{"id":887,"date":"2025-10-12T20:31:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T19:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/?p=887"},"modified":"2025-10-12T20:31:48","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T19:31:48","slug":"ai-is-a-horse-with-three-legs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/2025\/10\/12\/ai-is-a-horse-with-three-legs\/","title":{"rendered":"AI is a horse with three legs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A lot of people are extremely concerned about the prospect of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibm.com\/think\/topics\/artificial-superintelligence\" title=\"\">AI superintelligence<\/a>, and the possibility that it could supersede and perhaps even destroy humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I spent a lot of the past four years or so researching this exact topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But increasingly it&#8217;s coming to look like <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/AI_slop\" title=\"\">AI is actually shit<\/a>. In other words, it&#8217;s not going to take over the world and send Terminators to kill us (what I call <a href=\"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/2021\/12\/29\/has-the-singularity-already-happened\/\" title=\"\">the Skynet Complex<\/a>). And nor are we going to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2019\/may\/29\/fully-automated-luxury-communism-aaron-bastani-review\" title=\"\"> luxuriate in Star Trek-style indolence while AI does all the heavy lifting<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AI can replace *<em>some<\/em>* human performance, but as we are learning, it&#8217;s usually inaccurate, unreliable and expensive. Most companies who&#8217;ve used AI have lost money on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"525\" height=\"404\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jimclarke.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/8op9il.jpg?resize=525%2C404&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-888\" style=\"width:348px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jimclarke.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/8op9il.jpg?w=720&amp;ssl=1 720w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jimclarke.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/8op9il.jpg?resize=300%2C231&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>But as Cory Doctorow notes, AI is an enormous danger. It&#8217;s going to destroy our global economy as it eats up all the investment and provides almost nothing except <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unep.org\/news-and-stories\/story\/ai-has-environmental-problem-heres-what-world-can-do-about\" title=\"\">environmental degradation and water shortages<\/a> in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a combination of the world&#8217;s biggest nothingburger, tulipmania for the digital age, and the displacement of people in work by unreliable, fantasising, digital plagiarists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We should stop AI now, not because it might kill us like Terminators, nor because its creators stole all their training material, nor because it&#8217;s an environmental disaster. But because we&#8217;re betting the global economy on a horse with three legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"525\" height=\"525\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jimclarke.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/artworks-000416935635-475uy6-t1080x1080.jpg?resize=525%2C525&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-889\" style=\"width:257px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jimclarke.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/artworks-000416935635-475uy6-t1080x1080.jpg?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jimclarke.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/artworks-000416935635-475uy6-t1080x1080.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jimclarke.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/artworks-000416935635-475uy6-t1080x1080.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jimclarke.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/artworks-000416935635-475uy6-t1080x1080.jpg?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jimclarke.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/artworks-000416935635-475uy6-t1080x1080.jpg?resize=100%2C100&amp;ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jimclarke.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/artworks-000416935635-475uy6-t1080x1080.jpg?w=1080&amp;ssl=1 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pluralistic.net\/2025\/09\/27\/econopocalypse\/\" title=\"\">See what Cory says here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of people are extremely concerned about the prospect of AI superintelligence, and the possibility that it could supersede and perhaps even destroy humanity. I spent a lot of the past four years or so researching this exact topic. But increasingly it&#8217;s coming to look like AI is actually shit. In other words, it&#8217;s &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/2025\/10\/12\/ai-is-a-horse-with-three-legs\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;AI is a horse with three legs&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[298,556],"tags":[248,247,594,595],"class_list":["post-887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-technology","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-economy","tag-global-recession"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcnZAt-ej","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":890,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions\/890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}