Remember all the promises about AI? Almost every one of them was a lie. Here are the 11 biggest:
Remember all the promises about AI? Almost every one of them was a lie. Here are the 11 biggest:
- AI will create solo billionaire entrepreneurs. Lie. The smarter the models get, the less a product is worth, no matter how good the marketing is. Software is gradually becoming as ordinary as a cup of coffee from a coffee shop. And coffee shop owners don't become billionaires either. To get rich, you have to build something technically complex and unique. But AI models have strict filters that won't let you do any of that
- People will make major scientific discoveries thanks to AI. Lie. AI labs will make scientific discoveries. For ordinary people, any serious scientific research is blocked by strict filters. Try discussing genetic engineering with Claude and you'll get your account banned right away
- Engineers and programmers will be in higher demand as AI develops, because someone has to maintain it all. Lie. In two years, a software engineer will be on the same level as a barista selling coffee. The smarter the models get, the fewer people are needed to maintain systems. And this applies to more than just programmers
- Thanks to AI, people will work less and rest more. Lie. If your employer used to expect five tasks a day from you, now they'll expect fifty. AI won't give you free time. It'll just raise the minimum bar for your productivity, especially when a large staff is no longer needed
- AI will reduce economic inequality. Lie. The most powerful models require massive computing resources, capital, and infrastructure. The more important intelligence becomes to the economy, the more power goes to the handful of companies that control its production and distribution. We were promised democratization, and instead we got the groundwork for a new tech oligopoly
- AI will let small companies compete with corporations. Lie. If one person with AI can build a product in a week, a corporation with a thousand employees and the same AI can build a thousand such products
- AI will make us smarter. Lie. When people stop writing, analyzing, coding, and solving problems on their own, they risk gradually losing those skills. We're building the most powerful intellectual tool in history while gaining the option to completely stop training our own intelligence
- AI will make technology accessible to everyone. Lie. You won't be given access to technology, but to rented intelligence. With limits, censorship, subscriptions, and rules that can change tomorrow. You control nothing
- AI will give everyone a perfect education. Lie. We're already seeing serious degradation of human intelligence, of the education system, and of the need for a college degree. And nobody has yet figured out what to do with the hundreds of millions of students worldwide who, two years from now, will graduate with degrees nobody needs anymore. Intelligence has become free. Education is no longer needed
- AI will kill advertising and pushy marketing. Lie. Advertisers used to buy a banner to influence your choice. Now they'll be able to pay your personal AI assistant, the one you trust more than your own wife. Advertising won't disappear. It'll become your best friend
- AI will rid humanity of bureaucracy. Lie. One AI will draft the documents, a second will check them, a third will find violations, and a fourth will write appeals. Bureaucracy will finally be able to grow endlessly, without needing people at all