Better Offline - The BS Bubble

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through why it’s so harmful that the media keeps taking OpenAI at its word - and responds to the most common critiques from AI boosters.YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.You can also order a limited-edition Better Offline hat until 5/22/25! https://cottonbureau.com/p/CAGDW8/hat/better-offline-hat#/28510205/hat-unisex-dad-hat-black-100percent-cotton-adjustable --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitronSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The story I've told myself can then shape my behavior and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast Deeply Well with Debbie Brown if you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole. This podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to Deeply Well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

AllZone. Hi, I'm Ed Zittron, and you're listening to Better Offline. As a reminder, you can now buy glorious better offline merchandise. There's a link to it in the episode notes, the t-shirts, the tumblers, the tote bags, all that shit. It's lovely. You're going to love it. Buy it today. But if I'm honest, today I'm actually a little bit pissed off.

And that's why we've got a two-part episode this week about how fucking stupid the AI boom has become. I wrote Farsicle in the script. And I'm going to be honest, I need to be a little more pointed. Because I've written tens of thousands of words about this now. I've recorded hours upon hours of podcasts and still. to this day. People are babbling about the AI revolution as the sky rains, blood and crevices open in the fucking earth, dragging houses and cars and domesticated animals into their moors. Things are astronomically fucked outside, yet the tech media continues to tell me to get my

swimming trunks on and take a long, nice dip in the fucking pool. As you can tell, this is going to be a little less reserved than usual. I'm just, I'm a little bit frustrated. I don't know why I'm the one saying this, and I frequently feel with that I, a part-time blogger and podcaster and writing the things that I'm writing. Since I put out the newsletter OpenAI as a systemic risk of the tech industry, and actually it was a couple weeks back I did the two-parter about it too, I've heard nothing in response, as was the case with how does Open AI survive and how Open AI is a bad business. There just seems to be little concern or belief that there's any kind of risk at the heart

of AI, and Open AI in particular. And there are companies that spent $9 billion in 2024 to lose $5 billion. dollars. Well, I'd love to add a because here, if not because it's important to be intellectually honest and represent views that directly contrast my own, even if I do in somewhat sarcastic and sardonic fashion. Nobody seems to actually have a cogent response to how they write this ship, other than hard fork, a Casey Newton throwing a full-scale psycho tanty on a podcast and saying I'm wrong because inference costs are coming down. Influence, by the way, is when an AI takes an input and produces an output. It's the calculations that take place right before Google's generative AI system.

attributes the Voltaire quote to Michael Jackson or says that black tar heroin when enjoyed in moderation can help you lose weight. Newton is a nakedly captured booster that ran an infographic from Anthropic a few weeks ago, the likes of which I haven't seen since 2013. It was telling you all the ways that people use generative AI. It looks like some shit from, I don't know, early day mashable, no offense, Christina. And they essentially treat this company propaganda as gospel, but he's really far from the only one with a flimsy attachment to reality. The information, a publication that genuinely does some great stuff, which makes it even more heartbreaking to say this, ran a piece in early April that made me even more furious than usual, claiming that Open AI was forecasting revenue topping $125 billion in 20209, based on selling agents and monetizing free users as a driver to hire revenue. Agents I should add are AI systems that can interact with other systems and do stuff, so an AI that can order pizza from DoorDash for you.

is that's an example of an agent. And when I say it can order a piece of view, I am talking entirely theoretically, as they cannot do this right now and may never be able to do so. Indeed, the whole agent thing is just what we wish AI was, and it actually doesn't work. And the piece reported based on things, and I quote, told to some potential and current investors, takes great pains to accept literally everything that Open AI says is perfectly reasonable, if not gospel, even if said things make absolutely no goddamn sense. So according to the information's reporting, OpenAI expects agents and new products, and both of those are quotes, to contribute tens of billions of dollars of revenue, both in the near term, somehow contributing $3 billion in revenue this year, which I will

get to in a little bit, and in the long term, with an egregious $25 billion in 2020, even, projected to come from just new products. If you're wondering what those new products might be, I am too, because the information doesn't seem to know. And instead of saying OpenAI has no idea what the fuck they're talking about and is just saying stuff, the outlet continues to publish things with the kind of empty optimism that's indistinguishable from GPT-generated LinkedIn posts.

