The Puffery of AI CEOs

It is a truth universally acknowledged that outlandish statements regarding the future capabilities of AI are entirely normal, even expected, at this point. It is our considered opinion, for what it is worth, that these statements are the stuff of fantasy and nonsense. Yet they keep appearing, and the claims (or if you’d like to call it, “corporate puffery”) are beginning to get on our every nerve.

Sam Altman, for example, is on the record in 2023 as saying that he “prep[s] for survival” in the event that artificial intelligence, created by his company, decides to attack humanity. Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, a position he acquired after a career of engaging in said corporate puffery and failing upwards in the way that wealthy white men tend to do in the tech industry.

“I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to,” he said.

Let us consider, for a moment, that such supplies would last perhaps a few weeks in an actual doomsday scenario, seeing as humans generally survive best in cooperative groups and not as single individuals no matter what libertarian dreams Altman harbors in the depths of his rich-guy soul. Let us also consider that LLMs at this point in time are nothing but computer scripts, running in data centers that depend on civilization in order to function, and to our knowledge are not actually connected to, say, an automated lab researching novel coronaviruses. (We are prepared to be wrong on this point if it turns out that some government has entirely taken leave of their senses and turned over control of their ICBMs to ChatGPT, but we also posit that this is a somewhat different doomsday scenario.)

Such statements beg many questions about Altman’s current thinking on AI. Does he believe these things wholeheartedly, while still pushing on to reach the science fantasy ideal of general artificial intelligence? We cannot imagine the cognitive dissonance in this case; AI is so potentially dangerous that I must prep for the end of the world, but I also must make sure it reaches that potential even though it may end the world! This is a bizarre position to take, and we question whether Altman has truly bought into this idea or whether he is convinced that OpenAI is somehow different from other companies.

His other statements on job losses are, in a word, concerning. Altman is also on record in 2025 as saying that AI would wipe out “a lot of jobs”, which is a shocking declaration in retrospect. (Again, we question why anyone with a functional code of ethics would be involved in developing a technology that would effectively destroy every major economy on earth. In Altman’s case, we suspect that the siren call of money and influence play a large part.)

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, similarly declared that AI could “wipe out 50% of entry level jobs”. Considering that Anthropic’s major AI product is an enterprise-based coding tool, we would like to know if Amodei has considered who will be using his product if 50% of those jobs go away; we also desire to know if he is aware that 50% fewer entry-level blue collar workers means, eventually, 50% fewer senior-level workers who can become his customers. This does not seem, to us, to be a sensible statement to make for a businessman.

Now, let us be fair. Both Altman and Amodei later walked back their statements, and effectively declared that the AI jobpocalyse has not happened. This, however, is little comfort to the thousands of blue collar workers who have been unceremoniously dumped by large tech companies due to AI corporate puffery, specifically the promises of productivity increases. We have seen such a trend before, dear readers; after the COVID19 pandemic was brought somewhat to heel, the return-to-office mandate provided an oh-so-convenient excuse to reduce headcount, no matter the cost to the long-term health of the company nor the destruction done to the lives of those laid off.

Allow us a moment to wallow in our cynicism.

As the global economy slows due to macroeconomic factors, including rising inflation, interest rate changes, and tariff-related insanity, many large companies are seeing their profits and revenue fall. This, of course, is not allowed; market sentiment is entirely irrational, and any sign that is not year-over-year growth is bad. In this scenario, these large companies must quickly improve their numbers, and layoffs are the simplest and most effective method. With the pronouncements of AI, the C-suite develops a perfect story to justify their actions.

Right-size our workforce… major efficiency gains… 10x productivity… wave of the future… consult ChatGPT first… can you do it faster with AI?… you’re not using enough tokens… we need someone who is AI-native… can’t you just use AI… why won’t you use AI… it’s not wrong, you’re just not prompting it correctly… not a good culture fit…

And on and on it goes, while those in control pat themselves on the back for their forward-thinking, forcing AI systems upon every worker who never asked for them and whose jobs are made more difficult, tedious, and soul-destroying due to using them, and forcing out every worker who is now deemed surplus to requirements. The next quarter’s financials are shored up. The story sold to the shareholders is compelling on a surface level. That these systems cannot and will not deliver on the promises of their makers is unthinkable; these learned and wise men, who built the modern digital age and gave unto us untold technological progress, cannot be wrong. The market remains irrational.

And still we must address the current situation of SpaceX going public at a ludicrous valuation, and OpenAI and Anthropic intending to follow suit at a similar price. SpaceX’s filing, in particular, was utter nonsense; OpenAI’s leaked financials show a company that burns billions of dollars with complete abandon. We are to believe that these companies are the future, and that the sensible financial leaders buying up their stock are making good decisions, and our economy may safely ride on the back of unproven fairy dust for years with no ill effects. That the story, the growth-at-all-cost mentality, the obscene wealth and waste, are all business as usual.

We are to accept the razing of our livelihoods and even lives in service to a machine god with chronic dementia; if we refuse, we are called backward, technologically inept, even stupid.

And yet.

Dear readers, in spite of such doom and gloom, we remain optimistic for no reason other that there is a limit to the money and patience of Wall St. Like flat-earthers, the faith of the AI maximalists is quite strong and somewhat impervious to reason. But just as physics has the last word when it comes to the idea of a flat earth, money will have the last word when it comes to AI. Eventually, the money for data centers, Nvidia GPUs, AI subscriptions, and LLM training will run out, as Wall St realizes that the grandiose pronouncements of CEOs are, in fact, the stuff of sci-fi fever dreams. We believe that the industry is well into the sunk cost fallacy at this time, driven by managers and executives who understand almost nothing about the actual work of their companies, but this fact remains.

Faith and belief will only get you so far, and then you must hope (or even pray) that reality is also on your side.

In the same CNN article above, Professor Margaret O’Hara states: “The challenge with AI is that only a very few people and firms really understand how it works and what the implications are of its use”. On the contrary, Professor, we believe that many people (ourselves included) understand very well. The only problem is that we, the people who know how it works because we are forced to use it against our will, have no power to refuse the demands of those who sign our paychecks, and they are the ones who are the ignorant true believers of Sam Altman’s new religion. The people who live near a data center, and know all too well the rank pollution it produces, have no power to shut it down. The workers who are dismissed from their jobs in the name of AI efficiency have no power to change the minds of an executive they have never met, yet they know well enough that the AI cannot replace vital corporate knowledge and skills.

We know the story being told. We have heard the puffery of AI CEOs. Needless to say, we are not impressed.