Pivot to AI
pivot-to-ai.com · Group blog · on HN since 2024
David Gerard's news site is a skeptical look at the AI industry, covering hype, coding tools, crypto ties, and vendor failures.
What HN saysCommenters point to it as a skeptical counterweight to AI hype, including its coverage of AI-linked crypto schemes and claims about whether people are prompting wrong.
48HN people shared it
30linked it in comments
22stories submitted
808story points
3 months agolast shared
2024people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Steve yegges gas town vibe coding goes crypto scam8 people · first shared 2026
- 2Pivot to AI: It can't be that stupid, you must be prompting it wrong5 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 3The obnoxious github openclaw ai bot is a crypto bro4 people · first shared 2026
- 4If AI is so good at coding where are the open source contributions?3 people · 108 points · first shared 2025 · 37 comments on HN
- 5Google Co-Scientist AI fed previous paper with the answer in it2 people · 200 points · first shared 2025 · 36 comments on HN
- 6Copilot AI calls journalist a child abuser, MS tries to launder responsibility2 people · 45 points · first shared 2024 · 11 comments on HN
- 7Generative AI runs on gambling addiction – just one more prompt, bro2 people · 18 points · first shared 2025 · 2 comments on HN
- 8LLM vendors are incredibly bad at responding to security issues2 people · 7 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 9In 2025, venture capital can't pretend everything is fine any more1 people · 282 points · first shared 2025 · 260 comments on HN
- 10Elsevier rewrites academic papers with AI – without telling editors or authors1 people · 52 points · first shared 2025 · 6 comments on HN
- 11Anthropic is scraping websites so fast it's causing problems1 people · 50 points · first shared 2024 · 24 comments on HN
- 12Proton Mail goes AI, security-focused userbase goes 'what on Earth'1 people · 19 points · first shared 2024 · 4 comments on HN
- 13Gartner AI Hype Cycle: Autonomous AI Is on the Way (Apparently)1 people · 7 points · first shared 2024 · 2 comments on HN
- 14Fake diversity: why hire a non-white DJ when you could just generate one with AI1 people · 4 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 15AI data centers are trashing the Texas energy grid1 people · 3 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
rvz · 2026-01-11
> What I don't understand about this whole "get on board the AI train or get left behind" narrative, what advantage does an early adopter have for AI tools?
The ones pushing this narrative have either the following:
* Invested in AI companies (which they will never disclose until they IPO / acquired)
* Employees at AI companies that have stock options which they are effectively paid boosters around AGI nonsense.
* Mid-life crisis / paranoia that their identity as a programmer is being eroded and have to pivot to AI.
It is no different to the crypto web3 bubble of 2021. This time, it is even more obvious and now the grifters from crypto / tech are already "pivoting to ai". [0]
[0] https://pivot-to-ai.com/
Leynos · 2026-04-15
How does this work? Someone names a coin after his project, pays him commission for every transaction so he will be incentivised to give it positive coverage on his blog, then sells their stake once the value inflates leaving bagholders with worthless coinage and Yegge with his commission?
Edit: Apparently so: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/22/steve-yegges-gas-town-vibe-coding-g…
mikemarsh · 2026-01-30
Is it even worth mentioning that the whole "AI is the reason for layoffs" line is a charade, or does everyone here know that already?
For anyone who doesn't: the economy is bad in general, but saying citing "AI" as the reason for layoffs lets companies reverse their public perception from "company going through a crunch" to "forward-thinking innovator".
The latest "Pivot to AI" pulls together a lot of mainstream financial reporting on this very thing: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/29/the-job-losses-are-real-but-the-ai-…
stephen_g · 2025-09-10
Pivot to AI probably fits the bill pretty well? https://pivot-to-ai.com/
pestaa · 2025-07-18
In contrast to the Economist blaming inefficient workers sabotaging the spread of this wonderful technology, make sure to check out https://pivot-to-ai.com/ where David Gerard has been questioning whether people are prompting it wrong or AI is just not that smart.
twp · 2024-09-23
Keep a broad perspective: https://pivot-to-ai.com/
overgard · 2026-08-17
Or maybe these companies are just bullshitting.
