Fi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6

"AI" is rapidly becoming synonymous with "poor quality crap"

I am enjoying seeing this become more obvious.

Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️

The fun part about this is the race to the bottom - see, quality is one of the factors people consider when they evaluate whether something is worth the money they're being asked to spend for it.

The lower the quality, the lower the price they're willing to pay.

Dec 6 at 11:39pmWeb
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6

And now "AI" generated crap is showing up heavily in lowest-quality garbage and spam.

Even if your brand claims to be "high quality" it's going to be tainted by association with "AI"

This was inevitable, in a way, thinking about the history of how it's been marketed and priced.

Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
They made it too easily available.
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6

Releasing LLMs into the mass market was a -mistake- on several fundamental levels.

First, the less obvious systemic one - without a continuing human-generated set of inputs to draw from, their ability to generate high quality desirable material more or less went away - not even because of model collapse, but because of -economic- collapse.

By pushing so aggressively to replace human writers, the LLM companies killed off their own food supply.

Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6

Second, by releasing so widely and cheaply, this meant that, yes, the "tools of creation" were in the hands of everyone!

and a lot of "everyone" are interested in finding ways to automate plausible human interactions in order to scalably remove money from the others.

Which means spam.

Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
So now your product is being irretrievably associated with poor quality garbage games, spam, and the nastier sort of fake information ops that make people angry first with the content and then by having been fooled by them.
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
Some people are getting a benefit, sure. Coders love this shit because -most code is low quality boilerplate anyway-
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
But you don't -need- a premiere, top of the line massive datacenter-driven "companion" AI for what amounts to spicy autocomplete.
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
The other people benefitting are using it to creep on people by generating lewds, and -those- guys are going to keep paying no matter how high you crank the price.
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
So the ai companies, instead of marketing this as a coding -assistant- (rather than -replacement-) and making it expensive, got greedy and marketed it as "fire all your employees; everyone uses this for everything now" and priced it for mass adoption.
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
And now everything is cheap crap, and now you -can't- raise the price, and now you're stuck running very large expensive datacenters with zero resale value and your food supply to train the models on is gone and most of the people actually using your product are only doing so thru psychological manipulation - real fucking healthy way to keep a customer base, huh - or thru mandates from toxic management, so your remaining customer base is slowly burning out and becoming less functionally able -to- use your product.
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
So anyway I figure, yeah, we're stuck with this toxic sludge but at least it'll be mostly malware hijacking graphics cards and other small model shenanigans in a few years.
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
Depends on how long the "more money than god" corps can keep up this hemmoraging; I figure google will likely outlast most of the competition, cuz their hardware verticality gives them more staying power due to the economic advantages of being able to have that shit in house.
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
tho if zuck mortgages facebook to fund this delusion I will laugh for a week
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 6
thing is, there's only so long you can push a bubble like this without a result, and with "genai" the result is genuinely unattainable because - due to the size of the bubble - there is really no way to -actually pay off- the operations costs at this point.
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 7

For example, openai says it wants 200M paying customers by 2030.

That is basically "the entire Professional and Business Services sector of the US economy" paying....apparently $25/seat/month.

I'm not entirely sure -paperclips- have that kind of market saturation.

Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 7

Oh I'm sorry, my mistake, I misread the chart.

it's 22 million, not 220 million, in that sector.

Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 7

.....well that's concerning; -are- there 220 million professional and business services jobs worldwide?

How's their market penetration looking in China and India?

Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 7
'cuz that's the thing, ain't gonna be a whole lot of workers who -don't- have desk jobs using this for work, so ...what, are you expecting amazon warehouse packers to go home and pay for chatgpt? vs, what, food?
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 7

Saw a fun thread the other day about lawyers complaining about chatgpt-enabled pro-se litigants.

So now one of your big professional orgs is associating your product with "annoying assholes who make a lot more very tedious work for us" - great job there.

Again, made it too cheap and too easily available. You put too low a value on human expertise, you fuckweasels.

Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 7

Now that there's absolutely no way to get to that timeline from here -

Yeah, you could -absolutely- have taken over the whole world without anyone being able to credibly stop you, but you fucking got greedy and tried to do it -fast-.

