WEBVTT - Big Tech Is The Enemy of Innovation 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:09.520 All Zone Media. Hello, Hi, welcome to Better Offline. I'm 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:23.120 your host ed ze Trunk. For weeks now, I've been 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.240 writing and speaking about what I believe to be an 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:29.440 inevitable and possibly imminent collapse in generative AI. In the 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.280 last episode, I talked about the early signs of disquire, 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:36.240 particularly among investors, were growing increasingly uncomfortable about the many 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.960 billions being spent by Microsoft, Google and others to support 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.800 an industry that does not appear to make anyone much 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.559 money and costs so much more than it makes. And 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:47.360 I believe that this is a moment for the tech 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:50.320 industry to atone and to learn and to change in 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:51.800 the wake of what I think is an a one 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:56.680 hundred billion dollar group psychosis, a big, nasty waste that 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:01.400 I will now get to in agonizing detail. Generative AI 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.679 was always unsustainable, and it was always dependent on reams 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.160 of training data that necessitated stealing from millions of people. 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.760 With its utility vague and its ubiquity overstated, the media 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.640 and the markets have tolerated the technology that, while not 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:20.320 inherently bad, was implemented in a way so nefariously and 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:24.440 wastefully that it necessitated theft billions of dollars in cash 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.600 and the double digit percent increase in Hyperscaler's emissions. The 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:32.200 desperation for the tech industry to have something new has 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.480 led to such ruinous success, and if this bubble collapses, 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:37.880 it'll be a result of a shared myopia in both 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.959 big tech dimwitz like satch in Adela and sundarp Isshai 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:44.600 and Silicon Valley power players like Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman, 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.840 Bryan Chesky and of course Mark Hantreeson. The people propping 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.160 up this bubble no longer experience human problems, and thus 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.640 I don't think they can be trusted anymore to solve them. Ultimately, 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.280 this is a story of waste, ignorance and greed, of 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.720 wasted money and have wasted opportunity, because let's face it, 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.760 a fraction of the money spent by Microsoft alone chasing 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.800 the generative AI bullshit machine could have been spent in 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.440 many other profitable and societally useful ways. And it's a 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.440 story of tech executives that are so desperate to own 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.320 the future, but are so disconnected from actually building it. 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.480 And this arms race is a monument to the lack 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.760 of curiosity rife in the highest ranks of the tech industry. 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:28.800 They refuse to do the hard work to create, to 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.480 be curious, to be excited about the things they're building 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.360 and the people they're serving, And so they spent billions 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:36.680 of dollars to eliminate the risk they even might have 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.440 to do any of those things. Ever, again, they just 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.560 wanted the machine to do it for them. Had Sandhar 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:45.400 Pishai looked at Microsoft's investment in open Ai in twenty 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:47.880 nineteen and said, nah, no, thanks, which you did with 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:50.360 the metavers. By the way, it's likely that none of 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.400 this would have happened. But a combined hunger for growth 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:55.600 and a lack of any natural predators means that big 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.000 tech no longer knows how to make a competitive or 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:00.440 useful product, and thus they can only see what their 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.320 competitors are doing and say, ah, yeah, yeah, that's what 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.320 it is. That's what we're all doing now. Before the 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.760 AI hype boom, Mark Zuckerberg was once so disconnected from 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.600 Meta's work on AI that he literally had no idea 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.760 what breakthrough Sandar Peshai had complimented him on in a 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:18.520 meeting they had together mere months before. Meta's own obsession 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.120 with AI truly began, and none of these guys seem 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:24.200 to have any idea what's going on and why are 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.280 they having these chummy little meetings. These aren't competitors, they're 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.680 co conspirators. They're just people meeting to say, what's the 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.120 latest con we're all jumping on. What's the latest market 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.680 that we're all going to monopolize. I can't wait for 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.240 the monopoly episode. And these companies, they're too large, they 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.280 are too unwieldy, they're too disconnected, and they do too much. 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.760 They lack the focus that makes a truly competitive business, 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.680 and they lack any kind of cohesive culture, the kinds 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.440 that are built on solving real human problems or real 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:56.080 business problems that humans have. These are not companies built 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.640 for anything other than growth. And none of them, not 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.240 even Apple, have built something truly innovative and life changing 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.640 in the best part of a decade, with the exception 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:09.840 perhaps of maybe contactless mobile payments, which are actually really cool. 