top of page

By:

Kiran D. Tare

21 August 2024 at 4:53:13 pm

The Great Contrarian

Michael Burry made his reputation by seeing through the housing boom. Now he is turning his scepticism on AI by questioning the stories being told about it. Michael Burry has always had an uncomfortable relationship with consensus. When everyone else sees a boom, he tends to look for the balance sheet underneath it. Recently, when some of the globe’s most powerful executives began telling the public that Artificial Intelligence is something is both enormously valuable and dangerously...

The Great Contrarian

Michael Burry made his reputation by seeing through the housing boom. Now he is turning his scepticism on AI by questioning the stories being told about it. Michael Burry has always had an uncomfortable relationship with consensus. When everyone else sees a boom, he tends to look for the balance sheet underneath it. Recently, when some of the globe’s most powerful executives began telling the public that Artificial Intelligence is something is both enormously valuable and dangerously powerful, Burry’s instinct was to wonder who benefits from the story. Burry’s instinct – of saying directly that the Emperor has no clothes – has made him famous. As the physician-turned-investor immortalised in 2015 film The Big Short, Burry was one of the investors who saw the fragility of America’s housing market before the financial crisis of 2008. While Wall Street was busy packaging subprime mortgages into increasingly elaborate securities, he concluded that the loans were deteriorating, lending standards were weakening and house prices could not keep rising simply because the financial system assumed they would. This month, as some of the world’s most prominent AI executives began warning that the technology could produce catastrophic consequences unless its development was slowed, Burry again took aim at the argument. In a post on his Substack, Cassandra Unchained, he described the warnings from OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and Elon Musk as “self-serving” and suggested that the language of impending catastrophe was serving a very different purpose from public safety. Burry pulled no punches when he said that the technology’s boosters and its doomers can sometimes be selling the same product. Burry’s suspicion is that the more extraordinary AI appears, the more extraordinary its valuations become. The same behemoths then warn that AI development must be slowed, gain time and protection from their competitors. Burry’s suspicion is particularly pointed because OpenAI and Anthropic have been moving towards possible public listings at enormous valuations. Inc. reported his argument on September 16, noting his contention that AI safety warnings could provide “cover” for slowing growth and postponing IPO plans. Burry’s provocative formulation is that large language models are not themselves artificial general intelligence, and the industry’s rhetoric about slowing “AI” therefore risks confusing a specific class of technologies with a much broader hypothetical future. The current AI debate has increasingly acquired the language of science fiction when it speaks of machines that might escape human control and autonomous systems that might manipulate infrastructure. While such scenarios deserve examination, Burry asks a more mundane question: what if the companies issuing the warnings have commercial incentives that are being overlooked? It is a question characteristic of the man who became famous by reading the footnotes while everyone else watched the headline. Burry’s scepticism toward AI is not new. Since launching Cassandra Unchained in November 2025, he has made the economics of the AI boom one of its central subjects. His writings have examined what he calls “supply-side gluttony”, the enormous investment in AI infrastructure and the financial assumptions underlying the industry. He has also taken short positions against several beneficiaries of the AI boom, including Nvidia and Palantir, arguing that the market may be pricing in too much future success. In one series, The Heretic’s Guide to AI’s Stars, he has examined the accounts of Nvidia and the major hyperscalers, focusing on capital spending, financing arrangements, customer concentration, depreciation and other details that can disappear beneath the headline numbers. His argument is not simply that AI companies are overvalued. He sees familiar patterns in the rush to build infrastructure before the economic returns have been established. In June, he wrote that he had seen something similar before and compared the current AI capital flows with the exuberance of the late 1990s. Burry’s reputation has not been built on predicting every future development. Rather, it was built on being willing to ask whether the story everyone else was telling was supported by the evidence. The housing crisis taught investors that financial innovation could conceal old-fashioned bad lending. The AI boom may yet teach markets that revolutionary technology can coexist with inflated expectations and extraordinary valuations. Burry’s great talent is refusing to accept the present at face value. In a market increasingly dominated by grand claims about machines that will either save civilization or destroy it, that may be the most contrarian position of all.

The Drought Test

Writer: Abhijit Joshi
Abhijit Joshi
2 hours ago
4 min read

Maharashtra’s drying fields are testing not just the government’s relief machinery, but the ability of its political class to put farmers ahead of political point-scoring.

