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The AI Hype Index: Unsexy AI
3 days ago
- An open letter warns AI may steal jobs and even outperform humans at tasks like making dinner.
- 1X demonstrated dexterous robotic hands, which sparked debate over their appeal.
- Unsexy AI examples include Grok's inappropriate translation feature, Meta's creepy glasses, and Big Tech's rising emissions.
- AI is benefiting single chip workers in Korea with huge bonuses and new dating opportunities.
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Sorry, Sam and Elon, we have not reached the Singularity
4 days ago
- CEO's claims about reaching the Singularity should not be taken seriously, as they often make outlandish statements for publicity and fail to define the term.
- None of the CEOs, including Sam Altman and Elon Musk, have clearly defined what the Singularity means, and their claims lack substantiation.
- The Klarna Effect shows that companies boast of AI replacing workers, but then quietly rehire humans due to AI's costs and limitations.
- The age of abundance promised by AI proponents like Peter Diamandis and Elon Musk has not been realized.
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Value extraction
5 days ago
- The author is tired of pervasive doom-peddling about AI, claiming software engineering will soon be obsolete.
- Most doom-peddlers are company owners who gain from spreading fear, using it to sell their AI products.
- These peddlers employ value extraction tactics: create urgency, instill fear, then offer a solution.
- The current AI hype resembles the earlier crypto hype, with the same hyperbolic salesmanship.
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LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
5 days ago
- LLMs are compared to a 400-year-long confidence trick, rooted in the historical development of mechanical calculators and trust in machine accuracy.
- The con stages involve building trust (through centuries of reliance on machines), exploiting emotions (fear of job loss, flattery from RLHF), and creating a false urgency to adopt LLMs.
- Despite promises of intelligence, LLMs are not truly intelligent, and 95% of AI projects fail to provide ROI, highlighting the gap between hype and reality.
Premium: Notes From The Bubble, Volume 1
5 days ago
- The author is starting a new series called 'Notes From The Bubble' to discuss standout tech stories and their impact, replacing the planned 'Hater's Guide' due to time constraints.
- The tech industry is descending into 'cargo cultism' with desperate, ridiculous actions driven by fear that AI may not be the next big thing, leading to hype cycles to avoid facing reality.
- Examples of tech industry absurdity include Meta creating a Polymarket competitor, Snap launching AR glasses few want, Microsoft's shifting AI allegiances, and Google investing $75 million in A24 for a vague AI partnership.
- The industry is characterized by cobbled-together ideas from monopolistic companies with out-of-touch executives focused on shareholder value and stock compensation.
Pluralistic: The (real) dead economy theory (17 Jun 2026)
5 days ago
- Elon Musk's post-2020 ventures (Starship, robotaxis, Cybertruck, Twitter) are commercial flops despite his net worth increase.
- Financial markets fail to value assets accurately, with crypto and AI as prime examples of speculation over utility.
- The real 'dead economy' risk is capital being diverted from productive activities into memestocks, vibes, and bubbles.
- AI hype leads to defunding real research (e.g., cancer studies) to free up resources for speculative AI projects.
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How is the Bun Rewrite in Rust going?
5 days ago
- The Bun rewrite in Rust, costing $165,000 for Anthropic API calls over 11 days, is presented as proof of AI's coding capabilities, but the author expresses skepticism about the completeness and costs.
- No release tag has been issued for Bun in 11 weeks post-rewrite, and open PRs from Claude have grown from 1,277 to 2,475 in 18 days, suggesting ongoing work beyond the initial rewrite.
- The true cost of the rewrite is likely higher due to CI/CD expenses and ongoing Anthropic employee involvement, potentially reaching $800,000, questioning its worth and the valuations of AI companies.
- Anthropic's hype cycle around AI is criticized, with the author advocating for cautious evaluation of claims supporting large valuations, noting similar projects like Anthropic's C compiler and Cursor's FastRender have stalled.
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The AI hype is a mass psychosis echo chamber of incompetent individuals
12 days ago
- The author criticizes the AI hype as a mass psychosis, with people mindlessly adopting AI tools without critical thought.
- Many colleagues and friends embraced AI coding tools like Claude, claiming they no longer need to write code, but the author found this troubling and doubted their competence.
