Something changed in the past several weeks. The hype flowing from the mainstream media - that uncritically parroted the millenarian talking points of the largest AI labs - came to a sudden reversal.
Two components are at play:
Economic: None of these AI tools, pilots, and frontier models are creating much of any real business value. And the primary economic activity associated with them is the bog standard venture capital speculation or the “picks and shovels” revenue from chip makers like Nvidia.
Social and Cultural: The revenge of the human is nigh. AGI, ASI, “Alignment”, AI solving climate change? Robots taking over all labor? Not so fast. Punctuated by ChatGPTs universally-panned dud release of version “5”, the timelines of the biggest boosters were readjusted towards the reality that AI is kind of just muddling along. In most cases, users are starting to be more vocal about how disappointing it is in oddly common instances. In the workplace, white collar workers - remember them, the ones who were told they’re months from being replaced - have started to report that AI doesn’t really boost their productivity.
Here is a run down of a few recent links that cover these events:
ChatGPT’s 5’s Bust 🪝
Harvard Business Review Beware the AI Experimentation Trap
Matthew Field in The Telegraph rounds out the events nicely
…Field links to a solid take by Andrew Orlowski
The Infamous MIT Report 📎 THE STATE OF AI IN BUSINESS 2025
And Grant Gross in CIO has a good review of the various course corrections at the enterprise level.
Gary Marcus Vindicated 👇
More great work from
..
Anthropic: our code will be mostly AI in 3-6 months. Time’s up, Buddy. Let’s see the code.
AI as Dunning-Kruger
The Educator ‘Overwhelmed’: AI hype crashing into harsh workplace reality
Picks and Shovels play is still fueling the bubble
AP Nvidia’s AI chip sales surged again in latest quarter, but worries about a tech bubble persist
And finally, your moment of Zen…
Taco Bell rethinks AI drive-through after man orders 18,000 waters