Most technologists can’t stop talking about the latest developments in AI, but some people aren’t as impressed.
Linux founder Linus Torvalds said that today’s AI technology industry is 10% reality and 90% marketing. “I think AI is really interesting and I think it’s going to change the world,” he said. said. “And at the same time, I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don’t want to go there. So my current approach to AI is to ignore it. I think the tech industry around AI is in a very bad position: it’s 90% marketing and 10% reality,” he added.
But while Torvalds thinks there might be a lot of vagueness in the AI field right now, he thinks things won’t necessarily be the same in the future. “In five years, things will change. And at that point we will see what (part of) AI is used every day for real-world workloads. Instead of just ChatGPT, I mean, it does great demos and it’s obviously used in areas like graphic design, but I really hate the hype cycle,” Torvalds added.
Torvalds has reason to believe that there is a lot of hype around AI right now. Hundreds of startups have proliferated and are little more than wrappers around LLMs like ChatGPT. These startups have not made significant technical breakthroughs themselves, but have raised large sums of money and achieved sky-high valuations. There is also little that differentiates these startups: since they use APIs from the same 3 or 4 AI companies, they produce very similar results to each other.
But even Linus Torvalds, who seems openly pessimistic about the current state of AI, seems to believe that AI will have a big impact in the future. That puts him in the league of almost every technologist, CEO, and entrepreneur who believes AI will eventually radically transform the business landscape—and humanity—in the years to come.