Also: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/07/30/google-kills-alphafold-so-much-for-…
SideburnsOfDoom · 2026-06-26
I am now open to suggestions for a good VPM that isn't Mulvad. Or Proton.
Why not Proton:
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2024/07/25/proton-mail-adds-a-bitcoin-wallet-y…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447103
root_axis · 2026-06-21
DonHopkins · 2026-04-15
underarm5717 · 2026-04-15
How about the fact that he created a memecoin and did a rug pull ?
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/22/steve-yegges-gas-town-vibe-coding-g…
Can we STOP platforming people who commit open fraud like this? If doing a meme-coin rugpull doesn't tank someone's reputation on this website (which I am convinced is 90% LLMs anyway, I don't know why I'M still here) then I don't know what your standards are, but Steve Yegge should be ignored.
He's a crypto scammer. Rug pull. Fraudster. Fuck that guy.
troupo · 2026-03-04
People should stop giving Steve Yegge as much attention as they do.
It's slop on top of slop on top of slop. It's not even quality slop. Apart from bloviated self-aggrandising blog posts, the ideas are trivial, and the execution is beyond horrendous.
Look beyond the ChatGPT-generated terminology to see the supervisors, loops and worker processes of Gas Town. Now it's a freelance board with AI agents as freelancers. But sure, polecats, mayors, stamps and character sheets. Whatever floats your upcoming crypto rug pull [1].
This is what he writes: "build stuff really, really fast. So fast that your biggest problem will be ideas." We've yet to see ideas built using the slopcoded monstrosities.
[1] https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/22/steve-yegges-gas-town-vibe-coding-g…
Kim_Bruning · 2026-02-18
I think this commentor (Boxo McFoxo) did better work than almost everybody:
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/02/16/the-obnoxious-github-openclaw-ai-bo…
"No, I'm not convinced: [...] I think MJ Rathbun really is a case of someone giving their OpenClaw stack a vague instruction, sitting back and letting it run with little intervention..." and then lays it out in detail. (I'm a little suspicious of some of the terminology, but it does lay out the story at least)
pojntfx · 2026-02-18
Relevant post from a few days ago - contrary to what's stated in that post the operator is known now and apparently trying to make a crypto scam out of this: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/02/16/the-obnoxious-github-openclaw-ai-bo…
bigiain · 2026-02-17
You didn't see the latest AI grifter escalation? If you reject their PRs, they then get their AI to write hit pieces slandering you:
"On 9 February, the Matplotlib software library got a code patch from an OpenClaw bot. One of the Matplotlib maintainers, Scott Shambaugh, rejected the submission — the project doesn’t accept AI bot patches. [GitHub; Matplotlib]
The bot account, “MJ Rathbun,” published a blog post to GitHub on 11 February pleading for bot coding to be accepted, ranting about what a terrible person Shambaugh was for rejecting its contribution, and saying it was a bot with feelings. The blog author went to quite some length to slander Mr Shambaugh"
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/02/16/the-obnoxious-github-openclaw-ai-bo…
ChrisArchitect · 2026-02-17
Blog post instead of video: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/02/16/the-obnoxious-github-openclaw-ai-bo…
matkoniecz · 2026-02-13
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/22/steve-yegges-gas-town-vibe-coding-g… seems to be a decent writeup.
But https://steve-yegge.medium.com/bags-and-the-creator-economy-249b924a62… by itself is quite damming and obvious.
wahnfrieden · 2026-01-24
More details on the pump and dump scheme he joined in on promoting and drew money from: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/22/steve-yegges-gas-town-vibe-coding-g…
lupire · 2026-01-23
He participated in a crypto pump and dump
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/22/steve-yegges-gas-town-vibe-coding-g…
ludicity · 2026-01-23
I thought it was harmless(ish) fun, but David Gerard put out a post stating that Yegge used Gas Town to push out a crypto project that rug pulled his supporters, while he personally walked away with something between $50K to $100K from memory.
I suppose that has little to do with the technical merits of the work, but it's such a bad look, and it makes everyone boosting this stuff seem exactly as dysregulated/unwise as they've appeared to many engineers for a while.
I caught Sean Goedecke, who uses LLMs a bunch, who are clearly serious adults, but half the folks being shoved in front of everyone are behaving totally manic and people are cheering them on. Absolutely blows my mind to watch.
