Monologue: No, Something Big Isn't Coming - Better Offline

Better Offline – “Monologue: No, Something Big Isn’t Coming”

Host: Ed Zitron
Date: February 13, 2026

Episode Overview

In this monologue, Ed Zitron dissects and debunks the viral tech essay "Something Big Is Coming," critiquing its alarmist framing and misleading claims about artificial intelligence. Zitron sharply calls out the essay’s author, Matt Schumer, along with the media figures and outlets who amplified the piece, accusing them of spreading disinformation about AI’s capabilities. Heated, unfiltered, and deeply skeptical, Zitron warns listeners not to buy into hype or fearmongering and stresses the importance of critical thinking when evaluating bold claims from the tech industry.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dissecting the Essay’s Hype Cycle

The essay "Something Big Is Coming" has gone viral, lauded even by major commentators, yet Zitron asserts it is "abominable, nonsensical Hogslop" and "AI generated and complete fucking nonsense."
- Notable Quote [00:52]:
  “This essay has done the rounds because of its histrionic tone and deliberate leaning upon the anxieties of those scared of AI and the mythology of AI boosters.” — Ed Zitron
Zitron provides context about the author, Matt Schumer, founder of Otherside AI, whose product is essentially a wrapper around generic large language models (LLMs).
Notably, Zitron used Schumer's own AI tool to critique the essay, which, amusingly, highlighted its “lack of specifics” and “alarmist framing.”
- Notable Quote [02:05]:
  “Even your shit ass LLM rapper doesn’t like your bullshit.” — Ed Zitron

2. Debunking Misleading AI Claims

The main accusation: Schumer exaggerates AI’s current capabilities, especially by suggesting AI tools can work completely autonomously or are close to self-improvement.
Zitron methodically refutes examples from the essay, e.g., claims about AI replacing lawyers or autonomously writing software, as “entirely made up bullshit.”
- Specific OpenAI claims are pulled apart:
  - Schumer uses real OpenAI quotes but wholly misinterprets them, making it sound as if software is designing itself—a claim Zitron brands as “not happening.”
Another major issue: vague assertions lacking citations, such as AI “approaching or exceeding human performance in several areas of medicine.”
- Notable Quote [04:15]:
  “Barely keeping my cool on this one because it’s so fucking frustrating to see…how many people…I saw Fortune repost this, I saw Business Insider do a post, fucking the Technology Brothers…they had this fuck nut on.” — Ed Zitron

3. The Tech Industry’s Cycle of Hype and Deceit

Zitron highlights that Schumer has a history of overhyping; he points to the Reflection 70B model announced in 2024, which Schumer claimed was groundbreaking but turned out to be a wrapper for another company’s AI, with benchmarks that could not be independently verified.
- Notable Quote [05:10]:
  “It became obvious that Schumer was a lying sack of shit. And that Reflection 70B was a rapper for Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet model…” — Ed Zitron
He condemns mainstream journalists and media for amplifying unverified claims, accusing them of “actively participating in an act of disinformation.”
Zitron also denounces Sam Altman (OpenAI) and Dario Amodei (Anthropic) as part of the hype apparatus.

4. The Cost of Uncritical Hype in Media

According to Zitron, widespread media validation of Schumer’s essay led to undue panic among regular people about AI job displacement and intelligence breakthroughs.
- Notable Quote [06:00]:
  “Regular people got scared because of this because mainstream media validated it. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.” — Ed Zitron
He expresses gratitude to audience members who recognized the essay’s dubiousness and emailed him, reaffirming that basic skepticism is warranted in the face of tech hype.
Zitron vows not to forget who was complicit in spreading such stories and voices his ongoing frustration and anger at tech grift.
- Notable Quote [06:20]: “I am furious. I am disgusted to see this—60 million fucking views on this bullshit…Anyone in the media who platformed this…think about whether you’re capable of doing your jobs every day because you seem to lack the critical thinking to spot a scam artist.” — Ed Zitron

Memorable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

[00:52] On the essay’s viral spread:
“This essay has done the rounds because of its histrionic tone and deliberate leaning upon the anxieties of those scared of AI and the mythology of AI boosters.” — Ed Zitron
[02:05] Mocking Schumer’s own AI tool:
“Even your shit ass LLM rapper doesn’t like your bullshit.” — Ed Zitron
[04:15] Frustration at media gullibility:
“Barely keeping my cool on this one because it’s so fucking frustrating…they had this fuck nut on.” — Ed Zitron
[05:10] Exposing Schumer’s past exaggerations:
“It became obvious that Schumer was a lying sack of shit. And that Reflection 70B was a rapper for Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet model…” — Ed Zitron
[06:00] On public fear stoked by media:
“Regular people got scared because of this because mainstream media validated it. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.” — Ed Zitron
[06:20] Final call for accountability:
“I am furious. I am disgusted to see this—60 million fucking views on this bullshit…” — Ed Zitron

Key Timestamps

[00:37] – Monologue begins, introduction to essay and background on Matt Schumer
[01:30] – Dissecting Schumer’s claims and critical commentary using his own AI tool
[03:30] – Debunking claims about AI’s current capabilities and autonomy
[04:50] – Example of Schumer’s prior misleading AI announcement (Reflection 70B)
[05:20] – Calling out mainstream media and top tech CEOs for validating the hype
[06:00] – On media’s responsibility and the real-world impact of misinformation
[06:20] – Host’s emotional summary and closing condemnation

Tone and Style

Fiercely critical, bracingly honest, profane, and passionate
Uses strong language to drive home the seriousness of disinformation in tech
Mixes humor and sarcasm with genuine concern for the public and the state of media coverage

Summary

Ed Zitron’s monologue delivers a thorough takedown of AI hype, exposing misinformation and demanding accountability from the tech press and industry figures. If you want to understand how viral technology trends can mislead—even frighten—the public, and why it’s so crucial to think critically about AI's future, this episode is essential listening.

