Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

The article compares the current generative AI startup boom to multi-level marketing schemes, arguing that companies like Replit are using influencer marketing to sell false promises of easy wealth and success to economically vulnerable young people. The author draws parallels between MLM's exploitation of those seeking financial stability and how AI-coding platforms market the idea that anyone can build software that will make them rich, targeting audiences already skeptical of traditional economic systems. Both models, the piece suggests, prey on desperation and alienation from mainstream economic opportunity.