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:12.880 These companies are run by rot economists, and they have 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.320 these disconnected, chaotic cultures full of these little fiefdoms. We're 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.320 established technologists are rap fuck by management goons when they 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.200 try to make their products better instead of making them 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.640 more money, and the depressing thing is that they really 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.200 don't need to be that way. Seriously, there's a world 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.039 where these companies just make a billion dollars a quarter 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:34.520 and they don't even have to fire people every time 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.440 they do so. And there's one where these companies actually 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.360 solve real problems too, and then they still make incredibly 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.760 large amounts of money for doing so. The problem is 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.960 they're greedy. They run by greedy idiots, and they're addicted 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.400 to growth and are incapable of doing anything other than 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.880 following what the last guy did. And what's funny is 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:57.440 this is very Jack Welch from the Shareholder Supremacy. They 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.400 just see a market and like, what if we put 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.640 money in that? Can we take the money from the market. 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.240 That's all they can do. Now. Sundarpishi is a terrible executive, 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.279 but he's a really good Jack Welch clone. And by 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:09.720 the way, if you don't know who Jack Welch is, 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.360 please go back to the Shareholder Supremacy episode. It's important 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:19.520 because you really need to see who fucked all this up. Okay, 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:24.360 so where were we what happens next? Well, there's enough 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:26.800 money sloshing around right now that open ai probably can 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.919 be bankrolled a little further, and like I've mentioned in 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.000 the previous episode, it'll need to be is it needs 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.760 another five billion dollars, if not ten billion dollars to 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.680 make it to the end of twenty twenty five, That 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:39.600 very large amount of money's going to have to come 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:41.640 from somewhere, and I think that they're going to be 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:43.760 reduced to go into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.920 soft bank, or probably taking on private debt, and that 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.440 last one, I'm just really not sure is going to happen. 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:51.880 And those suitors they're not going to be quite as 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.360 generous with their terms and they won't give them a 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.680 devil's deal like Microsoft did, which, as I previously argued 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.600 across multiple newsletters and podcasts, effectively owns all of open 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.960 AI's research and intellectual property. Someonlman is a terrible deal maker. 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:09.360 By the way, while the venture capital system theoretically could 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:11.920 afford to prop up open ai for another year or so, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.560 they're limited partners. Who are the people funding the vcs. 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.200 They're probably still a little sore from twenty twenty one 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.560 and twenty twenty two, when massive amounts of money went 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.360 into nothing, not to mention the sudden and rapid rise 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.240 and interest rates, and they'll probably bulk at the amounts 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:30.799 they can need. We're talking multiple, probably ten one hundred 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.559 million dollar checks or two hundred million dollar checks. Open 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.440 ai needs so much more money than the VC system 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:39.520 is ready to give to one company, and it really 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.080 will only take one person blinking to create a panic 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.039 in both the public and the private markets. Open Ai 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:47.680 may still be able to raise money, but investors have 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.640 no real path to liquidity as open ai most assuredly 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:53.839 will not be able to go public, and in the 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:57.400 process of investing these vcs will likely find out exactly 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.000 how bad things are there. While there is a chance 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.160 we get one more round, kind of a dead cat 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.359 bounce situation, it's honestly a little tough to imagine how 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.160 it keeps going even if open ai raises another ten 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:13.040 billion dollars. But how does the collapse happen? Well, as 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:15.400 I said last time, there's the obvious one open ai 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.560 or Anthropic shuts down, but I think that them shutting 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.239 down is very unlikely based on the corporate structure open 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.040 AI or Anthropic collapsing will be more like the character 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.160 dot Ai deal an attempt to hide the ugly mess, 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:30.320 where a big tech firm absorbs them in and just 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:32.800 goes there. Now the AI division. You saw a version 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:34.960 of this, by the way, when Sam got fired from 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:37.360 open Ai and he was like the head of AI 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.320 at Microsoft for two minutes. But if I had to guess, 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.280 Anthropics most likely home would be with Amazon, which completed 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.720 its four billion dollar investment into the company earlier this 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:49.000 year and also has a profit share with them. In 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.960 any case where this happens, even if the entity Anthropical 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.240 or open Ai keeps going without the key people in 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.600 power such as Anthropic CEO Dario Omdey going in house 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:02.680 Amazon or Google again, it doesn't really matter. They will 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:07.000 eventually die and raising around for a generative AI company 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:08.960 in this market, it's likely going to be quite difficult, 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.400 if not impossible. The narrative shifted, and the people with 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:14.480 the money to invest don't really know what they're talking 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.240 about technologically speaking, so they're investing based on how everybody 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.440 else is feeling, what the vibes are in the air, 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.640 what they sniff each other's asses, and they say, oh, fuck, 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:25.680 is AI good or bad? Now? I don't really know, 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.000 And when we really strip away everything. We strip away 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.040 all of the lies and the marketing, and you just 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.240 get down to incentives and you think, well, they just 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.800 want money, right, If that's all they want, that really 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:44.000 is just the problem, because fundamentally this tech really isn't 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:48.280 that exciting. I'm sorry it isn't. Generative AI is not 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.679 the AI from Iron Man. It is not the magical 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:56.119 future computer. It's a generative AI. That picture of Garfield 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:58.560 with a gun or Scooby Doo sitting on top of 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:03.440 a rocket, those are aren't useful. That's not the future. 