- Trying 'vibe coding' with AI was frustrating; the generated code was often convoluted and inefficient, taking more time than manual coding would.
- The author realized AI gives incompetent people a false sense of competency, which explains its popularity, but this leads to deskilling and reduced actual ability.
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AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making
14 days ago
- AI projects are failing at a high rate, with many companies not seeing the promised productivity gains.
- Executives and employees feel pressured to profess belief in AI, creating a cult-like atmosphere that suppresses dissent.
- AI demos can trigger irrational buying frenzies, overshadowing practical considerations and leading to poor decisions.
- Game theory among executives leads to a coordination problem where honesty about AI failures risks careers, perpetuating the hype.
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AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making
14 days ago
- Many organizations are experiencing a collective psychosis around AI, where rational discussions about its effectiveness are impossible.
- AI investments are largely failing, with projects showing 0% success rates in the author's observations, often due to poor implementation or unrealistic expectations.
- Internal and customer-facing chatbots are common but rarely deliver value, with issues like low usage, inaccurate outputs, and lack of proper metrics tracking.
- Expressing skepticism about AI in organizations is dangerous, leading to job loss or marginalization, forcing employees to feign enthusiasm or 'AI-wash' their work.
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The AI Hype Reckoning Is Upon Us
24 days ago
- The chasm between AI hype and practical reality is reaching a breaking point, with tech companies and press promoting unrealistic expectations.
- Examples like Ford, Microsoft, Facebook, and Uber show AI adoption leading to quality issues, wasted costs, and rehiring of replaced employees.
- AI in newsrooms and other sectors results in factual errors, plagiarism, and increased workloads for human editors to fix problems.
- Studies indicate AI 'efficiency' can cause knowledge decay, erode trust, and increase human workload due to errors and rework.
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Jersey Mike's IPO illustrates how bad the AI hype has become
a month ago
- Jersey Mike's mentions AI 22 times in its IPO documents, despite being a sandwich shop, not an AI company.
- The company includes an AI risk warning in its investor documents, citing the use of AI technologies, but without specific details.
- Jersey Mike's relies on software and data for franchise operations, but the AI warning appears as boilerplate text.
- The risk of an AI disaster for a sandwich shop is compared to the low probability of a franchise being struck by lightning.
Give Smart People the Tools to Do Smart Things
a month ago
- AI marketing often overhypes capabilities, presenting AI as a replacement for human experts to drive subscriptions and sales.
- Tools like compilers and spreadsheets augment human expertise rather than replace it; the real value lies in understanding and decision-making, not just output.
- AI companies leverage current investor hype to build capital and dependency, but will eventually need to prove real-world value and financial metrics.
- The ideal future for AI involves complementing and empowering human experts, similar to how game engines enabled skilled developers to realize projects.
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Please stop the AI confidence theater
a month ago
- The author criticizes the excessive hype around AI, labeling it 'AI Confidence Theater' that causes more harm than good.
- Many claimed 'life-changing' AI use cases are actually basic workflows, and true transformative applications are rare.
- This hype distorts reality, hurts innovation, and leads to toxic comparisons where people feel demoralized and behind.
- It complicates hiring, as AI makes people sound competent without real expertise, requiring more rigorous vetting.
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ai hype

The AI Hype Index: Unsexy AI

Sorry, Sam and Elon, we have not reached the Singularity

Value extraction

LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick

Premium: Notes From The Bubble, Volume 1

Pluralistic: The (real) dead economy theory (17 Jun 2026)

How is the Bun Rewrite in Rust going?

The AI hype is a mass psychosis echo chamber of incompetent individuals

AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making

AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making

The AI Hype Reckoning Is Upon Us

Jersey Mike's IPO illustrates how bad the AI hype has become

Give Smart People the Tools to Do Smart Things

Please stop the AI confidence theater