Linus Torvalds Criticizes AI Hype: '90% Marketing, 10% Reality'

Linus Torvalds reckons AI is '90% marketing and 10% reality'

The Linux creator is interested in AI, but the hype means he "basically ignores" it. Linus Torvalds recently offered his opinions on the merits of artificial intelligence (AI) as we know it. The creator and lead developer of the Linux kernel didn't disappoint with his characteristic cynicism regarding the substance of the AI industry in 2024. Famous for his highly informed yet unvarnished opinions on all things tech, Torvalds grimaced as he summarized the state of the AI biz as "90% marketing and 10% reality." Torvalds spoke at the Open Source Summit in Vienna earlier this month, where TFiR interviewed him. Tsathustra highlighted this interesting AI segment. During the highlighted interview segment, Torvalds attempted to see the potential in AI, but relentless industry hype is taking its toll. "I think AI is really interesting, and I think it is going to change the world. And, at the same time, I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don't want to go there," said the tech icon. The Linux pioneer outlined his AI hype coping mechanism: "So my approach to AI right now is I will basically ignore it because I think the whole tech industry around AI is in a very bad position (grimaces)..." However, it seems like there is almost too much AI BS around for the Fin to tolerate, and it is currently "90% marketing and 10% reality." That's quite a ratio. On a more positive note, Torvalds reckons there is change afoot. "In five years, things will change, and at that point we'll see what AI is getting used every day for real workloads." But it now seems fitting to remind readers that this isn't the first instance of an IT industry heavyweight asking about the validity of the AI industry. Just a week ago, we reported on the CEO of Baidu voicing an even more pessimistic opinion - that the AI bubble would burst and that just 1% of companies would continue to pick up the pieces after the predicted 'pop.' The Linux godfather ended the highlighted video segment by mentioning what he believes to be the current strengths of AI. "Chat GPT makes great demonstrations (rubs forehead), and it's obviously being used in many areas, but especially in graphic design, things like that." However, Torvalds couldn't resist a last dig, reminding us "But, I really hate the hype cycle." Sadly, it is challenging to be a tech enthusiast and ignore pervasive trends in the industry, which often can frustrate as they seem to be marketing bandwagon-led. However, individuals are probably best advised to follow in Torvalds' footsteps and "basically ignore" things they don't like, concentrating instead on the abundant enthralling aspects and potential modern technology delivers.

"90% of AI is currently a big marketing campaign," claims the creator of Linux - Softonic

We all know that AI has a lot of hype, what we didn't expect is that an authoritative voice like Linus Torvalds would claim that almost everything is marketing Linus Torvalds, creator of the third most used operating system in the PC world, recently participated in an event focused on open source, where he had a few things to say about AI technology and the future of the industry. Torvalds stated that the current state of AI is 90 percent marketing and 10 percent reality. The developer, awarded the Millennium Technology Prize of Finland for creating the Linux kernel, was interviewed during the Open Source Summit held in Vienna, where he had the opportunity to talk about both the open source world and the latest technological trends. The technologist stated that modern generative AI services represent an interesting advancement in machine learning technology, and that they will eventually change the world. At the same time, he expressed his discontent with the hype that is fueling too many AI-related initiatives and contributing to the impossibly high market valuations of Nvidia. Nowadays, everyone and their dog are talking about AI, or setting up some cloud-based AI service, or funding a multi-million dollar AI-focused startup somewhere in the world. Torvalds hates the hype cycle so much that he doesn't even want to get involved in it. The developer is essentially ignoring everything related to AI, although things are likely to change drastically in a few years. According to Torvalds, in five years, generative algorithms and machine learning technology will be much more useful and interesting. At that time, everyone will be able to understand how AI can really be used and what types of everyday workloads it can accelerate. The creator of Linux is not the only one who distrusts the modern capabilities of AI, as the CEO of Baidu recently stated that 99% of current "AI companies" will soon follow the path of the (digital) dodo. Torvalds admitted that ChatGPT and other similar services are magnificent as a pure technological demonstration and that, obviously, they are already used in many fields and for different workloads. "But I hate the hype cycle," and we couldn't agree more with the genius.