Must be clear, the information isn't generating their articles. They're writing them fresh. I want to be really, really clear about something. We aren't in nearly in May 25, and indeed one of these will come out actually in May, the second part. I see no evidence that OpenAI even has a marketable agent product they can sell, let alone it will make $3 billion goddamn dollars off of. And they definitely are not going to do so in the next six or seven months. Oh, my, for context, that's triple the revenue of Open AI that they made reportedly,

at least from selling access to their models via its APIs, essentially allowing third-party companies that use GPT in their apps in the entirety of 2024. And those APIs and models actually exist in a meaningful sense, as opposed to whatever the FARCopen AI's half-baked-dast agent's stuff is. In fact, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to be me. I'm not. Be calm. Be normal.

I'm going to explain exactly what the information is reporting in an objective way, because writing it out really shows how silly it all sounds. I'm going to write they believe a lot because I must be clear how stupid this is. Now, according to the information, reporting, they believe that Open AI will make $3 billion in 2025 from selling access to its agents. This appears to come from SoftBank, which has said it will buy $3 billion worth of Open AI products annually. Earlier this year, we got a bit of extra information about how SoftBank will use these products. It plans to create a system called Crystal Intelligence, that's C-R-I-S-T-A-L, and it's one of the most

generic names I've ever seen, and it will be a kind of general-purpose AI agent platform for big enterprises. The exact specifics of that will shock you and that there are none, but softbank intends to use the technology internally across its various portfolio companies as well as market it to other large enterprise companies in Japan. I still do not know what the fuck this is. Crystal intelligence, billions of dollars, billions of dollars and they just don't, they can't even describe what it is just saying, yeah, it'll be an agent platform that does stuff with your business like, does that sound good? Can I have three billion? I need $40 billion. I need $40 billion. Give me... Okay. I also want to add that the information can't seem to keep its story straight on this issue.

Back in February, they reported that Open AI would make $3 billion in revenue only from agents, with a big, beautiful chart that said $3 billion would come from it, only to add that it would be SoftBank using OpenAI's products across its companies. Based on these numbers, it seems like SoftBank will be the only customer for Open AIs. agents. While this most likely won't be the case and it isn't because it excludes anyone willing to pay a few bucks to test it out, it nonetheless doesn't signal good things for agents as a mass market product. Not that there were any good signals beforehand, though. Agents do not exist as a product that can be sold at scale. Yes, OpenAI teased operator, its first agent

at the start of the year, but it doesn't seem to be able to do anything. The information's own reporting from mid-April highlighted how OpenAI's operator agent struggled with comparison and shopping on financial products, and that's a quote, and how operator and other agents are, and I quote again, tripped by pop-ups or log-ins as well as prompts, asking for email addresses and phone numbers for marketing purposes, which I think accurately describes most websites. And just to summarize from everything I've said,

the information is saying that the above product will make OpenAI $3 billion by the end of 2025. Sounds very real to me. Sounds extremely real. I love that the business, media just prints this. I love this. I love this so much. I'm having so much fun. Jesus Christ. According to the information's reporting, they believe that OpenAI will basically double revenue every single year for the next four years and make $13 billion in revenue in 2025,

more than doubling that to $29 billion in 202026, nearly doubling that to $54 billion in 2027, and nearly doubling that again to $86 billion in 2020, and eventually leveling out at a ridiculous us 125 billion dollars of revenue in 2029. Said revenue estimates as of 2026 includes billions of dollars of new products that include free monetization, free user monetization either. And if you're wondering what that means, I also am. The information does not explain. Jessica Lesson must have been busy, being horrible to people that work for her.