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.120 That's just image creation. I'm sure some very insufferable freak 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:09.800 is going to email me after this and be like, wow, 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.960 I'm set up generative AI in all of these ways. Mate. 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:16.640 I appreciate your time, Thank you for emailing me. I'm 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.200 sure you don't even sound like that. The point I'm 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.520 not making is that this is useless. The point I'm 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.439 making is it is not even in the same galaxy 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.080 of usefulness that it requires to go forward to be 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.199 worth all of this money. And on top of that, 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:36.360 it's boring. It's so goddamn boring. It's so I am 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:40.120 so bored. It doesn't even do my boring business stuff. 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.000 I have a pr business in my day job, but 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:44.480 I would love a dn ky AI to move my 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.880 shit around. It can't even do that. I want it 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.120 to help me, and it won't do it. And if 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:51.880 you say ed, you're a stupid idiot, You're a moron. 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:53.440 You have the brain of a bird or a dog 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.560 or a dog bird hybrid. You drool all the time 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.480 because your brain cannot keep your mouth closed. All of 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.040 these things are true, but it's not my job to 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:06.200 sell Generative AI to myself. It's the companies. And the 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.839 idea of a super smart friend that knows everything about 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.120 me is exciting, don't get me wrong. As is the 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.840 idea of making away drudgery all of my spreadsheets and documents, 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.080 for example. But Generative AI does not do these things, 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.760 putting aside any personal feelings I may have. It has 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.520 not changed my life or even like slightly improved it. 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:26.400 And I'm a guy who loves using tech, and he 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.600 is willing to put hours hours into finding solutions to 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.480 automate or mitigate very small problems that I only really 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:37.160 deal with occasionally. I'm not lazy, I'm efficient, at least 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.800 that's what I tell my doctor, and I don't know 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.600 a single person that has meaningfully changed their workflow or 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.360 life as a result of generative AI, outside of being 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.480 able to integrate it to speed up some part of 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:52.360 their already existing system. I've literally never met or spoken 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:56.240 to someone other than one guy on Twitter who has 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.720 talked about using this every day in a way that 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.920 truly changes things, and I should. As an aside, I 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.600 do occasionally get someone on Twitter and it's always a 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.040 blue check and they always say, oh, yeah, well, it's 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.760 changed the way our code changy allows me to code 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.439 so much faster. They then get eighteen responses of someone saying, 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:19.280 I'm an engineer and this is very unstable, and it 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:23.200 really feels like generative AI is just catnip for the 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.360 truly incurious. I don't want to say lazy, because I 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:28.800 think everyone is kind of lazy on some level. We 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.560 all want things to be easier, we really do. And 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.800 there is, when it comes to creativity, a degree where 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.200 the problems you face making something are what makes it 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.080 what it is. The struggles I've had writing and reading 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.559 this script are what make me a better orator or 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.000 a better writer. That process is important, but it's hard, 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.520 and it's annoying, and you have to suck a few times, 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.480 you have to write crap, You have to retake things 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.400 three or four times, and your poor editor, Mattasowski sitting 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:58.760 there going, mate, you've reread that paragraph three times, you 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.240 messed the same word up. But it's fun. This is 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.360 what curiosity is. And I don't think these people have it. 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:07.839 These people don't want to solve software problems. They want 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.480 to type a thing into a computer, hit enter and 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.679 then the problem is solved, never understanding why they did it. 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.680 And this isn't the same thing as calculators, by the way, 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.520 I'd argue software development as are, but that's a separate thing. 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:25.240 And ultimately, this whole movement just doesn't even feel real. 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.280 Nothing about it really felt real. It's just a farce. 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.240 It costs so much money, and it's still costing so 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.960 much money today, and the promises of artificial intelligence will 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:38.959 not be kept through the pursuit of generative AI. As 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.720 generative AI is a dead end technology that has peaked, 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.559 and it costs too much both financially and socially to 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.400 keep it going or to justify its continued existence. There's 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:51.600 no heroic story here. There are a few people who 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.720 are sincerely cheering for these companies to win, those who, 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.680 of course don't have a tangible financial term banking on 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.280 the value of open AI or they have so one 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.120 of the one hundred different guys claiming the Heaven AI newsletter, 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.960 and let's be honest, nobody really loves this, do they. 