyone else looking at this same information, so for now I have to wade through these newsletters to pick the gold from the shit
> He's still an important counterpoint to the unexamined mainstream junk, which says more about the world than about him or his style.
> Overall, this sample skews anti-tech: 62 anti-tech, 26 neutral, 12 pro-tech.
What is true is that they love regurgitating how bad AI is and the harms that come with it.
https://chatgpt.com/share/69c2e910-41a0-800b-ac8b-f7b93c005c...
Can't load shared conversation 69c2e910-41a0-800b-ac8b-f7b93c005c
But Zitron frequently points out the inconsistencies in these data center deals, noting that companies like OpenAI and Anthropic make these announcements without a formal contract in place, companies like Oracle get a stock bump off of the news, and then we all find out from the mainstream press months later that the deal was never done and in fact may not even be happening anymore.
That's not really behavior you'd expect to see from a vehemently anti-tech press. They're happily making news to boost stock prices short-term, essentially acting as mouthpieces for large shareholders.
> Overall, this sample skews anti-tech: 62 anti-tech, 26 neutral, 12 pro-tech.
It is very clear that mainstream outlets bias towards anti-tech than pro. I know this is not the most fool proof method, but its at least better than vibes. If you disagree, please do an unbiased sampling and show me otherwise.
https://chatgpt.com/share/69c2e910-41a0-800b-ac8b-f7b93c005c...
Smearing his character without directly addressing those just stinks the place up.
That being said. Since COVID there seems to be an ongoing and worsening DOS attack. Everybody who have access to media are lying. And we know they are lying! The craziest part is not only that they are getting away with it (so far at least), but this is becoming embraced, standardized and legalized. Which is fucking crazy.
I like listening to Ed's interviews, mainly because he is DOSing back.
As far as I can tell, in February Anthropic projected their 2026+ annual revenue at $14 billion dollars, based on a month long period. If you added the numbers presented together for the 3 years of time, you would end up at $6 billion dollars of revenue.
But, a month later in a court document they only mention "exceeding $5 billion dollars". For the entire time the company has been in business.
Additionally, the month long period with ~1B would account for a fifth of the total revenue. That's eyebrow raising.
The other question I have is... who exactly is doing all of 1. Using AI right now 2. Making substantial money on it or getting real value and 3. Capacity constrained? Who is actually going to productively soak up all this capacity? It seems to me that bringing all this stuff online can't really make things much cheaper than they are now because the fixed costs aren't going anywhere, and if anything, trying to jam so many projects through all at once just raises those fixed costs even higher. It's not like they triple data center capacity (and increasing AI capacity by, what, 10x? 20x?), stick them full of AI systems, and into that 10x+ greater AI capacity they can sell it at the prices they are now. Higher capacity would crash the selling price but the costs would be as high or higher than now.
I am at a complete loss as to how the numbers are supposed to work here. You can't build a company in 2026 on the economy and tech infrastructure of 2036 anymore than it worked to build a company in 1999 on the economy and tech infrastructure of 2019, no matter how rosy the numbers look on the projections based on conveniently ignoring the fact the company passes through "death" in a year and half. Everything promised in 1999 happened, but trying to artificially accelerate it onto Wall Street's time line burned money by the billions. I'm sure 2036 will have lots of AI in it, but you can't just spend money to bring it forward 10 years by sheer force of will. It has to happen at its own pace.
Almost all enterprise users for one. At least from what I have seen it is a massive productivity boost for coding and general research. If the costs were ~4x lower, we would be able to do much much more with them. Building datacenters will reduce the cost because increasing supply would reduce the cost.
> It's not like they triple data center capacity (and increasing AI capacity by, what, 10x? 20x?), stick them full of AI systems, and into that 10x+ greater AI capacity they can sell it at the prices they are now. Higher capacity would crash the selling price but the costs would be as high or higher than now.
This is false. Part of the costs are unit costs which are really high margin. I think the margins are around 50% to 60%. By increasing the capacity, the are bound to make even more profit.
But the other part is reflecting the lack of capacity.
That's great for us users but I'm talking from the point of view of the people trying to make money on the data centers.
