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Comment by simianwords | Hacker News Reader

I think the AI industry needs intelligent skeptics that keep the hype in check and ground us in reality.

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.

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> 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.

Agreed. I'm trying to speak up about this more as an engineer https://youtu.be/cJYAK6csXso

I've had to reread the first tweet a bunch, but I don't think Ed is wrong there.

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.

I meant this one for arithmetic https://x.com/binarybits/status/2034378777745141799

Right. I went through and re-did the sheet myself and yeah, it's not great. Incidentally I got to $4.5B myself.

I personally think the fact that it's an indie reporter like Ed Zitron diving into this says a lot about the state of tech media broadly. Reminds me a bit of how sports journalism works nowadays: nobody wants to call out industry leaders for fear of losing access, because losing access is career suicide.

False. The current mainstream media outlets are by far the more anti technology than pro. It is unclear why you think journalists fear losing access when the status quo is opposing tech.

I disagree. I find popular media to be grossly negligent in their lack of skepticism. They love regurgitating pie-in-the-sky claims for clicks.

Respectfully disagree. Frontier lab CEOs have had incredible media access the last 4 years, making huge claims to the press without a lot of pushback or difficult questions. There's obviously no way to give some quantifiable metric on it, and reasonable people can disagree.

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.

The sibling comment is dead, which is unfortunate because it's accurate, and brings at least some data that matches what I've anecdotally observed. I can't find a single article in my news feed that is overwhelmingly positive about AI. Any article that is even slightly editorialized mentioning anything positive about AI typically follows it with any of the same litany of risks -- hallucinations, jobs, deepfakes, environment, energy, that MIT report or that METR study, etc. etc.

It is not surprising that media is largely biased against AI, considering they see this technology as a) disintermediating them, and b) built by stealing their content. And since AI is doing this across a large number of professions, like artists and engineers, they find a willing audience for engagement.

If you watch any interviews with anyone who has power in tech, they're exclusively asked the most soft ball questions imaginable to make them look better.

The media DOES occasionally say negative things about tech. But of what they say, they scratch, like, 1% of the bad stuff. And they make excuses and let people off easy.

It's very similar to how the media is overly sympathetic to Trump. Yes, Trump is critiqued - but everything he says is interpreted in the least crazy way possible, even though he is a lunatic. MSNBC and co will even go as far as fabricating reasoning for Trump's actions when he doesn't provide any - and it's good reasoning!

I briefly listened to one of his podcasts, but the over-the-top, worst-interpretation-possible coverage was just... bleh.

I'll plug my own content as a response to Ed. I have worked in engineering for a while now. I did code and continue to. How a PR guy has become the face of this story is beyond me https://youtu.be/cJYAK6csXso

FWIW I have been trying to interview Ed about this for ages but he has ignored all of our requests.

His articles conflate quality with quantity. An aggressive edit with a more coherent structure would improve the message and sound less like a stream of consciousness rambling. Advertising his newsletter as "over 7000 words" is like bragging about LOC, it's an impressive number but doesn't itself indicate whether it's a necessary amount or if it's useful.

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

Ed can come across as agitated and shrill, and I never stop picturing him as exactly like Jude Law's character in Contagion. But. He's still an important counterpoint to the unexamined mainstream junk, which says more about the world than about him or his style. As we've seen play out with other areas of discourse, the middle shrinks, we're forced into a dialectic tug of war between absurdly polarized extremes, and it all comes to crisis. We might rediscover caution, epistemic humility, compromise and middle-ground, but only after rising absurdity and then some kind of punishment

You make good points at the end but I don't know why it is important to be unprincipled about it?

> He's still an important counterpoint to the unexamined mainstream junk, which says more about the world than about him or his style.

> I don't know why it is important to be unprincipled about it?

Well, making new mathematical errors while trying to point out someone else's math errors isn't unprincipled. Even in the face of errors, it's implicit that things like transparency and data-driven decisions are considered desirable.

The next point is superficial, but I think you'll find that it tracks in general. Consider 3 headlines and how much discourse really boils down to this type of messaging: "AI can make you rich!" vs "Use AI or be left behind!" vs "AI Industry is Lying to You".

The substance behind the headlines may or may not tell you something true about the world. At the same time, only the last headline/content seems even remotely concerned with principles, implying in this case that lying is bad. The other two are just seeking to spur interest and motivation with greed or with fear.

I don't know what you are trying to say. I do believe both that AI can make you rich and that one should use AI or be left behind. Much the same way we can say the same thing about internet.

> The other two are just seeking to spur interest and motivation with greed or with fear.

It just seems like your opinion but even in that case I don't see why we are talking about intention? Ultimately the world would be better if one just said truth so there's no excuse for this

If you're interested in truth and not principles, why do you bring up principles? If you're interested in principles, why do you expect them from skeptics but not from boosters?

> If you're interested in truth and not principles, why do you bring up principles?

Principles are not the same as intention though. Even if some articles are biased and have certain intentions, I don't mind if they are principled and stick to truth.

I expect principles from both. I don't expect non biased reporting however. I guess you are conflating them.

Principles in this case is to own mistakes, correct them and value truth and yes I do expect boosters to own mistakes. Your first two examples don't show lack of principles - they just show bias and intentions.

I've listened to his podcast a couple of times. I never use this term but for Ed I make an exception: he is a hater. He is making a living out of being a hater.

He's a PR professional who has literally worked for AI companies, and it feels more like he's chasing newsletter engagement than making a coherent argument. The agitated ranting definitely overshadows the rest.

> Here's an example [1] of him fumbling on simple arithmetic.

If you read just the _next_ paragraph after what this Timothy B. Lee conveniently screenshoted, you will find Ed Zitron saying this:

--- The exact quote from the affidavit is that “...[Anthropic] has generated substantial revenue since entering the commercial market—exceeding $5 billion to date,” and while boosters will say “uhm, it says “exceeding,” if it were anything higher than $5.5 billion Anthropic would’ve absolutely said so. ---

I checked archive.org and Ed's article wasn't edited and it was saying that from the very beginning so I can only assume malicious misinformation presented by the X'er. So, you are saying he fumbled at simple arithmetic while showing the source which skips the half where he is absolutely correct in his arithmetic and even foresees what the "boosters" will claim.

I think you should focus on the claims in this article. There are plenty of principles espoused within.

Smearing his character without directly addressing those just stinks the place up.

There's throwing mud and then there's pointing out the mud already flung all over the walls

And yet, the figures are the figures.

I don't trust anonymous online mudslingers when I've seen the salaries of some of the midlevel AI roles. It all stinks.

Worse yet: this person points to one article he disfavours and uses that as sufficient context to slander. And what is being called mud, on the writer's part, I see as just a little dust.

It stinks. Answer the figures.

I have been burned in the past by siding with people who give kitchen-sink type of arguments. So I would not bet my money on things he says.

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.

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