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.320 Nobody really uses CHATGBT and has that oh shit moment 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:12.520 you got when you first use an iPhone, when you're 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:16.200 first sent a file with Dropbox, that those little times 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.880 when you really fell in love with technology again and again. 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.040 And there's no magic in it. There's no whimsy, there's 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.679 no joy in any of these larger language models, and 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.400 they're not really helping enough people to make it worthwhile. 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.560 I nearly said they're not helping anybody. But there are users, 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.240 there are people who actually care about this. How much 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.320 do they really care? And does any of that outweigh 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.360 the costs and the environmental damage. The answer is no, 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.960 by the way, and their peddlers always demand that we 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.760 just give them another minute as they burn billions of 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.080 dollars to get nowhere. And the general public has known 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.040 the problems and limitations of generative AI for months. I 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:01.520 constantly get emails from better offline listeners, artists, engineers, teachers, massionists, 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.280 poison makers, journalists, consultants, cleaners, and copy editors, all saying 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:07.880 the same thing. This all seems like a croc of shit, 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.040 and the outputs are terrible because people who actually make 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.959 things respect the output and the production itself, and they 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.920 can see how bad this stuff is. Generative AI was 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.920 also not peddled as a solution to any problem other 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.640 than tech's lack of a hypergrowth market, and it's the 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:27.120 kind of bet that only a tech industry devoid of 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.120 natural selection truly builds. None of these big tech firms, 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.800 and I'd argue venture capitalists really take risks anymore because 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:36.880 they don't want to end up looking stupid, and they 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.040 want to follow each other. And regular people know. They 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.200 know Google is worse, they know Facebook is bordering unusable, 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.520 They know that generative AI does not do anything obviously 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.760 useful at scale, and that these companies have never made 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.160 more money than they're making today as they fuck the 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:54.960 customer again and again. And I believe we're in the 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.280 beginnings of a true revolt against big tech and their 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.800 rotten little promises, their lucks run out, and these formless 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.480 private equity vehicles dressed up as software companies are no 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.840 longer bred to create new things. We're all sitting and 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.920 staring at innovation's corps, stabbed full of holes by McKinsey 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.960 veterans and slimy con artists, and it's time for men 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.520 like Sandar Pashai and Sachin Adela to atone because their 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.440 big bet looks like a gigantic waste, one so obviously 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.680 rotten from the beginning that they've never been able to 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:25.080 tell anyone that they never had a plan beyond throw 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.280 money at it and eventually it will do something, or 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:29.200 we will do this as long as the other guy 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.960 does it too. This is a big, ugly mess, a 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.480 monument to the excess that burned more than two hundred 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:39.120 billion dollars and allowed equally lazy and uncreative people to 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.760 replace real people with shitty facsimiles that are just good enough. 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:45.640 But do you want to be more than good enough? 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:47.560 Do you want to excel in all things as I 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.320 demand of all my listeners, then buy one of the 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:54.560 following products, which, as usual, will reflect my exact beliefs, 0:15:54.840 --> 0:16:09.320 wants and needs and we're back, and now that I'm back, 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:11.400 I want to say something to my peers in the media. 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:14.680 It's time for a fundamental re evaluation of how we 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.480 treat big tech, and it's time to question the promises 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.880 of those who sought to peddle this generative nonsense. It's 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.840 no longer time to ask Mark Zuckerberg about his chain. 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.160 It's time to ask him how long he intends to 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:28.600 burn tens of billions of dollars on nothing, and why 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:30.840 the website that made him so many billions of dollars 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.120 is falling apart at the seams, pumped full of content 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.080 created by the big, stupid bullshit machine he's helped popularize. 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.880 It's no longer time to gingerly cool about Sundar pishe Oh, 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.760 he's looking at my smartphone. It's time to ask him 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:45.800 how Gemini is going to make a profit and what 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:47.840 it is that it will do, and press him again 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:49.920 and again and again and again and again until he 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.520 talks about why Google Search is so bad. Now, it's 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.240 no longer time to let Sach and Adela oscillate from 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.600 referendums on capitalism twenty twenty to laying off tens of 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.200 thousands of people in twenty twenty three. It's time to 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.040 ask him if he's prepared to bankroll open AI to 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:07.520 the tune of thirty billion dollars and refuse to leave 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:11.840 the conversation without committing to a number. These men have 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.399 burned hundreds of billions of dollars on a machine that 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.159 boils lakes to make the most mediocre version of the past. 