AI Skeptic PWNED by Facts and Logic

Igor shares a significant shift in his perspective on AI coding tools after experiencing the latest Claude Code release. While he's been the stronger AI skeptic between the two of us, recent developments have shown him genuine utility in specific coding tasks, but this doesn't validate the hype or change the fundamental critiques.

We discuss what "rote tasks" are and why they're now automatable with enough investment, the difference between genuine utility and AGI claims, and why this update actually impacts our bubble analysis. We explore how massive investment has finally produced something useful for a narrow domain, but it doesn't mean the technology is generalizable or that AGI is real.

Chapters

• (00:00) - | Introduction
• (05:07) - | What Changed Igor’s Mind
• (18:27) - | Rote Tasks Explained
• (23:31) - | How Does This Impact our Bubble Analysis?
• (30:48) - | AGI Is Still BS
• (34:07) - | Externalities Remain Unchanged
• (37:49) - | Final Thoughts & Outro

Links

• Related muckrAIkers episode - Tech Bros Love AI Waifus

Bubble Talk

• OfficeChai startup - OpenAI Hasn’t Completed A Successful Full-Scale Pretraining Run Since GPT-4o In May 2024, Says SemiAnalysis
• Vechron report - Anthropic Prepares for Potential 2026 IPO in Bid to Rival OpenAI
• YCombinator Forum post on AI crash
• YCombinator Forum post on OpenAI adopting Anthropic's "skills"
• YCombinator Forum post on OpenAI rumors
• YCombinator Forum post on OpenAI add suggestions

Other Sources

• LinkedIn post discussing an agentic coding vibe shift
• Executive Order - Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence
• Inside Tech Law blogpost - Germany delivers landmark copyright ruling against OpenAI: What it means for AI and IP
• NeurIPS 2025 paper - Ascent Fails to Forget
• NBER working paper - Large Language Models, Small Labor Market Effects
• Dwarkesh Podcast blogpost - RL is even more information inefficient than you thought