WEBVTT - Monologue: The Year Ahead

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<v Speaker 1>Alzo Media. Hello and welcome to your first Better Offline

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<v Speaker 1>monologue of twenty twenty six. I'm your host ed Zitron.

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<v Speaker 1>We're back from CES and we've already had a great

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<v Speaker 1>conversation with the wonderful Steve Burke of Games Nexus, and

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<v Speaker 1>this felt like a good time to take stark and

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<v Speaker 1>talk about what I see happening in the year ahead. Also, legitimately,

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<v Speaker 1>thank you for all for listening at CES. It was

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<v Speaker 1>one of the best weeks of my life, and we

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<v Speaker 1>made some amazing stuff and you've all sent wonderful emails

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<v Speaker 1>and such love hearing from you. But let's talk about

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<v Speaker 1>this year. I have a strong gut instinct that this

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<v Speaker 1>is the year of reckonings for the AI bubble. Nothing

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<v Speaker 1>I'm seeing in the news, the markets, or hearing from

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<v Speaker 1>people I talked to behind the scenes suggests that things

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<v Speaker 1>are improving at all. In fact, it kind of feels

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<v Speaker 1>like when your dog takes a shit somewhere in your

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<v Speaker 1>apartment but you can't quite find it. There's that little stink,

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<v Speaker 1>but it's not strong enough to give you an idea

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<v Speaker 1>of where it is. But you know, one day, without fail,

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<v Speaker 1>you're going to a nasty brown delight under your foot

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<v Speaker 1>colorful Simile's aside, though Generative AI is not becoming cheaper,

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<v Speaker 1>more effective, or more efficient in Vidio's new Vira Ruben,

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<v Speaker 1>GPUs are likely to be more expensive than ever, in

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<v Speaker 1>part thanks to the ever increasing price of RAM and

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<v Speaker 1>in part because of its single vendor mod monopoly, which

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<v Speaker 1>allows them to set prices well to stun. And the

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<v Speaker 1>other thing with them as well is they're going to

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<v Speaker 1>allow people to use the same racks from Blackwell, so

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<v Speaker 1>the things you put the GPUs into, but only for

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<v Speaker 1>the beginning of Verra Ruben. Then they're going to move

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<v Speaker 1>to these giant I think they're called Kaiber racks. The

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<v Speaker 1>current ones are called Oberon. Someone will email and correct me,

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<v Speaker 1>but it's one of those two. The new one is

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<v Speaker 1>going to require an entirely new cooling system architecture. It's

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<v Speaker 1>all very good, but on the subject of things that

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<v Speaker 1>are also very good, I believe we're also on the

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<v Speaker 1>verge of the multiple con jobs of the AI bubble

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<v Speaker 1>collapsing too. In July of last year, former open AI

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<v Speaker 1>CTO Mira Marati, who barely appear to be able to

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<v Speaker 1>get out of fucking sentence in every interview. I've seen

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<v Speaker 1>founded Thinking Machines raising two two billion dollars at a

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<v Speaker 1>twelve billion dollar valuation, all while refusing to tell investors

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<v Speaker 1>what product they'd make, or what the business plan was,

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<v Speaker 1>or how they'd make money or anything like that. Naturally,

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<v Speaker 1>investors were like, take my money, please, I need to

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<v Speaker 1>give this to your mirror. I am an idiot, I'm

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<v Speaker 1>a moron, I'm a goofboar. I just love wasting money. Now,

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<v Speaker 1>when this happened, they were able to poach open AISVP

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<v Speaker 1>of Research for Post Training, Barrett Zov, among two other

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<v Speaker 1>staff as I just really can't engineer the excitement to name.

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<v Speaker 1>And then, a few days ago, as reported by a

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<v Speaker 1>friend of the show, Kylie Robinson of Core Memory, Zof

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<v Speaker 1>was fired from Thinking Machines after telling Marati he was

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<v Speaker 1>considering leaving with wiredsmac Zef reporting in a follow up

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<v Speaker 1>that the firing involved Zov sharing confidential information with competitors.

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<v Speaker 1>What confidential information? What possible information could he have had

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<v Speaker 1>about the things they're not building? About the bullshit? Who knows?

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<v Speaker 1>I think she just fired him because she was mad

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<v Speaker 1>that he was leaving. What the fuck is Thinking Machines

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<v Speaker 1>building exactly would have had a single AI thing last

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<v Speaker 1>year for and I quote, controlling every aspect of model

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<v Speaker 1>training and fine tuning or some such bollocks. I realize

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<v Speaker 1>I'm being a little dismissive, but I just do not

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<v Speaker 1>have it in me anymore to feign excitement over every

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<v Speaker 1>single one of these two or three or whatever fraudulent Okay,

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<v Speaker 1>not literally fraudulent. I have no evidence of that. This

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<v Speaker 1>is a libel blah blah blah. It's not fraudulent. It

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<v Speaker 1>just looks like bollocks. I can't be excited about the

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<v Speaker 1>new asshole who raised a billion or two billion dollars

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<v Speaker 1>to do nothing. I don't have it in me anymore.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm not going to read a sentence about post training

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<v Speaker 1>or fine tuning and pretend that means anything. It doesn't

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<v Speaker 1>mean anything anymore. Nothing has changed, nothing is going on.

