I am not so sure that "our generation" is the problem. Nor that "the younger generation" are the ones that can fix it. Neither generation is homogeneous. There may be only 20% of "the younger generation" who buy into techno-feudalism. But that may be enough to make it happen. And from my own very real life observations on that younger generation, I would estimate that only 20% of them are willing and able to work on the new paradigms and stuff which are needed to get us to a better trajectory. I see 60% as a pretty inert mass that is being moved around by either of the two 20% groups. That is observations. Young people I can name. Of course anecdotal and not representative, but still. Plus I have Mr. Pareto on my side ;-) .
And to me it looks to be the same proportions in "our generation". I think you even say this yourself, in a way, by quoting numbers of how many corporate employees resist AI. That's not mainly young people, are they? A fair share of them are not-so-young corporate (as well as public admin) people afraid of change - as there always have been. Here too I could name names from personal observation. But we both also know some 20%ers in our generation on either side.
I would look at the smaller groups and their actual ideas, and not delineate so much by generation. Points people in the wrong direction, which tends to make things even messier than necessary.
Can't find anything to disagree with here. I find myself in this uncomfortable space where I am mourning a tech career lost to AI mania and enshittification, but also dealing with the work PTSD that I know was part of the devil's bargain I accepted. I've spent most of my adult life being sure of who I was and the path I was on, but now a bunch of billionaire techbros have forced me off the path and made me question everything again. The whole AI industry seems so nihilistic and stupid and destined to flame out while taking a lot of us down with it.
Love this post but that you believe Ed Zitron about AI “not having a use case” suggests a very odd bias towards believing what you want to believe. Anthropic’s revenue numbers have shattered every possible growth metric. It is very clear that there is demand and that AI for coding has literally transformed the entire discipline within years. To think that AI hasn’t found any product market fit is to have your head very deeply in the sand. And I say this as someone who is skeptical of AI and not a booster. Ed Zitron has been relentlessly wrong about the AI industry for years. He said in 2024 that LLMs had “peaked”. And that isn’t even in his top ten worst calls.
That’s a fair challenge, so let me respond on the specific first, and then the general.
I’m not a coder so I can’t speak about product/market fit here from a personal perspective but I do know there is some research that shows using AI is actually slowing down coders (I think it was by 19% in the study). Actual coding is only part of what a software engineer does, so there’s a limited upside that AI can provide. There’s also suggestions that running loads of agents increases a software engineer’s workload, which is not sustainable over time. So I’m not sure the fit is quite proven yet. That doesn’t mean bosses aren’t deploying AI and reducing headcount because there’s a clear business imperative to do that, in the short term at least. However, some have had to row back on their AI deployment, whilst it does seem to cause problems with the code base because every instance of AI code is different. In truth, we don’t really know because the big companies don’t let us see under the hood, and they aren’t going to tell us the massive outages (e.g, Amazon) or the degrading quality of the software (pretty much everywhere) are due to AI.
The general point, however, I think stands, even if I accept that there’s a product market fit for coding. LLMs are being promoted as general tools, that will deliver an uplift in productivity for everyone. The modern day equivalent of email, or even electricity. They have to be because that’s the only way to justify the enormous amounts of investment they have hoovered up and to recover the massive losses they have stacked up. And I don’t see that use case. I don’t even see a cluster of use cases. If it existed, people would be demanding to use these LLMs and wouldn’t have to be told they have to. Right now, outside the enthusiasts, they are being coerced. When that changes, then I might change any view.
Thanks for the challenge. It’s one of those instances where I have made an assertion without presenting the argument on the grounds of brevity but I’m very happy to debate the point with those that are interested.
Absolutely. This comes back to first principles. What is the reason we are alive, or doing any of this? To become more embodied? Or more abstracted into a digital or symbolic space which promises without fulfillment? Finding the ground in our lives is a spiritual, philosophical, and deeply embodied, somatic process. A healthy life, society, and culture is always based around becoming more human. The rest is a symptom. It’s a question we have to both individually and collectively ask ourselves. It’s in our hands.
I think many people sense that what’s behind it is dark but they don’t want to go there in case it pushes them into despair. However, it’s not hard to find the evidence, the people with power and influence love telling everyone what they think. Every now and then, it comes into the mainstream, live Peter Thiel’s comment that he doesn’t think capitalism and democracy are compatible, Alex Karp’s manifesto and the dangerous ramblings of Curtis Yarvin and his ‘Dark Enlightenment’ philosophy. When it does, people find it too outrageous to take seriously, so it mostly seems to hide in plain sight. Perhaps we’re all too numbed by the excesses of political communication in the social media age for it to properly register.
