I think you might be fooling yourself with AI

A skeptical analysis argues that AI enthusiasm may be self-deceptive, citing a late 2025 study finding developers using AI were 19% slower despite feeling faster. The author warns that AI tools are unsustainably subsidized, with ChatGPT losing money when a $200 subscription is used above 11% of capacity, and that layoffs attributed to AI are often 'AI washing' or cost-cutting to fund unproven technology.

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc&t=234 said: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. 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 evidence 1 that I'm aware of that people or organizations are indeed more productive when using AI. 2 fn:productive Are you really more 'productive'? Meanwhile, a study late 2025 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.09089 seems to report that although participating developers felt they completed tasks faster using AI, they where around 19% slower. 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded experiment . 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. 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 built 3. 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 https://www.forbes.com/sites/karadennison/2026/06/17/companies-are-firing-workers-to-fund-ai-that-isnt-working-yet/ . 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. AI is unsustainable Even if you still think AI is really making you more 'productive', enjoy it while it lasts. According to this article https://www.techspot.com/news/112759-openai-anthropic-cant-afford-have-everyone-use-ai.html 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. 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 month 4? 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 https://www.wheresyoured.at . And I'm also standing by my own idea that AI will run out of money and just be turned off https://louwrentius.com/what-will-you-do-when-ai-runs-out-of-money-and-disappear.html due to the huge operational cost. 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 https://futurism.com/ai-bubble-economy-bleak August 2025 . 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. ↩ fnref:confirmation - Whatever productive really means in this context. ↩ fnref:productive - how much value it delivers or how much revenue it creates is often not discussed. And don't fall for suvivorship bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship bias . ↩ fnref:money - Or would you get stressed out and feel pressure to use the AI more to justify the expense and burn out? ↩ fnref:stress