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<v Speaker 1>Everyone is wasting money, and I can't care about who

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<v Speaker 1>looted billions of dollars from venture capitalists last nor do

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<v Speaker 1>I believe that anything should happen to this venture capitalists

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<v Speaker 1>other than being tard and feathered by the limited partners.

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<v Speaker 1>These people aren't building anything. They're huffing their own farts

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<v Speaker 1>and getting paid tens of billions of dollars to do it.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm sick of here wrying about them, and I think

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<v Speaker 1>this is the year we see this kind of con diet.

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<v Speaker 1>We're long past the point at which generative AI has

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<v Speaker 1>made sense. Bloomberg reported last year that there were one

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<v Speaker 1>hundred and seventy eight point five billion dollars of data

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<v Speaker 1>center deals in the US alone in twenty twenty five,

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<v Speaker 1>and based on my rough analysis, there's less than a

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<v Speaker 1>billion dollars of actual compute revenue outside of hyperscalers who

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<v Speaker 1>are just trying to move it off of their balance

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<v Speaker 1>sheet so their earnings look better. The demand isn't arriving,

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<v Speaker 1>and neither of the products and all of this speculative

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<v Speaker 1>money sloshing around is going to zero. I also want

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<v Speaker 1>to be clearer about something else I keep hearing about.

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<v Speaker 1>If open ai dies, the AI bubble bursts with it.

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<v Speaker 1>Mister Sebastian Malabi of the Council on Foreign Relations had

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<v Speaker 1>a piece in The New York Times a few days

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<v Speaker 1>ago saying that he believed open ai would run out

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<v Speaker 1>of money by July twenty twenty seven, adding that and

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<v Speaker 1>I quote an open ai failure wouldn't be an indictment

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<v Speaker 1>of AI, but merely the end of the most hype

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<v Speaker 1>driven builder of it. He also said that the probable

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<v Speaker 1>result is that open ai would be absorbed by Mike, Microsoft, Amazon,

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<v Speaker 1>or another cash rich behemoth, which I am going to

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<v Speaker 1>sit down and reread a lot of my newsletters because

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<v Speaker 1>I'm pretty sure that's fucking lifted from my work, Like

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<v Speaker 1>open ai being absorbed by Microsoft. I know I fucking

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<v Speaker 1>said it. If you can find it, email me easy

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<v Speaker 1>at better Offline dot com and I will give you

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<v Speaker 1>a big thumbs up in a photo. But I want

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<v Speaker 1>to be clear. In any case, if open ai dies,

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<v Speaker 1>the bubble burst aggressively and brutally. Open ai is the

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<v Speaker 1>biggest brand name in AI. Samultman is the only well

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<v Speaker 1>known founder, and chat gpt is the only AI product

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<v Speaker 1>with any consumer penetration, and no Microsoft and Google renaming

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<v Speaker 1>products doesn't count, nor does Nano Banana. I can't believe

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<v Speaker 1>I nearly got away with saying or thinking that Nano

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<v Speaker 1>Banana for a week. More important, the open ai is

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<v Speaker 1>the only company with any real demand for a compute

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<v Speaker 1>outside of Anthropic, another company that relies on billions of

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<v Speaker 1>dollars of venture capital and subsidies to stop itself from

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<v Speaker 1>falling over and dying. As you can hear them a

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<v Speaker 1>little bit heated on this subject because I'm really really

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<v Speaker 1>sick of hearing this. I'm really sick of hearing things

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<v Speaker 1>from these AI boosters are getting more crazy and more defensive,

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<v Speaker 1>claiming that this is an open AI bubble, not an

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<v Speaker 1>AI bubble. What do you think happens when AI companies

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<v Speaker 1>try and raise money after open ai dies? Do you

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<v Speaker 1>think investors are going to think? You think they're going

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<v Speaker 1>to do the Tobias fun K poly thing from arrested Development,

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<v Speaker 1>where it didn't work for name, it will work for us.

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<v Speaker 1>Now they're going to say, oh shit, oh shit. The

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<v Speaker 1>one company with all the press, all the money, all

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<v Speaker 1>the infrastructure, all the attention, all of the governmental support

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<v Speaker 1>died on its ass. Why would I invest in more

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<v Speaker 1>in this? And I realize venture capitalists are fucking stupid

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<v Speaker 1>at the best of times, but even by this standard,

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<v Speaker 1>I think that they're going to be too scared to

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<v Speaker 1>put the money in. And I don't think anyone else

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<v Speaker 1>is going to be able to justify it either. But

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<v Speaker 1>I do think by the way AI boosters are about

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<v Speaker 1>to get real crazy out there. I think you're going

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<v Speaker 1>to see them say it's an open AI bubble, not

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<v Speaker 1>and a bubble them. We need these investments to beat China.

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<v Speaker 1>Then they're gonna blame people like me AI skeptics. They're

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<v Speaker 1>gonna say luddites destroyed innovation. And if you hear that,

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<v Speaker 1>know that in reality, the people destroying innovation are the

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<v Speaker 1>ones diverting more than half of all venture capital to

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<v Speaker 1>invest in unreliable, unproductive, unsustainable, and unremarkable software in pursuit

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<v Speaker 1>of creating the future of digital slavery. I'm sick of

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<v Speaker 1>these fucking people, but that doesn't mean I won't be

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<v Speaker 1>here to tell you all about their collapse. I'll be

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<v Speaker 1>back next week with a three or four parter. This

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<v Speaker 1>is gonna be a bomb burner. You're gonna love it.

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<v Speaker 1>Zichron out