They do, however, say that Open AI will start, and I'm quoting this, won't start generating much revenue from free users and other products until next year. That's 2026. In 29, and I'm still quoting, however, it projects revenue from free users and other products will reach $25 billion, a one-fifth of all revenue, and then adds that shopping is another potential avenue. You still probably don't know what they're doing, and neither do I, and I have driven myself insane reading about this. I really cannot express my disgust about how willing publications are to blindly publish projections like these, especially when they're all so stupid. Let me just read this to you, all right? And I quote, OpenAI has already begun experimenting with launching software features for shopping.

Starting in January, some users can access web browsing agent operator as part of their pro-chatGPT subscription tier to order groceries from Instacart and make restaurant reservations on Open Table. Just want to be clear this is a few episodes ago I mentioned Casey Newton not even being able to say this worked. I just want to be really clear as well what the information is saying. So they're saying that this experimental software launched to an indeterminate amount of people that barely works is going to make open AI $3 billion in 2025. And then somehow this is going to lead to open AI making $29 billion in 20206. And then they're going to eventually be up to $125 billion. What the fuck?

How? How? What fucking universe are we all living in? There's no proof that open AI can do this other than the fact it has a lot of users and a lot of venture capital. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guide. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman,

help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard,

uh, You only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard herds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yardt Yard's, right? Do you have a name suggestion? We're open.

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In fact, I think we have real reason to worry about whether OpenAI even makes its current projections. In my last multi-part episode, and in the newsletter OpenAI is a systemic risk, for those of you who are like to read while listening to my fucking podcast, I wrote that Bloomberg had estimated that OpenAI would triple revenue to $12.7 billion in 2025 and based on its current subscriber base, OpenAI would effectively have to double its current subscription revenue and massively increase its API revenue to hit these targets. These projections rely on one entity, SoftBank, spending $3 billion specifically on OpenAI services.

Really shouldn't have said specifically because they keep changing what it means, meaning that they'd have to make enough on API calls so people plug in the models into their products to generate more revenue that OpenAI made in subscriptions than the entirety of 2024, and something else that I can only describe as an act of God. And that I admit assumes that SoftBank's spending commitment is, based on usage and not like a flat fee, where SoftBank just hands them $3 billion and gets infinite levels of access. Assuming it's the former, I'd be stunned if SoftBank's consumption hits $3 billion in 2025, even with the massive cost of the reasoning models that Crystal

Intelligence will maybe be based off of? Again, we don't know. And SoftBank announced this deal with Open AI in February. Crystal Intelligence, if it works, and that is possibly the most load-bearing if of all time, will be a massive, complicated and ambitious product. details of vague, but from what I understand, SoftBank wants to create an AI that handles a bunch of varied tasks that knowledge workers do. I mean, it's just the same marketing bullshit. It's the same thing. It's the thing they've been lying about before. And to be clear, OpenAI's agents cannot consistently do well anything right now. What I believe is happening is that reporters are taking Open AI's rapid growth in revenue from 2023 to 2024, when they went from like tens of millions

of dollars a month in the beginning of the 2023 to 300 million in August 2024. They're taking this to mean that the company will always effectively double or triple revenue every single year forever, with their evidence being Open AI has said that this will happen in projections. It's bullshit. I'm sorry, it's bullshit. It's bullshit. As I wrote before in a newsletter, it's called There's No AI Revolution and the accompanying episodes at the time. Open AI effectively is the generative AI industry. Nothing about the rest of the generative AI industry suggests that the revenue exists to sustain these ridiculous obscenees and, frankly. fucking stupid valuations and projections. What do I mean by that, by the way? Okay, let me get into it. ChatGPT is the only real generative AI product with any significant usage, or rather, their nearest rivals are a fraction of said user base. Or maybe I need to be a little bit blunter. If anyone held a Google Gemini user conference, all the attendees could probably share a cab. Believing the open AI growth myth, and yes, reporting it objectively is both endorsing and believing these numbers, is engaging in childlike logic, where you take one event, which is open AI's revenue,