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.040 These men are not supporting innovation. They're aggressive forces, too 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.439 scared to piss off the markets to actually change the world, 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.439 domesticated animals that fear no natural predators and thus have 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.600 no hunger for something new. They propped up generative AI 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:31.960 because their followers rather than leaders that have paid hundreds 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:34.439 of millions of dollars to empower a nihilistic kind of 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.560 growth capitalism that dresses up monopolies as disruption. They have 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.000 propped up generative AI because building the future is hard 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.119 and expensive and involves taking risks and making sure that 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:47.159 you have a culture that doesn't expect the answer to 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.400 a question in the fastest amount of time possible. Innovation 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.720 is an efficient. It's lossy. It has indeterminate time scales 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.920 and requires both capital investment and space required for great 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.679 people to think of actual solutions to problems that involve 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.359 them talking to and caring about the lives of real people. 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:08.040 Fire satch In the Dellar of Microsoft, Fire sund Arpishai 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.720 of Google, and work out a way to fire Mark 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:14.919 Zuckerberg of Meta. These men are unworthy. They do not 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:19.200 find any of this exciting or meaningful. They have no curiosity. 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.800 They're private equity guys dressed up as software guys. They 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:26.160 are con artists. They are running their products into the ground, 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.000 and they're making more money than ever. Big Tech has 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.480 been overcome with narcissism and nihilism, and it must change 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.480 its ways to not eventually face perdition. I am fucking serious. 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.320 Do you think these people have a backup plan? Do 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.160 you think they've burned all of this money on such 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:46.280 a mediocre and wasteful solution because they've got other better ideas? No, 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.800 they're all out. Big Tech does not have another thing. 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.199 Google doesn't have any ideas. Meta is so out of 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.159 ideas that they change their name to another worse idea, 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.639 one associated with Mark Zuckerberg burning forty five billion dollars 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.639 for no reason. In fact, there's a Yahoo Finance story 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.240 about the fact that all of that money that's allegedly 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:07.800 going into the metaverse is just organizational loss. It's a 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:12.679 horribly run place where the management constantly changes. These goddamn people. 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.320 And Amazon, they've never really been in the ideas business. 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.240 They're the founder of a cloud storage cartel with Microsoft, 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:22.640 Oracle and Google. They work together to set the prices. 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.920 Everyone wins except anyone who isn't them. And big tech 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.560 is lazy because they've all agreed to compete only a 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:31.920 little bit, never coloring too far out of the lines 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.800 because doing so might expose them to an actual risk, 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.480 like regulation or having to hire people that build new things, 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:42.000 versus finding increasingly more annoying ways to exploit their current customers. 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.560 And I really am sure that there's a societal shift 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.399 coming against big tech, the natural result of years of 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.480 excess and bullshit of the loudest people in tech trying 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:53.560 to convince people that a large language model that can 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:57.040 generate texts and images that kind of suck is basically 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.800 the same thing as an iPhone. I have no idea 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.080 how quickly the shift comes, but it's coming. It's inevitable. 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:08.359 This lack of big, profitable ideas will eventually lead to 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.880 some sort of reckoning or collapse. In big tech, healthy, 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.800 well run companies, they don't do things like this, let 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:18.120 alone several different trillion dollar companies all bumbling into each 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.760 other like the Three Stooges, billions of dollars of cash 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:25.280 falling out of their pockets. It's an absolute disgrace. I 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.520 will say, if the AI bubble really does pop, this 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:31.720 is a great time to point and laugh. Regular people 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.120 like yourself could see this was bullshit from the beginning. 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:39.119 Most people find generative AI either briefly interesting or somewhat disgusting, 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.000 and they're capable of seeing that. Stealing the entire Internet 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:43.960 so you could spend one hundred billion dollars making a 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.240 shitty version of the past is kind of a stupid idea. 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.240 The utility really hasn't been there from the beginning. Describing 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:55.359 what chat GBT is is actually kind of difficult, and 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.119 any technology that's going to be worth trillions of dollars 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:00.959 should not have the user saying, wait, what does this 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.240 do exactly? And I really feel like regular people notice this. 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:07.080 If this was as magical as it was, regular people 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:09.240 would be lining up to use it. And while it 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.960 has a lot of users. I don't know anyone who's 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:17.159 fanatical over it other than AI fanatics. It's just very sad. 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:20.919 But regular people aren't the only ones. And I have 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.000 criticized journalists for missing this, but I want to call 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.920 some people out in a good way. Economists, analysts and 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.520