Silicon Valley leader's warning on AI: Tech's new bubble about to burst
Critic Gary Marcus argues that current LLMs like ChatGPT face diminishing returns and lack true understanding, suggesting a need for a shift in AI development.
The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 took the world by storm, marking a pivotal moment in the race for artificial intelligence and AGI. Within just five days of its release, ChatGPT reached over 1 million users, an unprecedented milestone for a tech product. Developed by OpenAI, this AI chatbot captivated users with its ability to write essays, generate code and images, answer questions and more.
Since then, AI has become the most hyped buzzword in Silicon Valley and beyond. Thousands of startups have sprung up since OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT, with promises of using artificial intelligence for everything from writing code to medical and healthcare applications.
But one Silicon Valley skeptic says the AI bubble is about to burst.
“I think the day of reckoning may have come – the signs are there,” Gary Marcus told The Telegraph. “AI is reaching a point of diminishing results.”
Who is Gary Marcus?
Marcus, formerly the head of AI for Uber, is well known for his critical stance on contemporary artificial intelligence methodologies, particularly deep learning and large language models (LLMs). In 2015, he co-founded Geometric Intelligence, an AI startup that was later acquired by Uber.
Marcus has been a vocal critic of the prevailing AI paradigm, arguing that current models, such as ChatGPT, are fundamentally flawed. He contends that these systems excel at pattern recognition but lack genuine understanding, reasoning, and common sense.
In a 2022 interview with Analytics India Magazine, Marcus had said that LLMs are not the way to get to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
His take on AI
“I was arguing that if the scaling of pure LLMs would run out, that some problems like ‘hallucinations’ would be very hard to solve,” Marcus told The Telegraph.
LLMs like ChatGPT and DeepSeek-V3 are the best-known application of AI today. They are advanced artificial intelligence systems designed to understand and generate human-like text, capable of holding entire conversations with humans.
However, complaints about LLMs ‘hallucinating’ or making up facts are not new.
Marcus argues that real breakthroughs in AI are possible, but the industry needs to change the way it is trying to achieve them. The AI commentator believes that the era of diminishing returns has “clearly been reached.”