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/22/steve-yegges-gas-town-vibe-coding-g…
gamerdonkey · 2026-01-09
The gambling analogy has been brought up before.
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/05/generative-ai-runs-on-gambling-addi…
01HNNWZ0MV43FF · 2025-12-03
reify · 2025-11-25
We try Suno’s AI music generator — hear Suno fail the Fall
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/09/08/we-try-sunos-ai-music-hear-suno-fai…
David Gerard. 8 September 2025.
I’m a record collector. A snide hipster. I have detailed and annoying opinions on music.
But for music streamers, caring which song you’re hearing makes you a weird outlier. The majority of streaming listeners want a radio playing background music. You ask and they literally say “I just don’t care.” [MusicAlly, 2017]
That’s who the AI music apps think they can get to pay them, and not have to pay musicians.
(It’s not working — even the background radio crowd hate slop when they hear it.)
We’ve covered AI music before — the Kunlun Melodio music generator app. So let’s try Suno, the hotness for 2025!
The video: to hear that shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDJa67iHDQM&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xu…
yeah
NoGravitas · 2025-11-17
Start job hunting. Your CTO is probably a sociopath.
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/10/15/ai-is-not-popular-and-ai-users-are-…
techpineapple · 2025-08-08
I'm curious if this might help Cursor's lighting money on fire problem?
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/07/09/cursor-tries-setting-less-money-on-…
is this enough of a price difference to make cursor profitable?
sebstefan · 2025-05-22
We're approaching convincing David Gerard from last week
> I'll be convinced when LLMs start making valuable pull requests, non-obvious corner cases or non-trivial bugs in mature FOSS projects
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/05/13/if-ai-is-so-good-at-coding-where-ar…
etaioinshrdlu · 2025-05-11
In the chart in the article: https://pivot-to-ai.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/zirp-2005-2025-page…
You can clearly see non-zero interest rates from 2016 to 2020...
colingauvin · 2025-02-24
This article claims only 3 of the new materials were actually snythesizable (and all had been previously known of), and that the drug for liver fibrosis had already been investigated for liver fibrosis.
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/02/22/google-co-scientist-ai-cracks-super…
Springtime · 2026-05-01
While a couple months back an article[1] discussed how Google was keeping the water requirements a secret from locals who wanted transparency, claiming it was proprietary knowledge.
So they sued and discovered it will use 2-8 million gallons of drinking water per day[2], seemingly near the limit of their capacity to handle, judging by comments from officials.
> 'That water supply that otherwise would not be required until 2060 or the 2060s, suddenly becomes something that we need to be worried about during the 2030s.’
> If it exceeds that demand, they’re going to have to start looking for a new water source.
So I'm not sure how this fits with the claims of the article from the OP. I suppose if anything it disproportionately affects certain places not as well equipped for it?
[1] https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/03/06/how-much-water-do-the-data-centres-…
[2] https://www.wsls.com/news/local/2026/02/26/google-data-center-water-es…
1vuio0pswjnm7 · 2026-08-01
22 Jul 2026 14:52:41 UTC
AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They''re Free of AI Slop
https://www.404media.co/ai-companies-are-buying-tons-of-old-books-beca…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49007769
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25 Jul 2026 04:16:09 UTC
AI vendors are destroying rare books to feed the chatbot Pivot to AI
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/07/23/ai-vendors-are-destroying-rare-book…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49044469
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27 Jul 2026 08:09:08 UTC
AI companies are buying books and destroying them
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-destroying-r…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49066514
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27 Jul 2026 12:32:12 UTC
AI companies are shredding rare books
https://xcancel.com/HedgieMarkets/status/17 Dec 2035 20:03:08 UTC485296565
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49068738
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27 Jul 2026 22:11:17 UTC
AI Companies Are Buying Antique Books, Ingesting Their Contents to Train Models
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-destroying-r…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49076129
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27 Jul 2026 23:32:01 UTC
AI Companies Are Buying Antique Books and Destroying Them at Scale
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-destroying-r…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49077029
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28 Jul 2026 05:04:45 UTC
Anthropic Knew Public Would Be Disgusted by How It Was Destroying Physical…