The hype around Silicon Valley’s shiny new artificial “intelligence” systems has become a frenzy. Alphabet (GOOGL; GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), NVIDIA (NVDA), and Tesla, also called the “Magnificent Seven,” are continuing to pour billions of dollars into developing AI-powered chatbots, image generators, and self-driving cars. But hidden in the fine print is a damning admission from Big Tech that their AI is useless for anything beyond trivialities.

The developers of these systems are quick to boast about the supposedly revolutionary impact of their AI. Sam Altman claimed that ChatGPT “will kill some classes of jobs entirely,” despite the fact that ChatGPT can’t correctly list U.S. states ending in Y. Elon Musk has made false promises for over a decade about Tesla’s “mind-blowing” self-driving AI, which will still illegally blow past a stopped school bus and run down a child crossing the road.

The same manufacturers who peddle these AI systems quietly acknowledge that their AI is useless for anything important. ChatGPT’s usage policy forbids “Making high-stakes automated decisions,” including managing critical infrastructure, essential services, or employment.

Google says Gemini is capable of “truly amazing things” but makes provisions to ban its use in serious applications, including air traffic control systems and nuclear facilities.

Meta prevents the use of Llama in heavy machinery and critical infrastructure.

Silicon Valley executives deceive the public by clamouring about AI’s supposedly transformative benefits while simultaneously ensuring their models aren’t used for any useful purpose. They know that their AI is too defective and unpredictable to be safely used in any important role. Yet this does not stop them from crowing to a misinformed public that their AI will transform civilization as we know it.

Nowhere is this more evident than at Tesla, where the yawning chasm between Elon Musk’s claims about the software and its actual capabilities grows every year. In 2016, Musk said that a self-driving Tesla “at this point can drive autonomously with greater safety than a person. Right now,” yet in 2024, Tesla’s self-driving AI can only drive 134 miles before its driver has to take over to prevent a crash.

Musk said in 2019, “Next year, for sure, we will have over 1 million robotaxis on the road.” However, despite the already five-year delay, Tesla was forced to postpone its August 2024 robotaxi unveil by three months.

Customers who bought a Tesla in 2019, believing it would earn them “$30,000 a year” in robotaxi income, have never received a single cent from Musk’s false promises.

Silicon Valley executives have become modern-day itinerant preachers selling patent medicine. They profess to be masters of new technology that will reshape human civilization but caution against using AI for anything more serious than banal research tasks and mundane image generation. The public is suckered in by promises of incredible technology and never reads the small print, which shows that supposedly “intelligent” systems are, in reality, useless. It is high time to expose these snake oil merchants for who they really are.