Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

Unfinished Side Projects

AI is starting to look like a net negative for humanity. I remember the early days of OpenAI. I was super excited about it. There was a new space to uncover and learn about. I was hopeful.

Now I have this love/hate relationship with it. Claude Code is amazing. I use it everyday because it makes me so much more efficient at my job. But I also know that by using it I’m contributing to making my job redundant one day.

At the same time I see how much resources we are wasting on AI. And to what end? Does anybody really buy the BS that this will all make the world a better place one day? So many people we could shelter and feed, but instead we are spending it on trying to make your computer check and answer your emails for you. At what point do we just look up and ask… what is the damn purpose of all of this? I guess money.

> But I also know that by using it I’m contributing to making my job redundant one day.

I don't see how this is the case if you're anything more than a junior engineer... it unlocks so many possibilities. You can do so much more now. We are more limited by our ideas at this point than anything else.

Why is the reaction of so many people, once their menial work gets automated, "oh no, my menial work is automated." Why is it not "sweet, now I can do bigger/better/more ambitious things?"

(You can go on about corporate culture as the cause, but I've worked at regular corporations and most of FAANG. Initiative is rewarded almost everywhere.)

> Does anybody really buy the BS that this will all make the world a better place one day?

Why is it BS? I'm shocked that anyone with a love and passion for technology can feel this way. Have you not seen the long history of automation and what it has brought humanity?

There is a reason that we aren't dying of dysentery at the ripe age of 45 on some peasant field after a hard winter day's worth of hard labor. The march of automation and technology has already "made the world a better place."

> I don't see how this is the case if you're anything more than a junior engineer... it unlocks so many possibilities.

I really don't understand this way of thinking. Don't you think that AI could replace senior engineers? Sure, companies will be able to do bigger / better / more ambitious stuff - but without any software engineers.

> Why is it BS? I'm shocked that anyone with a love and passion for technology can feel this way. Have you not seen the long history of automation and what it has brought humanity?

I definitely think that AI will be a net benefit for society but it could easily end up being be bad for me.

So far AI doesn't seem even close to replacing senior engieeners. Hell, it can't even replace junior engieeners entirely.

I use AI agents every day at work and I'm happy with that, but it took over two years and billions of dollars in investment to deliver anything useful (Claude Code et al). The current models are amazing, but they still randomly make mistakes that even a junior wouldn't make.

There's another paradigm shift to be made certainly, because currently it feels like we scaled up a bug brain to spit out code. It works great for some problems, but it's not what software developers usually do at work.