I am not so sure that "our generation" is the problem. Nor that "the younger generation" are the ones that can fix it. Neither generation is homogeneous. There may be only 20% of "the younger generation" who buy into techno-feudalism. But that may be enough to make it happen. And from my own very real life observations on that younger generation, I would estimate that only 20% of them are willing and able to work on the new paradigms and stuff which are needed to get us to a better trajectory. I see 60% as a pretty inert mass that is being moved around by either of the two 20% groups. That is observations. Young people I can name. Of course anecdotal and not representative, but still. Plus I have Mr. Pareto on my side ;-) .
And to me it looks to be the same proportions in "our generation". I think you even say this yourself, in a way, by quoting numbers of how many corporate employees resist AI. That's not mainly young people, are they? A fair share of them are not-so-young corporate (as well as public admin) people afraid of change - as there always have been. Here too I could name names from personal observation. But we both also know some 20%ers in our generation on either side.
I would look at the smaller groups and their actual ideas, and not delineate so much by generation. Points people in the wrong direction, which tends to make things even messier than necessary.
Just my 2c!
Can't find anything to disagree with here. I find myself in this uncomfortable space where I am mourning a tech career lost to AI mania and enshittification, but also dealing with the work PTSD that I know was part of the devil's bargain I accepted. I've spent most of my adult life being sure of who I was and the path I was on, but now a bunch of billionaire techbros have forced me off the path and made me question everything again. The whole AI industry seems so nihilistic and stupid and destined to flame out while taking a lot of us down with it.
Having suffered one horrific burnout working in the hell that is the corporate insanity you describe so fully, I refuse any more. And I resist.
Love this post but that you believe Ed Zitron about AI “not having a use case” suggests a very odd bias towards believing what you want to believe. Anthropic’s revenue numbers have shattered every possible growth metric. It is very clear that there is demand and that AI for coding has literally transformed the entire discipline within years. To think that AI hasn’t found any product market fit is to have your head very deeply in the sand. And I say this as someone who is skeptical of AI and not a booster. Ed Zitron has been relentlessly wrong about the AI industry for years. He said in 2024 that LLMs had “peaked”. And that isn’t even in his top ten worst calls.
That’s a fair challenge, so let me respond on the specific first, and then the general.
I’m not a coder so I can’t speak about product/market fit here from a personal perspective but I do know there is some research that shows using AI is actually slowing down coders (I think it was by 19% in the study). Actual coding is only part of what a software engineer does, so there’s a limited upside that AI can provide. There’s also suggestions that running loads of agents increases a software engineer’s workload, which is not sustainable over time. So I’m not sure the fit is quite proven yet. That doesn’t mean bosses aren’t deploying AI and reducing headcount because there’s a clear business imperative to do that, in the short term at least. However, some have had to row back on their AI deployment, whilst it does seem to cause problems with the code base because every instance of AI code is different. In truth, we don’t really know because the big companies don’t let us see under the hood, and they aren’t going to tell us the massive outages (e.g, Amazon) or the degrading quality of the software (pretty much everywhere) are due to AI.
The general point, however, I think stands, even if I accept that there’s a product market fit for coding. LLMs are being promoted as general tools, that will deliver an uplift in productivity for everyone. The modern day equivalent of email, or even electricity. They have to be because that’s the only way to justify the enormous amounts of investment they have hoovered up and to recover the massive losses they have stacked up. And I don’t see that use case. I don’t even see a cluster of use cases. If it existed, people would be demanding to use these LLMs and wouldn’t have to be told they have to. Right now, outside the enthusiasts, they are being coerced. When that changes, then I might change any view.
Thanks for the challenge. It’s one of those instances where I have made an assertion without presenting the argument on the grounds of brevity but I’m very happy to debate the point with those that are interested.
Absolutely. This comes back to first principles. What is the reason we are alive, or doing any of this? To become more embodied? Or more abstracted into a digital or symbolic space which promises without fulfillment? Finding the ground in our lives is a spiritual, philosophical, and deeply embodied, somatic process. A healthy life, society, and culture is always based around becoming more human. The rest is a symptom. It’s a question we have to both individually and collectively ask ourselves. It’s in our hands.
it's pretty awful what's going on and the darkness of what's driving it
I think many people sense that what’s behind it is dark but they don’t want to go there in case it pushes them into despair. However, it’s not hard to find the evidence, the people with power and influence love telling everyone what they think. Every now and then, it comes into the mainstream, live Peter Thiel’s comment that he doesn’t think capitalism and democracy are compatible, Alex Karp’s manifesto and the dangerous ramblings of Curtis Yarvin and his ‘Dark Enlightenment’ philosophy. When it does, people find it too outrageous to take seriously, so it mostly seems to hide in plain sight. Perhaps we’re all too numbed by the excesses of political communication in the social media age for it to properly register.