grew 1,700% from 2023 to 2024. Wow. To mean another will take place, which is the open AI will continue to double revenue literally every other year, another insane thing to believe. And you're consciously ignoring difficult questions such as how will they do this? And what's the total addressable market of large language models and their associated subscriptions exactly? And how does this company even survive when it expects the costs of inference, the triple, this year to $6 billion alone. Wait, wait, wait, sorry, sorry. I really need to be clear with that last one because it's a direct quote from the information. The company also expects growth in inference costs, the costs of running AI products such as chat GPT and their underlying models to moderate over the

next half decade. These costs will triple this year, referring to 2025 to $6 billion and rise to nearly $47 billion in 2030. Still, the annual growth rate will fall to about 30 percent then. Okay, Thanks. Also, are you fucking kidding me? Six billion fucking dollars for fucking inference. Hey, Casey Newton. I thought those costs were coming down. Casey? Casey? Casey? He's not here. He's not here. Anyway, that's not really great at all. That's actually really bad. The information reports that Open AI will make about $8 billion from subscriptions to chat GPT in 2025, meaning that 75% of OpenAI's largest revenue sources eaten up by the price of providing it. This is meant to be the cheap part

This is the one fucking thing people say to me Is meant to come down in price I've had assholes saying to me for the last year Cost of inference is coming down Is it? Are we living in different dimensions Are there large parts of the tech media That have fucking gas leaks? What am I missing? Tell me what I am missing

Nah Ed you haven't took the people to build these things You don't know what they're there Shut the fuck up If you were one of these people who says I need to, in Casey you're included man Fuck like I'm so sick of this Oh you don't talk to people running these things I am sick of people like Casey Newton and others too saying, oh, you don't talk to enough AI people.

You haven't listened to them. You mean I haven't listened to the pablum of the people that make money off of lying about this dog shit. Are you really think that's what's missing from my analysis, interviewing people who work at these companies and understanding how the technologies work. I know how the technologies work. I don't need to talk to these fucking people. There are people out there like Simon Wilson and Max Wolfe who know how these things work that I talk to fairly regularly and both of them push back. me because they know how large language models work. Those people matter. What doesn't matter to me, what will never matter to me is what Dario Amadee, Jack Clark, and all the other fucking people,

anthropic think. And I think it's detestable and actively, honestly, malpractice in journalism to pretend that there's something ethical about speaking to these people and listening and taking in their marketing spiel. It's actually a little bit disgusting that this is even a critique leveled at anyone. But you're going to have to forgive me. I'm going to be a little rude. And I know that seemed like it, but I'm not even getting started. In fact, you know what?

I think it's time, okay, everyone. I think it's time that I go through the most common critiques in AI. It's time for me to really sit down. And I'm going to do my Kevin Roos voice. And I know a lot of you like my Kevin Roos voice. And some of you, not a lot of you. I'm going to say I'm being rude to these people and it weakens my analysis to which I say, kiss my ass. I will turn you, I will cube you like a car in a garbage dump. But let's start,

shall we? The cost of inference are coming down. That's one argument, okay? Source? Source. Where is your source? If you are someone saying to me that the cost of inference are coming down, I want your source. I want you to show me the costs. I want you to show me the cost at scale, because it sure seems like they're increasing for open AI and there effectively the entire user base of the entire generative AI industry. But Ed, what about DeepS? You sweet idiot child, DeepSeek is not Open AI, and Open AI's latest models only seem to be getting more expensive as time drags on. GPD 4.5 costs $75 per million input tokens and $150 per million output tokens. And at the risk of repeating myself, Open AI is effectively the entire generative AI industry, at least for the