(This summary omits all advertisement and non-content segments.)

Transcript

A (0:00)

This is an iHeart podcast.

B (0:02)

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A (0:37)

Call zone media hello and welcome to Better Offline. This is your monologue for the week and I'm your host, Ed Zitron.

C (0:48)

Better Offline.

A (0:52)

So you've probably seen or heard about or even read the abominable, nonsensical Hogslop essay called Something Big Is Coming. Perhaps seeing people that should know better, like Mehdi Hassan, who called it the most important thing you read today. Despite it being both AI generated and complete fucking nonsense. This essay has done the rounds because of its histrionic tone and deliberate leaning upon the anxieties of Those scared of AI and the mythology of AI boosters. And across 4700 boobless, shit ass words says very little new or interesting, along with multiple egregious lies. I will be attaching an annotated version of this essay to this monologue, but I want to give you a broad explanation of what it really says and why it's full of shit. But let's start with who wrote it. Matt Schumer is a guy who makes an AI startup called Otherside AI, which does this thing called HyperWrite, which is an AI writing assistant with web search and citations, which translates to mean it's a wrapper for various large language models that he's prompting appropriately. When I asked it to write a critique of his piece, it said that its weaknesses lied in its lack of specifics and that its alarmist framing grabs attention, and it's heavy on the hype and light on actual insight. And you know what, Matt, you fucking you got one innovation and it's that even your shit ass LLM rapper doesn't like your bullshit. And I think it's also being too kind. Schumer makes numerous egregious misstatements about the current state of AI using vague yet scary statements like being able to walk away from the computer for hours and find his work done again. His company has done the same thing for years, or that an unnamed managing partner at a big law firm uses AI through the work of a team of associates. I choose these two statements because they're fairly typical of his entire piece, entirely made up bullshit about how long an AI can work for or what it's capable of doing. Schumer repeatedly talks about AI being able to write software completely autonomously in a way that could not be further from the truth. His most egregious one is when he quotes OpenAI saying that GPT 5.3 Codex is the first model that was instrumental in creating itself because it used early versions to debug its own training, manage its own deployment, and diagnose test results in evaluation. These are actual quotes from OpenAI. He's not lying they said them, he's just lying about what they mean. To be clear, this is OpenAI saying that it used an app it built to test and debug code, and to test and debug the actual code and how it went up. It's literally, it's what the product they used. They tested the product by testing what the product did. It's not the same as saying that software is designing itself, which is something that Schumer heavily intimates is happening throughout the piece, which it is not. He also suggests multiple times that AI is learning from itself, which is not. Barely keeping my cool on this one because it's so fucking frustrating seeing how many people I saw Fortune repost this. I saw Business Insider do a post fucking the Technology Brothers. Well, well, well, if it isn't the Technology Brothers. They had this fuck nut on. It genuinely infuriates me and most of the scary stuff in there that all software engineers will be replaced, that 50% of entry level white collar jobs be gone in one to five years? Is Schumer directly copy pasting stuff that CEO of Anthropic Wario Amade said of his many interviews where he makes shit up? I am begging people to please God, engage with basic critical thinking when reading things like this. Schumer says a lot of vague marketing fluff. Each generation builds the next, which is smarter, which builds the next faster, which is smarter still. This is written specifically to make you believe that this is actually happening when it is not. It isn't. The generation is not building the next. There are still people doing this. He doesn't cite anything. He doesn't even bother to choose real life examples. He just says stuff like AI is approaching or exceeding human performance in several areas of medicine, all without citation. Well, I've got a citation for you. On September 5, 2024, Matt Schumer released a model called Reflection 70B that he claimed had benchmarks that made it, and I quote, the world's top open source AI model built with something called Glaive AI. Independent researchers were unable to recreate the benchmarks and it became obvious that Schumer was a lying sack of shit. And that reflection 70B was a rapper for Anthropic's Claude Sonnet model with one person posting that they had intention it so that it would not respond to being called Claude or say that it was Claude. He also didn't reveal that he was an investor in Glaive AI, the platform that generated the synthetic data that allegedly trained this shit ass model that does not work, did not work, never updated, never did anything it said and everyone just memory holed it. And what horrified me about this essay is how many top tier media outlets and respectable journalists took it as gospel because the statements he made vaguely lined up with the empty hype of scumbags like Sam Ald Altman and Dario Amadei. If you are a member of the media that shared or republished this, you are actively participating in an act of disinformation and you should be fucking ashamed of yourself. Fuck Matt Schumer and fuck anybody who takes him seriously. Regular people got scared because of this because mainstream media validated it. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. And to the many haters that emailed me about this saying this looks like bullshit. You were correct. These people are deceiving you. They are misleading you so that they can sell AI software know is not doing the things it needs to to make any of this make sense. And I am disgusted to see this keep happening. I am disgusted to see people like this platformed. And I think when all of this ends, people think that I will forget. I will not forget any of this. I am taking fucking detailed notes of everybody who pushes this shit uphill. I am furious. I am disgusted to see this 60 million fucking views on this bullshit. And I know there are some people who don't like when I get angry, but I am furious about this. This is lies. This is plat. Anyone in the media who platformed this. You need to, I don't know, think about whether you're capable of doing your jobs every day because you seem to lack the critical thinking to spot a scam artist. Yeah, yeah, I'm done. I'm done, everyone. I'm sorry for flying off the handle a little.