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I Think You Might Be Fooling Yourself With AI

If you are enthusiastic about AI (LLMs), you may be fooling yourself. Do not consider this an insult, but a kind-hearted warning.

Remember what Richard Feynman said:

Richard Feynman

source (backup)

source

backup

He made this statement as part of the Caltech's 1974 commencement address. In this speech he strongly advocated for proper scientific integrity.

I feel it can be difficult to maintain proper 'scientific integrity' on a personal level as AI is a fast-moving target. The tools feel unreasonably capable, using an LLM makes you feel more productive when writing code for instance.

Yet as of today, there is no independent scientific evidence1 (that I'm aware of) that people or organizations are indeed more productive2 when using AI.

Are you really more 'productive'?

Meanwhile, a study (late 2025) seems to report that although participating developers felt they completed tasks faster using AI, they where around 19% slower.

a study (late 2025)

Using AI may feel faster and more productive, but you might be fooling yourself. You can never go back in time and measure yourself doing the task without using AI tools and compare the results.

There is a reason why (scientific) experiments are often blind or double-blind. We want prevent personal bias from influencing the outcomes skewing the results and making us believe things that aren't true. Not so easy to do on your own.

blind or double-blind

This is why I'm not really swayed by personal testimonies and anecdotes about how AI makes people more productive. How they vibe coded some app they would otherwise not have built3.

Do not be fooled by the mass layoffs 'due to AI' proving that AI is making people more productive. Sam Altman himself called many of these layoffs 'AI washing'. These are regular layoffs after a period of over-hiring and now the market corrects itself. Because aside from AI-related businesses, it seems that the economy isn't doing great.

Furthermore, some of these layoffs seem to be specifically to free up money to buy AI resources. Management by fear of being left behind. Firing people to get money to pay for unproven technology that may never be capable to replace the people being fired.

free up money to buy AI resources

AI is unsustainable

Even if you still think AI is really making you more 'productive', enjoy it while it lasts.

According to this article ChatGPT starts losing money when you use your $200 subscription abouve 11%. If you'd use the full 100%, that same $200 subscription would allow you to use $14,000 worth in API pricing. That seems crazy to me.

this article

Whatever you think your productivity might be due to AI, I don't think it's worth the 'real' cost once the vendors stop heavily subsidizing AI usage. I really wonder how much usage AI would see if it would be just priced at cost. Would you feel as productive if the price would not be $200 but $2000 a month4? A $200 subscription is not that big of a gamble, but any higher and it may feel less and less worth it.

Disclosure: my own bias against AI

Now it's time to be really open about my own bias. I'm an AI sceptic. I'm quite influenced by Ed Zitron's reporting. And I'm also standing by my own idea that AI will run out of money and just be turned off due to the huge operational cost.

Ed Zitron's reporting

just be turned off

It might feel unfathomable, unreasonable that this can happen. Maybe Google, AWS or Microsoft scoops up OpenAI or Antropic when they reach the end of the runway. But the economics won't change. Are they going to subsidize AI indefinitely?, to what end?

I'm open to suggestions how this is going to play out. Close to a trillion dollars invested in AI. Where will the money come from to recuperate all these investments? If we disregard the AI (adjacent) companies, the USA economy seems to look bleak (August 2025).

bleak

I myself can't just close my eyes for all the externalities of AI. The energy usage in the context of climate change. The data centers disrupting poor communities. The large-scale theft of intellectual or copyrighted property. The enshitification and the enslopification of the internet. The mass hoarding of memory causing inflation.

I'm not convinced the bad of AI is - or can be - compensated by the perceived good AI does. It's not possible to separate the tool itself from it's externalities. This is why I'm not using AI. I'm not using AI on moral, ethical grounds.

This may be due to my confirmation bias that I was unable to find any. ↩

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Whatever productive really means in this context. ↩

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how much value it delivers or how much revenue it creates is often not discussed. And don't fall for suvivorship bias. ↩

suvivorship bias

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Or would you get stressed out and feel pressure to use the AI more to justify the expense and burn out? ↩

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