world outside of China. On top of that, we actually don't know whether Deepseek is even profitable to run at scale. It is definitely cheaper to run, but we don't know if it's actually profitable. Indeed, I don't know even know how you'd calculate this, because running a deep seek modeled as just one person is one thing. The question is whether you could scale it up like OpenAI. We don't know. But let's get back to the other critiques. This is a company at its growth stage. They can just hit the button here. All be profitable. You have the mind of a child. If this was the case, why would both Anthropic and Open AI be losing so much money? Why are none of the hyperscalers making profit on AI. Why does nobody want to talk about the underlying economics if

they're at the growth stage? And also, a little side point as well, why have we been at the growth stage for years and why are hyperscalers at the growth stage? They're not startups. Anyway, on to another one though. These are the early days of AI. It's just like the early days. Wrong. Wrong. We have all the King's Horses and all the Kingsmen, the entire tech industry and more money that has ever been invested into anything piled into generative AI and the result has been utterly mediocre. nobody's making money on AI other than Nvidia and maybe cheering a consultancy. But Ed, they're already showing signs that AI is going to be powerful. No, it's not.

No, it's not. Like, if anyone brings these critiques, you just say, no, no, they're not. Show me. Show me. Show me. Why is it the only people, I'm giving Simon Wilson credit here. He's one of the only people who will show you anything cool. And it's cloud compute stuff.

It's like relatively boring enterprise stuff. It's exciting for the niche cases. like software generally is, but it's really not showing any power. We talk about this powerful AI thing. Is it in the room? Like, where is this? Where is this powerful AI? But then I have actually had a few emails saying, Ed, Ed, look at OpenAI's O3 model.

And I just want to be clear that this new and extremely expensive reasoning model also hallucinates more. Is that AGI, by the way? Is this AGI? Is the AGI in the room with us? Did the AGI tell you it loved you? Did it tell you to leave your wife? Did it offer you sex? I hope you're okay.

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's that more singer in the group. The worst?

Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard herds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open.

Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get. your podcast. Human me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny.

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think Iheart. radio and podcasting.

Call 844-844-I-heart to get started. That's 844-8-4-8-4-I-heart. It's your responsibility to not just seek help, but to identify that you need help. This is Mental Health Awareness Month. Tune in to the podcast, Just Healed with Dr. Jay, and take real steps toward healing, growth, and becoming your best self.

When you hear the word healing, what does that mean for you? What came right back to mine are the three P's that I live by, I'll go through the process. of healing so that patience, that perseverance, and that prayer equals healing to me. From understanding your mental health to doing the work, we break down practical tools, real conversations, and the mindset shifts you need to move forward and thrive.

You matter too. Your mental health is your responsibility, not your wife, not your partner, not your children, not the church, not the pastor, not the council. It's your responsibility. It's time to stop putting your healing on hold and start doing something about it. Listen to Just Hill with Dr. Jade on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Jared Adano. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet.

Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than that. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian. And recently, I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice. and thoughtful solutions. Sike! I'm a comedian! I'm not qualified to give good advice.

Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Oh, cream of chicken suit. Hey, cream, cream a chicken suit.

This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to help from a hypocrite. as part of the Mike Coutura Podcast Network available on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. But Ed, Ed, Ed, it really is the early days, though. It's just like this in the early days of the internet.

