By futurism
Published on January 26, 2026
A months-old but until now overlooked study recently featured in Wired claims to mathematically prove that large language models “are incapable of carrying out computational and agentic tasks beyond a certain complexity” — that level of complexity being, crucially, pretty low.
The paper, which has not been peer reviewed, was written by Vishal Sikka, a former CTO at the German software giant SAP, and his son Varin Sikka. Sikka senior knows a thing or two about AI: he studied under John McCarthy, the Turing Award-winning computer scientist who literally founded the entire field of artificial intelligence, and in fact helped coin the very term.
“There is no way they can be reliable,” Vishal Sikka told Wired.
When asked by the interviewer, Sikka also agreed that we should forget about AI agents running nuclear power plants and other strident promises thrown around by AI boosters.