91–100 of 400 posts
I hoped the article would be be a meta-discussion of "time" and perhaps relativity or some other phenomenon. Sigh, it's an investment thesis saying "This Time is Different" is a risky bet.
That sounds like an interesting article. You should write it.
For what it’s worth, not a single other technology in the list made any sort of impact on my work. For better or worse, LLMs did.
Well, okay, quantum computing actually affected me a lot because I worked at a quantum hardware manufacturer, but that’s different.
The hype around AI is admittedly annoying - especially from the Wall St crowd who don't know how to pronounce 'Nvidia' correctly, and who haven't managed to internalize the fact that the chatbots they use hallucinate. It really is 'different' , though, in the same way the Internet was. It took about 20 years (ie: since The World ISP) for the Internet to work its way into every facet of life. And the dot com bubble po…
The hype around AI is admittedly annoying - especially from the Wall St crowd who don't know how to pronounce 'Nvidia' correctly, and who haven't managed to internalize the fact that the chatbots they use hallucinate. It really is 'different' , though, in the same way the Internet was. It took about 20 years (ie: since The World ISP) for the Internet to work its way into every facet of life. And the dot com bubble po…
The only people underwhelmed by AI in February 2026 are people who have formed an identity around being AI skeptics over the last couple years and are struggling to shed it. I haven't met anyone who has seriously used the new models who isn't a at least a bit awed and disturbed.
The hype around AI is admittedly annoying - especially from the Wall St crowd who don't know how to pronounce 'Nvidia' correctly, and who haven't managed to internalize the fact that the chatbots they use hallucinate. It really is 'different' , though, in the same way the Internet was. It took about 20 years (ie: since The World ISP) for the Internet to work its way into every facet of life. And the dot com bubble po…
The only people underwhelmed by AI in February 2026 are people who have formed an identity around being AI skeptics over the last couple years and are struggling to shed it. I haven't met anyone who has seriously used the new models who isn't a at least a bit awed and disturbed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe AI is useful to you, but the US economy is currently buoyed by promises of AI replacing the workforce across the board. Most of Mag-7 are planning to spend over 500B on capex this year alone on building out datacenters for AI pipelines that have yet to prove that it can generate a sustainable profit. Yes, AI is useful in some environments, but the current pricing is heavily subsidized. So my point stand, the hy…
> but the US economy is currently buoyed by promises of AI replacing the workforce across the board. Still don't understand what's the end goal here. Assuming they don't deliver, then there are billions of investments that will go bust. Assuming they deliver, millions lose their jobs and there's going to be a bloodbath on the streets.
Failure to appreciate changes in AI will have left you calling every shot wrong over the past 5 years. While AI models continue to improve at an exponential rate, you'll cling to your facile maxims like "dude it's just predicting the next token it isn't real intelligence".
>Blockchain... NFTs >The problem is, the same dudes who were pumped for all of that bollocks now won't stop wanging on about Artificial Intelligence. I was firmly in the camp that blockchain was not a viable solution to any problem, and that NFTs sound stupid. I think AI is much different than that list. So, there goes your argument?
I think the author is saying that a specific crowd, which happened to be very vocal and excited about web3 and NFTs, is also very vocal and excited about AI. In my personal experience they are right, a lot of the hustler types around me who were trying to get everyone to "invest" in digital land are now doomposting about AI. It's not a very legible situation for people outside of the profession, and a lot of them bel…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe AI is useful to you, but the US economy is currently buoyed by promises of AI replacing the workforce across the board. Most of Mag-7 are planning to spend over 500B on capex this year alone on building out datacenters for AI pipelines that have yet to prove that it can generate a sustainable profit. Yes, AI is useful in some environments, but the current pricing is heavily subsidized. So my point stand, the hy…
> but the US economy is currently buoyed by promises of AI replacing the workforce across the board. Still don't understand what's the end goal here. Assuming they don't deliver, then there are billions of investments that will go bust. Assuming they deliver, millions lose their jobs and there's going to be a bloodbath on the streets.
There is a third outcome that combines both of these.
LLMs can massively displace the workforce (and cause widespread social instability) AND the companies pouring hundreds of billions into them right now could, at the same time, fail to capture significant amounts of the labor savings value as late-mover alternatives run the race drafting their progress without the massive spend.
I'd honestly be surprised if this double-whammy isn't the outcome at this point. AI is going to have a massive impact on everything, but there is still no moat in sight.
To my mind at least, it is different. I lean heavily on AI for both admin and coding tasks. I just filled out a multipage form to determine my alimony payments in Germany. Gemini was an absolute godsend, helping answer questions in, translate to English, draft explanations, emails requesting time extensions to the Jugendamt case worker. This is super scary stuff for an ADHDer like me. I have an idea for a programming…
"This time is different" has been correct for every major technological shift in history. Electricity was different. Antibiotics were different. Semiconductors were different. Gen AI reached 39% adoption in two years (internet took 5, PCs took 12). Enterprise spend went from $1.7B to $37B since 2023. Hyperscalers are spending $650B this year on AI infra and are supply-constrained, not demand-constrained. There is no…
Plenty a visual programming language has tried to toot their own horns as being the next transformative change in everything, and they are mostly just obscure DSLs at this point.
The other issue is nobody knows what the future will actually look like and they'll often be wrong with their predictions. For example, with the rise of robotics, plenty of 1950s scifi thought it was just logical that androids and smart mechanic arms would be developed next year. I mean, you can find cartoons where people envisioned smart hands giving people a clean shave. (Sounds like the making of a scifi horror novel :D Sweeney Todd scifi redux)
I think AI is here to stay. At very least it seems to have practical value in software development. That won't be erased anytime soon. Claims beyond that, though, need a lot more evidence to support them. Right now it feels like people just shoving AI into 1000 places hoping that they can find an new industry like software dev.