It's interesting to see varying degrees, but growing, sentiment against AI, and technology in general. There were certainly curmudgeons at the turn of the century as the Internet caught on and became more ubiquitous, but this is something different. And it's not just the NIMBY feelings about data centers.
The pendulum in tech itself has been on an unprecedented swing regarding software. The AI bros that dominated LinkedIn with tales of multi-agent token-burning autonomy have mostly disappeared. And to humblebrag a little, I was right about one thing. Agentic coding has not yielded the predicted gains in software delivery, because coding was never the hardest, or longest part of the process. Taste, judgment and wisdom throughout the process, which includes product and stakeholder engagement, have not been replaced by AI. Someone has to describe the problem, and figure out a solution. Software developers themselves can churn things out faster, but they're still necessary to make sure the robots get it right. It turns out that the thing AI is really good at is gathering context from existing code. Efforts to give it context for unwritten code is waterfall for robots, and slower than letting it get things wrong and iterating.
There are other things though that don't really make life better. Bots that do "support" are universally bad. I don't care for tapping my food order at a kiosk, which asks for a tip. No one needs creepers recording video through glasses. You need a password for everything now, and when it doesn't work, it feels impossible to make it work. Why do refrigerators need touch screens? Oh, and as I've said before, software is almost exclusively tragic.
It doesn't have to be this way. Dust off that old software you own, listen to feedback, actually use it, and make it better. I've made more software in my spare time this year already than in many previous years combined. None of it's that great, but it gets better every weekend. It's cheaper than ever to try something, and throw it away if it's not what you hoped for. Don't settle. Make it amazing.
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