The monsoon is nearing its end, but for thousands of farmers across Maharashtra the wait for rain continues. Fields are dry, crops are withering and the prospect of another difficult year is becoming harder to ignore. 


What began as a rainfall problem in parts of the state has developed into a serious agricultural and water crisis across large areas.


The numbers are stark. According to the India Drought Monitor, run by IIT Gandhinagar, nearly 84 percent of Maharashtra was either unusually dry or facing drought conditions in the week ending September 16. More than 56 percent of the state’s land was facing severe drought or worse. The deterioration has been remarkably rapid.


For a farmer, however, these are not merely drought indices. They represent money already spent on seeds, fertilisers and labour. They represent a crop that may no longer yield enough to recover those costs, another loan that may have to be taken and another season in which the family may struggle to make ends meet.


Drying State

The rainfall deficit tells much the same story. Between June 1 and September 22, Maharashtra received about 17 percent less rain than normal. The deficit in Marathwada was 37 percent and in Vidarbha 28 percent. Beed was 48 percent short and Dharashiv 45 percent. Latur and Dharashiv have received only about half their normal rainfall, according to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.


Soybean, cotton, maize and other important crops have suffered badly. In some areas, crops that sprouted after farmers had already invested in cultivation have simply withered. The consequences extend beyond agriculture. Falling water availability raises the prospect of drinking-water shortages in villages and inadequate fodder for cattle.


The crisis is also uneven. Some parts of western Maharashtra have received substantially more rain, while Marathwada and Vidarbha have borne the brunt of the deficit. That makes the task of government more complicated: a state-wide rainfall number can conceal very different realities on the ground.


If the dry conditions persist, the immediate crisis could become a longer one, affecting the rabi crop, household incomes, livestock and village water supplies.


While Fadnavis visited drought-affected areas of Latur and Dharashiv, the government’s real test will begin after the cameras leave the afflicted spots.


A preliminary notification on drought mitigation is expected before September 26. The government has also said it will begin providing assistance without waiting for funds from the Centre, while separately seeking central support.


Farmers cannot pay for fertilisers, seeds or food with assurances. Nor can a family whose crop has failed wait indefinitely for administrative procedures to conclude.


The state has said arrangements are being made for drinking water and cattle fodder for the next seven to eight months. But the precise compensation package and final list of affected areas remain critical because relief is meaningful only when it reaches households quickly and in sufficient measure.


The Opposition’s Test

The Opposition, meanwhile, has turned the drought into a political test for the government. NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) president Sharad Pawar has sought compensation of Rs. 50,000 per hectare for affected farmers. His party’s MLA, Rohit Pawar, has demanded an immediate drought declaration and Rs.25,000 per family for agricultural labourers, whose daily incomes disappear when farm activity stops. He has also questioned whether the administration is sufficiently aware of conditions in villages.


That is a reasonable standard for the Opposition as well as the government. Criticism has a legitimate role when relief is delayed or inadequate. But the drought should not become another occasion for competing claims about who raised the issue first.


The ruling alliance has itself adjusted its political activity. The NCP led by Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Ajit Pawar has postponed its Nashik camp scheduled for September 27 and asked ministers, MLAs and local leaders to visit affected villages and participate in relief work. The message is clear enough: this is no longer a problem that can be handled from Mumbai offices.


The immediate priority is to obviously identify the affected areas, complete crop-loss assessments, declare drought where warranted and deliver financial assistance without delay.


But Maharashtra should also resist treating every drought as a temporary emergency followed by a return to business as usual.


Marathwada and Vidarbha have long struggled with uncertain rainfall. The state therefore needs a more durable water strategy: better storage, repaired village ponds, stronger irrigation systems and greater use of farming methods and crops that require less water. 

Rainwater has to be captured when it arrives rather than mourned when it does not. Farmers also need timely information on rainfall and practical advice on crops suited to local conditions.


Climate variability will make such planning more important. For now, there is a simpler test. The government says it is ready to help. The Opposition says it must move faster. Both recognise the seriousness of the crisis.


For a farmer standing in a dry field, neither assertion means very much.


What matters is whether there will be enough water for the family, fodder for the cattle and money to prepare for the next crop.


Maharashtra’s real drought test is therefore not merely whether it can announce relief. It is whether it can ensure that no affected family is left without help while the state prepares for the difficult months ahead.


(The writer is a political observer. Views personal.)

Comments

bottom of page