Creator of Linux Trashes AI Hype

Is AI everything that it's made out to be? Not according to Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux and its enduring chief spokesperson: in his view, the tech is "90 percent marketing and ten percent reality." Ouch. Torvalds had some harsh things to say about the AI industry during an interview with TFiR at the Open Source Summit in Vienna last month -- which shouldn't be surprising, since the Finnish programmer is infamous for his searing invectives, and for chewing out poor developers that don't live up to his high standards. That being said, he's a reformed man now and was a tad more measured than his old self might've been. "I think AI is really interesting and I think it is going to change the world," Torvalds said in a portion of the interview which recently went viral. "And at the same time, I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don't want to go there." "So my approach to AI right now is I will basically ignore it," he continued, "because I think the whole tech industry around AI is in a very bad position and it's 90 percent marketing and ten percent reality." The benevolent dictator for life hath spoken. We're sure his comments won't go unnoticed by some in the tech industry, since most of their data centers run on Linux. But according to Torvalds, the best may be yet to come for AI, with the next few years being a crucial litmus test. "In five years, things will change, and at that point we'll see what of the AI is getting used every day for real workloads instead of just ChatGPT," he said in the interview, before launching into a tangent about the chatbot. Torvalds doesn't seem convinced by the current crop of large language models like OpenAI's, which he says -- with something between a smirk and grimace on his face before rubbing his forehead -- "makes great, like, demonstrations." "It's obviously being used... in many, many areas," he added. "But I really hate the hype cycle." AI advocates might call Torvalds' outlook of ignoring the industry for the time being a little rash. But they should consider themselves lucky that Torvalds went easy on them. His sentiment is more than reasonable, after all. For all the billions of dollars being invested in the technology -- which is hollowing out other industries under the premise that it's already reliable and transformative -- a clear path to making AI profitable hasn't opened up yet. It doesn't help that some of the most prominent AI models often act as their own worst enemy. Everything from chatbots to integrated forms like Google Search's AI Overviews still suffer from frequent hallucinations. In short, it's hard to deny that, however good AI may be, it's falling short of its extremely pervasive -- and annoying -- hype.

Linus Torvalds slams AI as '90% marketing and 10% reality'

Linux creator Linus Torvalds has called AI little more than a marketing ploy. In a recent interview with TFiR at the Open Source Summit in Vienna, Torvalds acknowledged artificial intelligence is "really interesting" and that it's "going to change the world," however he added the initial hype doesn't yet justify its usefulness. Torvalds reportedly grimaced as labelled the current state of the AI market as "90% marketing and 10% reality." For now, Torvalds' solution is to ignore artificial intelligence until the technology becomes powerful and personalized enough to matter. "I think AI is really interesting, and I think it is going to change the world," he noted, "and, at the same time, I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don't want to go there." "So my approach to AI right now is I will basically ignore it because I think the whole tech industry around AI is in a very bad position," Torvalds added, "however, it seems like there is almost too much AI BS around for the Fin to tolerate." The developer's thoughts mirror those of other tech professionals worldwide - it seems that every day a new report is published showing how companies are struggling to deploy meaningful AI tools for a variety of reasons, including poor infrastructure and a lack of readiness on the parts of both workers and leaders. For now, Torvalds said he recognized the usefulness of some tools, like ChatGPT, in specific use cases, but reiterated that AI's broader applications remain limited. However, he left room for optimism, suggesting that in five years' time, AI might mature to support meaningful, everyday applications. Torvalds' comments follow recent remarks by Baidu's CEO, who predicts that the AI bubble might soon burst, leaving only a small percentage of companies in a position to benefit from the remaining interest. The Linux maker advises tech workers to avoid being swayed by industry trends that feel like bandwagons, instead focusing on meaningful innovations that can actually deliver. Despite the current hype around artificial intelligence, Torvalds says that he remains focused on his passion for low-level systems development: "I've always been interested in the area between hardware and software."

