Most technologists can’t stop talking about the latest developments in AI, but some people aren’t as impressed.
Linux founder Linus Torvalds has said that the current AI tech industry is 10 percent reality and 90 percent marketing. “I think AI is really interesting and I think it is going to change the world,” he said. “And at the same time, I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don’t want to go there. So my approach to AI right now is I will basically ignore it. I think the tech industry around AI is in a very bad position — it’s 90 percent marketing and 10 percent reality,” he added.
But even though Torvalds thinks that there might be a lot of fluff in the AI space right now, he believes things won’t necessarily be the same going forward. “In five years things will change. And at that point we’ll see what (part) of AI is getting used every day for real workloads. Instead of just ChatGPT — I mean it makes great demonstrations and it’s obviously being used in areas like graphic design, but I really hate the, the hype cycle,” Torvalds added.
Torvalds has reasons to think there’s a lot of hype around AI right now. Hundreds of startups have mushroomed which are little more than wrappers around LLMs like ChatGPT. These startups haven’t made significant technical breakthroughs themselves, but have raised large sums of money and commanded sky-high valuations. There’s also little to differentiate these startups — since these startups use APIs from the same 3-4 AI companies, they produce very similar results to each other.
But even Linus Torvalds, who seems to be vocally bearish on the current state of AI, does seem to believe that AI will make a big impact going forward. This puts him in the league of nearly all technologists, CEOs and entrepreneurs who think that AI will eventually radically transform the business landscape — and humanity — in the years to come.