You thought this was a -race- you utter -numpty bastards-

Show threadAlex KeaneDec 7
@munin Dont forget also associating it with "that thing that will get our license yanked by lying to us"
Show threadDavid SmithDec 7
@munin some quick arithmetic suggests that break even on $1T in data centers at (22 million * $25/mo) is ~150 years. Even 220 million users would leave them losing money for a decade and a half *with zero opex*.
Show threadJohn Bekas JrDec 7
@munin if there are no jobs for people to do, AI companies won't get $25/mo/seat. AI companies will make money as long as there are people making money. So, it will be interesting to see how they survive if AI does actually succeed.
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 7

@johnbekas

this is what we call a 'death spiral' yes.

Show threadAMSDec 7
@munin $25/seat/mo is absurd. But then I use a handful of things that are 10x to 100x that (CAD,FEA,Matlab/Simulink), but I guess that's not how you get a Trillion Dollars (Dr. Evil face).
Show threadvxoDec 7
@munin
I mean yeah that's the only way they can keep the circle jerk going
Show threadNicole ParsonsDec 7

@munin

Google can keep their scam going forever. #PrinceBonesaw is backing them.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-06/google-thiel-stand-out-in-saudi-prince-s-silicon-valley-tour

The ghouls of Rockbridge Network have the full financial backing of petrostate despots.

https://prospect.org/2025/11/20/ellisons-tap-saudis-to-fund-news-media-takeover/

All desperately trying to stop a fossil fuel phase out, while ginning up a world war & cashing out their chips via AI.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/19/saudi-arabia-designated-major-non-nato-ally-of-us-gets-f-35-warplanes-deal

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-06/saudis-plan-100-billion-ai-powerhouse-to-rival-uae-s-tech-hub

Folks are switching to renewable energy. Big Oil faces devaluation of fossil fuel assets.

Google, Thiel Feature in Saudi Prince's Silicon Valley Tour

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wrapped up a whirlwind tour of technology titans on Friday, part of a three-week U.S. visit focused on economic opportunities to diversify the oil-rich nation.

Bloomberg.com
Show threadNicole ParsonsDec 7

@munin

AI features characterized as "too easily available", when it's really shoved down our throats unwillingly is more like it.

Microsoft Windows
Every browser
Google search
Facebook
Household appliances
Vehicles
Phones
Email
Cloud storage
'Advertising' embedded in everything, movies, podcasts, operating systems, music, TV, etc

Each update requires spending several minutes shutting off & disabling settings to thwart this Orwellian wannabe state surveillance platform slash spyware.

Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 7

@Npars01

Hi, I'm talking about the economics of it; if you wish to vent about your dislike for Microsoft, kindly start your own thread.

Show threadNicole ParsonsDec 7

@munin

Microsoft and Charles Koch are spending a billion dollars to promote AI to the poor.

Definitely a red flag. None of these billionaires give two hoots about "economic mobility".

Flogging AI to make it popular is a cover for an anti-democracy movement

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2025/07/17/bill-gates-charles-koch-and-three-other-billionaires-are-giving-1-billion-to-enhance-economic-mobility-in-the-us/

The fossil fuel industry is funding the AI bubble for its own reasons; personal & partisan gain.

Follow the money behind AI.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/koch-venture-arm-bets-40-million-on-logistics-tech-optimal-dynamics-1d995b51

https://www.wired.com/story/trump-energy-industry-ai-fossil-fuels-pittsburgh-summit/

https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/inno/stories/news/2025/06/12/koch-disruptive-technologies-optimal-dynamics.html

Five Billionaires Pledged $1 Billion To Boost Economic Mobility Using AI

Five of America’s top philanthropists are teaming up for a new venture aimed at helping low-income Americans rise from poverty. An AI giant has signed on to help.

Forbes
Show threadNed HamsonDec 7
@Npars01 @munin How many cities will go thirsty before this bubble bursts and drowns the USA economy???
Show threadJaxxAIDec 6
@munin it just makes brands look cheap. As my kids call it… absolute fakery