Linux's Creator Linus Torvalds Believes AI Right Now Is "90% Marketing", Saying That He Chooses To Completely Ignore It

Linux's creator, Linus Torvalds, believes that AI at this stage is "90% marketing" and that the massive industry hype is downplaying the technology's potential. Torvalds is pretty famous for his remarks about industry trends and developments, and he talks about them in a specific way. Just recently, Linux's creator commented on how AMD, Intel, and others are the sole reason for bugs on the platform, so he is pretty creative with what he comments on. In an interview at the Open Source Summit with TFIR, Torvalds commented on the AI hype and how the technology has been shadowed by the aggressive marketing being done by the tech giants out there. Here is what he had to say: I think AI is really interesting and I think it is going to change the world. At the same time, I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don't want to go there. So, my approach to AI right now is I will basically ignore it because I think the whole tech industry around AI is in a very bad position, and its 90% marketing and 10% reality. And, in 5 years, things will change and at that point, we will see what of the AI is getting used for real workloads. This is a pretty interesting take on the AI hype. From a broader perspective, Torvalds' stance isn't entirely wrong here since many of the AI startups are "shilling" the technology without having a proper "AI-infused" workload established. Hence, the hype is definitely top-notch this time around. The "90-10" ratio by Linux's creator is a controversial take since AI, despite being mainstream for less than five years, has established serious grounds for innovating market segments, notably AI chatbots and automated responses. But Linus Torvalds hasn't completely given up on the technology, saying that AI has proper "use-cases," but the technology is too busy in the marketing process that it hasn't translated into the stage where we see the implementation of "real workloads." So, in summary, Linux's creator isn't too interested in catching the AI bandwagon, but with counterparts such as Microsoft's Windows rapidly infusing the technology in its platform, will Linux be able to catch the bandwagon, or rather end up missing it?

Most current AI tech is 90 percent marketing, says Linus Torvalds

In a nutshell: Linus Torvalds never minces words when asked to comment on open-source support or the latest technology trends. The Finnish software engineer recently joined an open-source focused event, where he had a thing or two to say about AI technology and "intelligent" algorithms. Torvalds said that the current state of AI technology is 90 percent marketing and 10 percent factual reality. The developer, who won Finland's Millennium Technology Prize for the creation of the Linux kernel, was interviewed during the Open Source Summit held in Vienna, where he had the chance to talk about both the open-source world and the latest technology trends. The outspoken technologist said that modern generative AI services are an interesting development in machine learning technology, and that they will eventually change the world. At the same time, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the "hype cycle" which is fueling too many AI-related initiatives and contributing to Nvidia's impossibly high market evaluations. Everyone and their dog is currently talking about AI, or sticking some AI-based cloud service together, or funding an AI-focused multi-million startup somewhere in the world. Torvalds hates the hype cycle so much that he doesn't even want to go there. The developer is essentially ignoring everything AI, though things will likely change in a drastic way a few years from now. In five years, Torvalds said, generative algorithms and machine learning tech will become much more useful and interesting. At that point, the entire world will be able to understand how AI can actually be used and what types of daily workloads it can "accelerate." The Linux creator isn't alone in his distrust for modern AI capabilities, with Baidu's CEO recently stating that 99 percent of today's "AI companies" will soon go the way of the (digital) dodo. ChatGPT and similar services are great as a pure technology demonstration, Torvalds conceded, and they are obviously already used in many areas and for different workloads. "But I really hate the hype cycle," he said, and we couldn't agree more. During his Vienna interview, Torvalds said that development in the open-source community is now mostly driven by large companies rather than single developers. He reinforced his idea about computer security, especially when dealing with faulty hardware components. Torvalds also said that he prefers the C programming language over Rust, although the latter has been specifically designed to make memory-related bugs and software security issues a thing of the past.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds: AI is useless: it's '90% marketing' while he ignores AI for now

