if this could last till a point where AI have actual automation ability, it's not a tool for humans anymore. it could have a identity and start to evolve literally.
i don't understand why some people consider AI as tech revolution.
maybe i'm into sf, but AI can be something other than just a tool.
AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing
31–40 of 288 posts
Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing
#32I think it's clear to me that AI will be both things: 1) as in the article it's a contraction of work- industrialization getting rid of hand-made work or the contraction of all things horse-related when the internal combustion engine came around but- it will also be 2) new technologies and ideas enabled by a completely new set of capabilities The real question is if the economic boost from the latter outpaces the los…
> do people really believe no novel things will be unlocked with this tech?
Yes. It's a mostly shitty but very fast and relatively inexpensive replacement for things that already exist.
Give your best example of something that is novel, ie isn't just replacing existing processes at scale.
It's been 3 and a half years now since the initial hype wave. Maybe I genuinely missed the novel trillion dollar use case that isn't just labor disruption.
Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing
#33this perez model thing completely misses the communications revolutions of the telegraph, radio and television not to mention demonopolization of bell.
> Then came AI, revealing new dynamics. ChatGPT’s breakthrough didn’t come from a garage startup but from OpenAI,
i thought the transformer and large language models came from google research.
> There’s also social pushback—in the UK the campaigns against big ringroad schemes started in the late 1960s and early 1970s. And perhaps we’re seeing some of that about AI. The U.S. map of local pushback against data centres from Data Center Watch covers the whole of the country, in red states and blue. People seem to hate Google’s inserting of AI tools into its search results, and hate even more that it is all but impossible to turn it off.
the us had the highway revolts. in most cities where the revolts succeeded it is widely heralded today as a success.
the data center hate is interesting. i think many people are just learning what data centers are. but that said, they've come to represent something different in recent years. previously they were part of the infrastructure that made industry hum, now public messaging from tech leaders and academics is along the lines of "this is how your livelihood is going to be replaced" while the institutions that are supposed to provide any sort of backstop are being dismantled or slashed to pieces by crazypants trumpist politics. i think focusing the energy on the tangible like mundane buildings is interesting, but the hate makes a lot of sense.
addressing the core thesis, i'd argue that ai is not the next step in the 70s digital technological wave (especially considering the future of ai compute is probably hybrid digital-analog systems), but rather is something fundamentally new that also changes how technology interacts with society and how economics itself will function.
previous systems helped, these systems can do. that's a fundamental change and one that may not be compatible with our existing economic systems of social sorting and mobility. the big question in my mind is: if it succeeds, will we desperately try to hold onto the old system (which essentially would be a disaster that freezes everyone in place and creates a permanent underclass) or will we evolve to a new, yet to be defined, system? and if so, how will the transition look?
Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Going to the local movie rental shop with my kids is the highlight of my week. What a bizarre sentence to write in 2026 but it’s absolutely 1000% better than modern streaming (outside of my Plex setup). I gladly pay the (modest/token) late fees to help keep them open at this point. If someone set up a local arcade man…I’d be in heaven ha
> I gladly pay the (modest/token) late fees to help keep them open at this point Keeping movies longer and paying late fees may be hurting them more than helping them. It's entirely possible that the late fees are underpriced to avoid scaring away customers. New customers going away disappointed they movie they want wasn't returned on time hurts them more than your late fees help.
Not keeping them on purpose, I’m just not sweating the fee because I’m happy to pay them.
Additionally, the odds that my kids are holding on to exactly what somebody else wants in that timeframe is very small. It’s a small shop within a larger co-op situation with a modest following and pretty substantial stock. I know for instance we’ve never had an issue of wanting something that was rented.
Has it happened? Maybe. But the fees I’ve paid probably net positive against that rare instance. They aren’t open half the week so I can’t return them once Monday passes for several days anyway. Owner certainly hasn’t expressed concern and has even waived the fee before because clearly it’s of little consequence.
Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing
#35[deleted]
Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing
#36I think it's clear to me that AI will be both things: 1) as in the article it's a contraction of work- industrialization getting rid of hand-made work or the contraction of all things horse-related when the internal combustion engine came around but- it will also be 2) new technologies and ideas enabled by a completely new set of capabilities The real question is if the economic boost from the latter outpaces the los…
It's been a few years and I have yet to see a single novel thing come out of it. Even chatbots weren't novel when ChatGPT came out.
Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing
#37The lack of robotics mention somewhat undermines this article.
I don't think it's intrinsically wrong, we are in a late stage of a transformation. Software is eating the world and AI is (so far) most profitably an automation of software.
There is plenty of money to be made along the way. I don't really buy the article's seeming confusion about where the money is going to come from. Anthropic is making billions and signing up prodigious amounts of recurring revenue every month.
Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing
#38I had to code something on a plane today. It used to be that you couldn't get you packages or check stackoverflow. But now, I'm useless. My mind has turned to pudding. I cannot remember basic boilerplate stuff. Crazy how fast that goes.
Really? How long you've been a developer? I've been almost exclusively doing "agent coding" for the last year + some months, been a professional developer for a decade or something. Tried just now to write some random JavaScript, C#, Java, Rust and Clojure "manually" and seems my muscle memory works just as well as two years ago. I'm wondering if this is something that hits new developers faster than more experienced…
Same for me. Been fully agentic for half a year or so, still remember the myriad of programming languages and things just as well if there's no AI present at all. Hard to shake 15 years of experience that quick, unless maybe that experience never fully cemented?
Maybe the difference between actually knowing stuff vs surface level? I know a lot of devs just know how to glue stuff together, not really how to make anything, so I'd imagine those devs lose their skills much faster.
Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing
#39I had to code something on a plane today. It used to be that you couldn't get you packages or check stackoverflow. But now, I'm useless. My mind has turned to pudding. I cannot remember basic boilerplate stuff. Crazy how fast that goes.
probably a junior/semi sr developer?
Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing
#40I think it's clear to me that AI will be both things: 1) as in the article it's a contraction of work- industrialization getting rid of hand-made work or the contraction of all things horse-related when the internal combustion engine came around but- it will also be 2) new technologies and ideas enabled by a completely new set of capabilities The real question is if the economic boost from the latter outpaces the los…
> do people really believe no novel things will be unlocked with this tech? Yes. It's a mostly shitty but very fast and relatively inexpensive replacement for things that already exist. Give your best example of something that is novel, ie isn't just replacing existing processes at scale. It's been 3 and a half years now since the initial hype wave. Maybe I genuinely missed the novel trillion dollar use case that isn…
"Yes. It's a mostly shitty but very fast and relatively inexpensive replacement for things that already exist."
Wouldn't that apply to most technological advances? Cars, computers, cell phones.