Some reality about Matt Shumer's "Something Big Is Happening" AI hypefest some DUers are overreacting to [View all]
From Gary Marcus, always a voice of sanity in response to pro-AI hype and lies:
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/about-that-matt-shumer-post-that
Something big is allegedly happening
Gary Marcus
Feb 11, 2026
All morning people have been asking me about a blog post by Matt Shumer that has gone viral, with nearly 50 million views on X.
It’s a masterpiece of hype, written in the style of the old direct marketing campaigns, with bold-faced call outs like “I know this is real because it happened to me first” and “I am no longer needed for the actual technical work of my job”. It’s chock full of singularity vibes:
-snip-
As I told a journalist who asked me about the post, I wouldn’t take it so seriously:
-snip-
Gary then goes into detail on why Shumer's hysterical post shouldn't be taken seriously. AI models can write code. It's still all too often flawed code that is a security risk.
Gary links to this article:
https://www.itpro.com/software/development/ai-generated-code-is-fast-becoming-the-biggest-enterprise-security-risk-as-teams-struggle-with-the-illusion-of-correctness
Security teams are scrambling to catch AI-generated flaws that appear correct before disaster strikes
By Emma Woollacott
published 5 February 2026
AI has overtaken all other factors in reshaping security priorities, with teams now forced to deal with AI-generated code that appears correct, professional, and production-ready – but that quietly introduces security risks.
-snip-
Aikido found that AI-generated code is now the cause of one-in-five breaches, with 69% of security leaders, engineers, and developers on both sides of the Atlantic having found serious vulnerabilities.
These risk factors are further exacerbated by the fact many developers are placing too much faith in the technology when coding. A separate survey from Sonar found nearly half of devs fail to check AI-generated code, placing their organization at huge risk.
Emphasis added.
Some posts from Bluesky about Shumer below...and also see reply 3 for background on other hype Shumer has been ridiculed for, and for the info that the AI company he's CEO of offers "cutting edge AI tools like "Team Member Praise Generator" and "AI Sympathy Message Generator by HyperWrite for Heartfelt Cards".
Surely, the author of the “AI is an existential threat to the economy and your wellbeing, and the only solution is to use more AI immediately, please†has no financial incentive in making people believe that. Now to take a big sip of my coffee and check out his bio…
— Luis Paez-Pumar (@lpp.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T13:47:42.108Z
I shouldn’t even bother engaging with this idiotic article but I always find it funny when AI guys are like “you better become an early adopter or you’ll be left behind!†If the tech is as good as they claim, and can do what they claim, any idiot should be able to use it with no practice.
— Luis Paez-Pumar (@lpp.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T13:51:03.109Z
But of course, the goal isn’t to change the world or whatever, it’s just to take everyone’s money. I don’t think that writing this alarmist crap with the lesson of “buy a Claude subscription or you’ll ruin your life†should work, but given the reaction, it just might.
— Luis Paez-Pumar (@lpp.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T13:53:10.821Z
reads like an ai generated article to me
— cavan (@cfos.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T15:59:00.764Z
He admitted it was
— Luis Paez-Pumar (@lpp.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T19:33:23.108Z
Everyone reading ‘Something Big is Happening’ and losing their minds.
— Steve Strickland (@stevestrickland6.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T21:24:31.445Z
In reality Matt Shumer has consistently overhyped AI.
In 2024 he was accused of fraud when researchers were unable to replicate the supposed top performance of a new LLM he released called Reflection 70B.
= new reply since forum marked as read