Gary Marcus Skewers Viral AI Essay As Alarmist ‘Hype’

If that viral essay about AI had been printed on paper, there is a good likelihood AI researcher Gary Marcus would’ve ripped it up in disgust.

Marcus acknowledges one thing is going on in AI — simply nowhere close to the size described within the lately viral essay, which predicted a looming disruption “worse than COVID.”

Marcus, who on X criticized the essay written by entrepreneur and investor Matt Shumer as having “not a shred of precise information,” dismissed its contents as alarmist in an interview with Enterprise Insider.

“Hyped-up views have gotten us into a nasty place, presumably one which’s going to result in a severe financial recession or one thing like that,” Marcus advised Enterprise Insider. “And I assume I believe that one ought to work from the info reasonably than simply attempting to trigger an alarm.”

In his essay titled “One thing Huge is Occurring,” Shumer, whose previous startup sells a subscription-based AI-assisted writing device, warned that AI would upend not simply software program engineering, however most jobs achieved “on a display.” Shumer additionally has a small VC fund.

Marcus mentioned that whereas AI will exchange some labor and have an effect on jobs, the method will probably be a lot slower than what Schumer and others are describing.

AI can do some issues properly and assist velocity up work, however it’s simply not close to the purpose of changing people, Marcus mentioned.

“AI can do a small subset of the duties, and that typically accelerates human beings and issues like that, however it hardly ever does all of what a human being can do in any explicit area,” he advised Enterprise Insider. “This can change over time, simply to be clear. It’s doubtless that AI will exchange most human labor over the subsequent century, however it’s unlikely that it’ll over the subsequent yr or two.”

Corporations that transfer too shortly to exchange jobs with AI are prone to discover themselves in an identical place as Klarna, Marcus mentioned. In 2024, Klarna touted an AI assistant that might do the equal work of 700 individuals. By Could 2025, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, lengthy a proponent of AI, mentioned that “as value sadly appears to have been a too predominant analysis issue when organizing this, what you find yourself having is decrease high quality.” He added that “investing within the high quality of the human help is the best way of the longer term for us.”

“Six months or a yr later, they arrive again with their tails between their legs as a result of it seems that the AI programs do not do issues in addition to the human,” Marcus mentioned. “So, I am not saying that there is nothing happening. I am not saying that there isn’t any worth in these AI programs, however they’re untimely.”

Klarna advised Enterprise Insider that the variety of its customer support queries dealt with by AI has elevated “because it will get higher at extra advanced requests,” and the corporate “has not reversed or scaled again its AI technique.”

Marcus mentioned that the extra doubtless final result within the short-term shouldn’t be that AI will exchange junior workers however reasonably that executives assume it is able to doing so — and make what may in the end show to be a pricey gamble.

“The most important factor I believe junior individuals have to fret about proper now could be a misapprehension by the C-suite that these methods work higher than they really do,” Marcus mentioned.

As of Friday morning, Shumer’s publish has been considered greater than 80 million occasions on X alone. In a Substack publish increasing on his criticisms, Marcus known as Schumer’s publish “weaponized hype.”

“The final impression that he conveys is principally that the sky is falling now, and at most, I believe what’s actually taking place is the junior persons are below some menace, and I believe that menace is definitely exaggerated,” Marcus advised Enterprise Insider.

Shumer beforehand advised Enterprise Insider that he wrote his essay partly to achieve individuals like his dad, who could also be skeptical or keep away from AI totally. He felt compelled to warn them about what could be on the horizon, even “if there’s only a 20% likelihood of it taking place.”

Marcus’s greatest critique of Schumer’s publish is that it does not have in mind present information and analysis exhibiting that AI nonetheless has an extended method to go, and that it did not current the total context behind a well-known Mannequin Analysis & Risk Analysis graph assessing AI progress.

He mentioned that different research, together with a June 2025 paper printed by Apple’s Machine Studying Analysis Group, discovered limitations in what present fashions can do.

Marcus additionally mentioned that many main AI CEOs who’ve made daring predictions about the way forward for work have did not ship on previous ones. He factors to xAI CEO Elon Musk’s frequent rosy outlook on the variety of robotaxis Tesla will placed on the highway (Musk as soon as mentioned a million by 2020) and to Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton’s 2016 assertion that the world ought to cease coaching radiologists. (Final Could, Hinton advised The New York Instances that his prediction was poorly worded and that whereas he was flawed on the timeline, the final path for AI’s capabilities in radiology was appropriate.)

“What they’ve all realized to do is to promote the rosiest image potential, and the media hardly ever calls them out,” Marcus advised Enterprise Insider.

On Thursday, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman made waves by predicting that the majority, if not all, white-collar duties could possibly be automated inside the subsequent yr and a half.

One of many industries Suleyman talked about is accounting. Marcus is not satisfied.

“Take into consideration accounting particularly,” he advised Enterprise Insider. “Even one mistake can value a consumer lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} or get them despatched to jail or no matter. Accounting is a enterprise that’s constructed on accuracy. In case you’re not correct, you do not have a enterprise.”