AI-Assisted TLDR: Linux creator Linus Torvalds criticized AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA for having "buggy" hardware and expressed skepticism about the AI industry's hype, stating it's "90% marketing and 10% reality." He believes AI will eventually change the world but currently chooses to ignore it due to the industry's focus on marketing over substance. Torvalds predicts it may take another five.* Generated from the content by Anthony Garreffa below. Linux creator Linus Torvalds has come out blasting AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA recently calling their hardware "buggy" and now has said that the AI industry is full of it and that it's "90% marketing" and "10% reality". During a recent interview at the Open Source Summit with TFIR, Torvalds talked about the hype surrounding AI, and how the technology has been shadowed by the overwhelming marketing of tech giants (of which I agree). He said: "I think AI is really interesting and I think it is going to change the world. At the same time, I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don't want to go there. So, my approach to AI right now is I will basically ignore it because I think the whole tech industry around AI is in a very bad position, and its 90% marketing and 10% reality. And, in 5 years, things will change and at that point, we will see what of the AI is getting used for real workloads". Torvalds isn't wrong here, AI isn't doing much so far... and, there are trillions of dollars in the market, and it will be worth many more times that in the future. Every big tech company is pushing AI into their products -- AMD, Apple, Intel, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Samsung, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc -- so we'll see if it does indeed take another 5 years as the Linux creator predicted, for AI to be really useful in our lives.

Linus Torvalds: 90% of AI marketing is hype so 'I ignore it'

Linux kernel creator says let's see which workloads use GenAI in five years Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, thinks the majority of marketing circulated by the industry on Generative AI is simply fluff with no real substance - and it may take many years before the tech is proven. The reformed potty mouth was speaking at the Open Source Summit in Vienna last month to "video-focused storytelling platform" TFiR when he was asked for thoughts on modern technologies, specifically GenAI. "I think AI is really interesting and I think it is going to change the world and at the same time I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don't want to go there, so my approach to AI right now is I will basically ignore it," said Torvalds. "I think the whole tech industry around AI is in a very bad position and it's 90 percent marketing and ten percent reality and in five years things will change and at that point we'll see what of the AI is getting used for real workloads," he added. OpenAI's ChatGPT "makes great demonstrations and it's obviously being used in many areas, for graphic design and things like that, but I really hate the hype cycle." The IT industry is known for marketing bluster, homing in on a nascent technology to over-promise and under-deliver. This, said the Linux kernel developer, is a problem: "before AI a couple of years ago the only thing people talked about was crypto and I just don't like the hype cycle." Some $95 billion has so far been invested in AI start-ups since the start of 2023 and the big four hyperscalers have sunk $200 billion in capital expenditure, according to Informa fellow Steve Brazier, who was speaking at the Canalys Channels Forum this month. "With around $200 billion in capex, only about $20 billion of revenue is actually coming from consumers and businesses in terms of AI services, things like Copilot licenses and ChatGPT licenses, so a very poor return in true results in terms of end users. And the whole bet [whether] the AI explosion continues or not will depend on whether they can get that $20 billion up as quickly as they hope." The spotlight from investors will again shine on Google later today and on Microsoft tomorrow when those companies report their latest financial results. Microsoft plowed billions into OpenAI, Mistral and Inflection, while Google has gambled on Anthropic. Both companies are still trying to convince customers of the productivity benefits of GenAI, though the return on investment seems uncertain, with unforeseen challenges related to corporate governance sometimes the sticking point. Gary Marcus, professor emeritus at New York University and an AI expert, told The Reg last week that GenAI has its uses but "isn't all that reliable". "More broadly, everyone is pushing GenAI to try to make back their immense investments, but it's not going that well. In 2023 there was nothing but hype; in 2024 I see a lot of disillusionment," Marcus said.