I mean, is AI a less sketchy space in 2024 than crypto/blockchain in 2024? Two or three years ago sure, I guess, but today?

The drama around OpenAI is well documented, there are multiple lawsuits and an SEC investigation at least in embryo, Karpathy bounced and Ilya's harder to spot than Kate Middleton (edit: please see below edit in regards to this tasteless quip). NVIDIA is pushing the Dutch East India Company by some measures of profitability with AMD's full cooperation: George Hotz doesn't knuckle under to the man easily and he's thrown in the towel on ever getting usable drivers on "gaming"-class gear. At least now I guess the Su-Huang Thanksgiving dinners will be less awkward.

Of the now over a dozen FAANG/AI "boomerangs" I know, all of them predate COVID hiring or whatever and all get crammed down on RSU grants they accumulated over years: whether or not phone calls got made it's pretty clearly on everyone's agenda to wash all the ESOP out, neutron bomb the Peninsula, and then hire everyone back with at dramatically lower TC all while blowing EPS out quarter after quarter.

Meanwhile the FOMC is openly talking about looser labor markets via open market operations (that's direct government interference in free labor markets to suppress wages for the pro-capitalism folks, think a little about what capitalism is supposed to mean if you are ok with this), and this against the backdrop of an election between two men having trouble campaigning effectively because one is fighting off dozens of lawsuits including multiple felony charges and the other is flying back and forth between Kiev and Tel Aviv trying to manage two wars he can't seem to manage: IIRC Biden is in Ukraine right now trying to keep Zelenskyy from drone-bombing any more refineries of Urals crude because `CL` or whatever is up like 5% in the last three weeks which is really bad in an election year looking to get nothing but uglier: is anyone really arguing that some meme on /r/crypto is what's pushing e.g. BTC and not a pretty shaky-looking Fed?

Meanwhile over in crypto land, over the same period of time that AI and other marquee Valley tech has been turning into a scandal-plagued orgy of ugly headlines on a nearly daily basis, the regulators have actually been getting serious about sending bad actors to jail or leaning on them with the prospect (SBF, CZ), major ETFs and futures serviced by reputable exchanges (e.g. CME) have entered mainstream portfolios, and a new generation of exchanges (`dy/dx`, Vertex, Apex, Orderly) backed by conventional finance investments in robust bridge infrastructure (LayerZero) are now doing standard Island/ARCA-style efficient matching and then using the blockchain for what it's for: printing a consolidated, Reg NMS/NBBO/SIP-style consolidated tape.

As a freelancer I don't really have a dog in this fight, I judge projects by feasibility, compensation, and minimum ick factor. From the vantage point of my flow the AI projects are sketchier looking on average and below market bids on average contrasted to the blockchain projects, a stark reversal from even six months ago.

Edit: I just saw the news about Kate Middleton, I was unaware of this when I wrote the above which is in extremely poor taste in light of that news. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.