Where's Your Ed At

Ed Zitron argues that the AI industry is built on a foundation of fictional deals, vaporware, and media-amplified hype. Using OpenAI's Sora as a case study, he documents how the video generation tool was hyped as an existential threat to Hollywood, attracted a supposed $1 billion Disney investment, and then was quietly killed — with the investment never materializing. He extends this critique to a pattern of OpenAI deals with NVIDIA, AMD, SK Hynix, Samsung, and Broadcom that appear to be letters of intent or announcements that never translated into actual revenue, guidance changes, or product deliveries. He also cites data showing only ~3GW of actual data center IT load came online in 2025 despite hundreds of gigawatts being announced. His conclusion: the AI industry is systematically misleading investors and media, very little real economic value is being created, and journalists who uncritically repeated AI lab marketing copy caused real harm to entertainment industry workers.

Premium: How Much Of The AI Bubble Is Real?

<p>At my job a lot of value is being created using AI.</p>
<p>Now not the “AGI is going to replace you” kind of value, but nonetheless, lots of value.</p>