"This is false. Part of the costs are unit costs which are really high margin."
Can you explain how everybody throwing their money at nVidia lowers the costs? When they are already apparently at max capacity?
Everybody trying to build a data center at once raises the costs of the data center. Everyone competing for power has already raised power prices and we've barely begun bringing this stuff online. Everyone demanding multiples of what nVidia is producing means nVidias isn't going to reduce prices any time soon.
Your use of "even more profit" also implies that you think that the AI world is making lots of money? nVidia is making lots of money. To a first approximation, everybody else involved has lost billions. Maybe not Apple. But everyone else you can name is deep in the negative on AI.
Why wouldn't they make money if they are the ones on whom money is thrown at?
> Can you explain how everybody throwing their money at nVidia lowers the costs? When they are already apparently at max capacity?
Increasing supply lowers the cost, I'm unsure which part of this is surprising.
> Your use of "even more profit" also implies that you think that the AI world is making lots of money? nVidia is making lots of money. To a first approximation, everybody else involved has lost billions. Maybe not Apple. But everyone else you can name is deep in the negative on AI.
The companies using AI are making money out of it. OpenAI will make money in the future but are losing it because of R&D and training.
The article says 240 Gigawatts of capacity is allocated for AI datacenters.
New York City draws about 10 Gigawatts in the hottest months of the year due to extra load from AC use.
So am I understanding correctly that these people want to foist upon the power grid 24 NYCs?
Yes, that number is absurd, and data centers will certainly need to make do with less, regardless of actual requirements.
Texas is [d]oing its best to build as many datacenters & power plants as possible. They were describing it as "Texas will have more datacenters than anyplace else in the world." This was public radio, but everybody's taking a hit on the ol' AI pipe nowadays.
At cost of 0.01 per kwh would be 21 billion... And electricity generally is not that cheap everything considered...
> Isn't it weird how there is no huge industry pushback on all this new AI datacenter power need, as there was about electrifying vehicles?
The fossil fuel industry ?
Turns out the market routes right around slow movers.
EV on the other hand does have some obvious industrial adversaries.
The truth was that the machines produced worse quality goods and were less safe, not that people couldn’t skill up to use them and not that there wasn’t enough demand to keep everyone employed. It was quality and safety.
You should look into the issue further, because I had your opinion too until I soberly looked at what the luddites really were arguing for, it wasn’t the end of looms, it was quality standards and fair advertising to consumers.
Only the workers are getting framed as though self-interest invalidates their position. The Luddites’ arguments about quality standards and consumer fraud were correct on the merits regardless of their motivation for raising them.
And the choice was never mechanisation versus no mechanisation… it was whether the transition would include basic labour and quality standards. With regulation, you’d still have got mechanisation and cheaper clothing in the end… just without the fraudulent goods and wage suppression. Framing it as “society versus a few jobs” is exactly the manufacturer’s argument from the 1810s, which is very effective propaganda reaching through centuries.
To drive the point home even clearer
Parliament made frame-breaking a capital offence to protect manufacturer profits. Saying it all worked out eventually doesn’t justify the process, any more than cheap cotton justified the conditions under which it was produced. And frankly, look at modern fast fashion: cheap clothing that falls apart in weeks, produced under appalling conditions overseas. We’re still living with the consequences of the principle that cheapness trumps everything else.
But on quality: I found this an interesting read https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/05/ha...
Making clothing more efficient by employing children in dangerous factories is bad actually (what happened in the original factories and now at fast fashion).
Perhaps in a couple of centuries when a tube of nutrient slurry is the standard meal, people will be equally proud of not spending 15% of their salary on food...if salaries even exist by then.
Lots of countries attribute the clothing industry to increasing standard of living and economic prosperity. Like India, Pakistan.
And yes, I can see a world where, if tasteless nutrient slurry was essentially free and perfect nutrition for the body, then people would gladly consume that for most meals, and maybe splurge every now and then on an "old school" meal. I don't really see a problem with that.