No, it was not. And you're a buffoon for suggesting otherwise. Jim Covello of Goldman Sachs wrote in a note from last year in the episode Pop Culture, You Can Listen to it, which, the early days of the Internet were nothing like this. Nothing at all, nothing. There were the $62,000, $64,000, some microscress. systems servers, yes, but there were so, so many, few of them. But Ed, smartphones, I've got

you. I finally have me in myself. People doubted those two. They didn't. I will drown you in an icy lake. If another person comes to me and says, hey, Ed, smartphones, people doubted smartphones. Nobody doubted smartphones. Why do people, I've read this point so many times, but no one seems to have a fucking hyperlink because they're lying. They're goddamn lying. Covello of Goldman Sachs also noted and including an entire thing about how smartphones were fully telegraphed to analysts in advance with hundreds of presentations

that accurately fit how smartphones rolled out and said that no roadmap exists for AI is just we're years into this and I'm still repeating the same points and I still don't have much in return other than the cost of inference that's going down but here's another point of people like

they go, oh Ed you're so bone check out this article and some of you love to email me this fucking thing. Not many of you. I must be clear, the listeners, you're wonderful. I love you so much, but there's one or two of you out there. Really, you're very attached to eugenitive AIs, and I'm never going to like it. But some of you like to send me this article from Newsweek in 1995 from a guy who said that the web would not be a big business. Clifford Stoll, he said, why the web won't be Nirvana? And this piece, by the way, is quite detailed. You should read it. I'm going to have it in the episode notes. But they think that sending me this,

that one guy, one guy was wrong once. One guy, he said that the internet wouldn't be big. And this proves that I, Ed Zittron, what's that 99, so like 20 years later, because one guy said that the internet wouldn't be big, that I am wrong somehow. Motherfucker, have you read the piece? That's actually the thing. All of these are things that you can box up and use in people who use this half-ass bullshit. Clifford Stoll basically says that the internet at the,

the time was pretty limited, and yes, he conflated that with the idea that it wouldn't be big in the future. However, Stoll's piece also, as Michael Hiltzig wrote for the LA Times, was alarmingly accurate about misinformation and sleazy companies selling computerized replacements for education. In any case, one guy saying that the internet won't be big doesn't make a fucking thing about genetic of AI, and you were a simpleton if you think it does. One guy being wrong in some way is not a response to a criticism. I will crush you like a bug if this is your logic. I will eat you. I will put you in my mouth like curf. be and I'll shit you out and I will have the powers of a dunce.

Stoll's analysis also isn't based on hundreds of hours of research and endless reporting. Mine is, I will grab you from the ceiling like the wallmaster from Zelda, and you will never be heard from again. Anyway, another argument. Another argument that people are to give me is the open AI and Anthropica research entities, not business, and that they are not focused on profit. Okay, so just so we're clear that if that's the case, they're just going to burn money forever? Is that the case?

Or are they going to hit the B profitable button sometime? Also, if Open AI was a research entity, why does it need $40 billion from SoftBank or to change its weird corporate structure to become a fault for profit? Actually, wait, wait a second, so it just occurred to me.

Open AI is as many as 800 million weekly active users. That's proof of adoption, right? That's going to be an argument that people are. There's some bloke on Blue Sky who's just been responding to me every few days with this kind of argument saying, look, look at all the users. And look, I get the, you might be a bit horny about this number,

but something don't make no sense about this number. On March 31st, 2025, OpenAI said that it had 500 million people who used chat GPT every week. Two weeks later, Sam Altman claimed that something like 10% of the world uses their systems a lot. They're referring to chat GPs. And the media took this to mean that chat GPT is 800 million weekly active users. I just want to be clear about something as well. Sam Altman didn't say that. He said the weird, vague thing about something like 10% of the world.

Like, that's what he said. And everyone just went, oh shit, we've got to help Sam Alman out. Got to push this bad boy over the edge. And there are three ways to interpret what he said. And you tell me which one sounds real. Number one, OpenAI's user base increased by 300 million weekly active users in two weeks. Number two, OpenAI understated its user base in the announcement of their funding announcement on openaI.com by 300 million users. Or three, number three.

How about this? Sam Altman fucking lied. I get that some members of the media have a weird attachment to this damned little man, but have any of you ever considered that he's just fucking saying things knowing that you'll print them with the kindest possible interpretation? Sam Altman is a liar. He's lied before and he'll lie again. I wrote an entire newsletter called Sam Orman is full of shit.

