The analogy to MLM doesn’t work. In a pyramid scheme, early investors are guaranteed money, whereas late investors are guaranteed losses. With a vibe-coding platform, everyone has the same (extremely low) odds of building a hit app, so is at least more equitable in that sense.
In the author’s example, Replit has a very high chance of making a profit on those folks’ desperation.
It’s not exactly an MLM. But the predatory mechanism is close. Loan sharking might be a more exact analog for the financial bit, but the social-media marketing strikes closer to MLMs.
There is already the very classical grift : you don't sell genai content, you sell "get rich quick with genai" methods. This is where the recursion starts.
I think it does. MLM is multi-level-marketing and the shovel-selling exactly IS a pyramid scheme.
You have to look more deeply into the scheme. It appears that they sell the SaaS, but what they are actually selling is the selling/referral system itself which makes it exactly a pyramid scheme.
Just like the tupperware was never the money-maker, is the referral system.
> in part because of the huckster-like triangulations of scumbags like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei
I would happily read an AI-critical blogpost if it weren't clearly motivated by a strange, specific hatred of the prominent AI figureheads.
At this point I automatically dismiss writing like this, the motivated reasoning is palpable. Their distaste for the character and general vibes of the AI industry trap them in blatant denials of reality, like claiming that AI is a completely worthless technology or surely the bubble will pop any minute now.
I am all for well-researched criticisms of these companies and their claims, but please start at the facts and use them to derive your conclusions, rather than the other way around.
I think in the short term much of the concern for AI replacing jobs was overblown, largely due to two factors
1. Benchmark performance of LLM's and AI models did not fully represent skill in real-world domains
2. Most jobs span far more requirements than their specific job descriptions, many of which lie, even in simple jobs, in the realm of highly adaptive, context rich multi-modal information processing that most humans do still better than AI
However, there is nothing fundamental that prevents LLM's from scaling and improving, aided by better scaffolding, to the point of replacing many white-collar jobs, especially ones which have limited, specific requirements and output parameters. This is an enormous chunk of the white collar work force, and displacement is already happening in limited sections, and will surely continue as AI capabilities diffuse.
It seems however deeply entrenched in many people's identity to deny this fact, because to accept it requires accepting that many of the essential claims of AI CEO's are somewhat true to a degree, and that LLM's are a genuinely useful technology.
In the author’s example, Replit has a very high chance of making a profit on those folks’ desperation.
It’s not exactly an MLM. But the predatory mechanism is close. Loan sharking might be a more exact analog for the financial bit, but the social-media marketing strikes closer to MLMs.
You have to look more deeply into the scheme. It appears that they sell the SaaS, but what they are actually selling is the selling/referral system itself which makes it exactly a pyramid scheme.
Just like the tupperware was never the money-maker, is the referral system.
I would happily read an AI-critical blogpost if it weren't clearly motivated by a strange, specific hatred of the prominent AI figureheads.
At this point I automatically dismiss writing like this, the motivated reasoning is palpable. Their distaste for the character and general vibes of the AI industry trap them in blatant denials of reality, like claiming that AI is a completely worthless technology or surely the bubble will pop any minute now.
I am all for well-researched criticisms of these companies and their claims, but please start at the facts and use them to derive your conclusions, rather than the other way around.
>> the belief that AI can — and will — displace white-collar jobs is a lie that’s been accepted by the masses
I see no argument whatsoever in the piece as to why this is the case, just an emphatic declaration.
Anyway. The belief that the author isn’t talking out of their ass is an insidious lie spread by dark forces. QED.
1. Benchmark performance of LLM's and AI models did not fully represent skill in real-world domains
2. Most jobs span far more requirements than their specific job descriptions, many of which lie, even in simple jobs, in the realm of highly adaptive, context rich multi-modal information processing that most humans do still better than AI
However, there is nothing fundamental that prevents LLM's from scaling and improving, aided by better scaffolding, to the point of replacing many white-collar jobs, especially ones which have limited, specific requirements and output parameters. This is an enormous chunk of the white collar work force, and displacement is already happening in limited sections, and will surely continue as AI capabilities diffuse.
It seems however deeply entrenched in many people's identity to deny this fact, because to accept it requires accepting that many of the essential claims of AI CEO's are somewhat true to a degree, and that LLM's are a genuinely useful technology.