You really can't. That price/quality point basically does not exist anymore
What's worse is that we have "designer brands" that charge the higher price point but are the exact same low quality as the lower price point stuff. Actual midrange quality just plain does not exist
Take your yearly clothing expenditure and multiply it by 10. And then, just like people 200 years ago, be content with 2 to 4 compete outfits. And then stop buying clothes yearly and go more on 10+ year cycle, where you use your funds to mend clothes instead of replacing them.
Even if you only spend $300 on clothes per year, doing it the old school way means you can spend about $15,000 on 2-4 outfits and save the other $15,000 for mending and cleaning over the next 10 years.
I guarantee you you can find a high quality custom outfit for $5000.
As someone who only has a passing interest, there isn't anything distilled enough in this article for me to comment on as the central point. Everyone seems to be reporting impossible numbers, and buying dramatically more hardware than they can install in a reasonable timeframe given the pace of the industry.
I see another impassioned, fervent cry daily about how it’s all going to collapse like a house of cards (as if smart money doesn’t know it and some podcaster is the first to realize data centers take a long time to build).
But unless I missed something, I didn’t see him disclose any financial positions that would indicate him betting on the collapse he is so clearly calling for.
I think that should be required to take any of these articles seriously - if your portfolio doesn’t reflect your stated opinions, your stated opinions aren’t what you really believe.
My current model for understand for how AI will scale out is that we'll move through the following choke points:
AI chip makers -> Data center infra and construction -> regional power companies
Right now we're firmly in the "AI chip makers" part of the expansion, with everything else in the beginning stages. AI is useful, but whether it's hyped or not, it's hard to deny that not being able to build and power data centers will impact how this plays out.
I believe that Ed Zitron plays a very important gadlfy role in all of this. However, if you look at his subreddit, it appears that he has created a 100% AI denier following. My gut makes me worry for them, but I wonder where the truth really lies.
For those of us involved with code, Sonnet 3.5 was a revelation, and Opus 4.5 scared the crap out of many, and converted some of us to believers in "the exponential."
Now, in other verifiable output fields like finance/spreadsheets in general, Claude is scaring more people.
I really do respect Ed, but I feel like his schtick might make too many people complacent, thinking that this is all fake. Also, I could be wrong.
Why worry?
Also I'm pretty sure I have seen a similar comment before
But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for introspection from that camp. It seems that AI maximalists, like so many other players these days, see it as end-game time. There are no bounds or rules: pick a side, and go. And then eat the rest.
Sure, not everyone sees it this way. There are highly competent, human actors working in their joy toward a better way forward with all of it. But I don't think you'll find that spirit unbridled inside any profit-seeking corporation of any significant standing (though I would be happy to be proven wrong). If it existed there, it is being choked out by selfishness and survivalism.
And then there's Thiel and ilk waxing eschatological, adding a whole other layer to the scheme.
This is what he said in 2024
-----
The “iPhone moment” wasn’t a result of one thing, but a collection of different bits that formed an obvious whole — one device that did a bunch of things really, really well.
LLMs have no such moment, nor do they have any one thing they do well, let alone really well. LLMs are famous not for their efficacy, but their inconsistency, with even ardent AI cultists warning people not to trust their output
A literal "virtuous cycle", if you will.
Contrast that with hyperscalers no longer reporting AI revenue separately, making bold claims about long term growth with no evidence to back it up, and a tech media apparatus that has largely avoided asking founders hard questions.
I know just as well as you how this is all going to turn (which is to say, nobody really knows). But I'll take the person doing the math over the person trying to hide numbers all day long.
“I think AI is a bubble and it’s going to collapse”
“Ok, then there are ways to bet against it if you’re really sure”
“Oh I’m sure I’m right, it’s just that the market might take a long time to realize I’m right”
Come on… there was no subtlety in the article at all. He said it’s all a house of cards, it’s all going to collapse, it’s all a grift… surely someone that certain should be willing to put something in…
He will likely end up like Musk, another grifter who was floating on low hanging fruit in EV's and rocketry for a decade before being revealed.
That blogpost also didn't really "predict" anything.
lol u think it's marxist to say Sam Altman didn't make ChatGPT when he didn't do a single line of code