You should read it. I'm going to link to it. But wait, Ed. Google says it as 350 million monthly active users on Gemini. Eat shit, Zitron. No, you eat shit. Yes, Google Gemini has 350 million monthly active users, and that's because they started replacing Google Assistant with Google Gemini in early March. You are being had.

You are being swindled. If Google replaced Google Search with Google Gemini, it would have billions of monthly active users. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on a goddamn cracker. Even reading this script out, I get... Some of you have suggested that this is at all manufactured. No. reading this stuff makes me very angry because I didn't grow up popular or intelligent in any way.

I've had to pick this shit up as I go. And I don't think what I'm saying is crazy, but I am sometimes treated that way. And this episode, I realize I'm doing myself no favors. But anyway, back to the critiques really quickly. Open AI having hundreds of millions of free users, each losing it money, is proof that the free version of Chat GPD is popular, largely because the entirety of the media has written about AI nonstop for two straight years and mention chat GPT every single fucking time.

Yes, yes, there is a degree here of marketing, a partnerships of word of mouth of some degree of utility, but when you remove the nonstop free media campaign, chat GPT would have peter out by now, along with this stupid fucking bubble. But it's proof somebody's doing something. Yeah, it's proved that something is broken in society. Generative AI has never ever had the kind of meaningful business returns

or utility that actually underpins something meaningful, but it has had enough to make people give it. try. Do you not? Actually, no, I know you listening, you're going to get this. In some ways this episode has been, I mean, in all ways it's been pretty ranting, the second one going to be even more so. What I'm trying to do here is show you how farcical all this crap is, how ridiculous it is, how silly, these posits are, these projections are, the suggestion that what we have today will become something else when all we've had is proof that it won't. Do you see the obvious cracks in the wall here? No matter how strenuously, people like professional credulous dipshits at other big publications

tried to pay over them, does any of this make sense to you? Because I, even when I try and steal man my own arguments, can't wrap my head around how any of this survives, let alone becomes an industry where the biggest player has annual revenues greater than some major industrialized countries. And I know some of you, the emotions a lot, and I know the aggressions a lot. I'm frustrated because I truly believe this stuff's falling apart. I truly believe that this was never really anything. While I'm saying this, Kevin Rousse is in the New York Times going, I believe that AGI is my friend.

I believe AGI will rise out of the ground and hug me in the way that no one ever has. I think that's disgusting on multiple levels, but I also think it's genuinely irresponsible. I think all of this is. I think when this collapses, we're going to have to look back and take inventory of how we do. got here. And I need you to, in the next episode, listen to it through the kind of listen to it through the lens. That's how lenses work. I need you to just stick with it and realize that all

of what this is is trying to show you and hopefully other people that you talk to how silly this is, how ridiculous this is, and that we have a major problem in tech and business media. We have a problem where people can come out and just say whatever. The Charlie Brown had hose of the tech media. And it's disgusting to me because there are startups that could use this money. There are better things to be done with this money. Perhaps they're not hypergrowth markets, but there are things that actually exist that it could be piled into. Instead, we've done this to make companies look like they can grow, to make Sam Altman able to buy another $5 million conusig car. Is that the one he has? Either way, I'm not going to lower the temperature on the next

episode. I'm going to be honest, it's going to be just as spicy. But I want you to know all of this frustration comes from a place of knowing that we can do better, of knowing that the tech industry could do better. Perhaps it won't be as big as it is today and the future. I don't know. But for it to get better, this shit needs to end. Stick around for the next part where I'll talk about how we actually got here, how this bubble got inflated, and how nasty the result could be at the end. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matersowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Matersowski.com. M-A-T-T-T-O-S-O-S-K-I.com. You can email me at E-Z at Better Offline.com or visit Better Offline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter.

I also really recommend you go to chat. Where's Your Ed?at to visit the Discord and go to R-S-Better-O-Line to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

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