AI is really bringing out the worst in capitalist corporatism. I think even the most pessimistic AI doomer will agree that the technology is fascinating and can do some cool things, but our corporate overlords have made it such an all-encompassing topic that it’s hard not to be disillusioned by it.
Yes, it’s an interesting technology - but seeing other interesting technologies and projects get disinvested in because it’s not new shiny AI - or watching leaders insist on creating yet another chatbot just so they can pat themselves on the back - or replacing an already-working system with a half-broken AI one just so we can say we use AI, and then forcing everyone at the company to use it just so we can release a press release saying ‘all of our developers use AI’. Watching our overall quality of work decrease, but leaders celebrate it because “mediocre but done with AI” is gold standard now…
All of it feels like a sham. Feels like we’re trying too hard to prop up AI as amazing, rather than letting it succeed on its own merits.
I'm kind of puzzled. I've been interested in AI for ~45 years and read quite a lot of the stuff on HN and similar. I'm not aware of any of that being pushed on me by a corporate overlord? I'll give you there is more hype and money these days.
However I also read Kurzweil / Moravec stuff which has been predicting human level intelligence around now since at least 1990 and that to me is the interesting bit, and not really at all corporate, rather than open-whatever has raised $x bn etc.
You must not work in big tech, then. At my company, AI-companion tools were forcibly installed in everyone’s browser, soon followed by a press release parading how “100% of people at our company now use AI because it’s so great”. Attempts to uninstall the tool are explicitly blocked. Similarly, AI coding tools are forcibly installed in IDEs.
Every single hackathon or team workshop has been turned into a AI-specific hackathons or training. Managers have been told explicitly that they must come up with yearly goals that include the use of AI. Every project proposal must include a section answering how this project plans to utilize AI.
The most egregious example for me were adding a chatbot to Windows and going so far as creating a special button (on laptop's cramped keyboard). Then we got the Apple ads which are just stains on professional ethics.
Yes, it’s an interesting technology - but seeing other interesting technologies and projects get disinvested in because it’s not new shiny AI - or watching leaders insist on creating yet another chatbot just so they can pat themselves on the back - or replacing an already-working system with a half-broken AI one just so we can say we use AI, and then forcing everyone at the company to use it just so we can release a press release saying ‘all of our developers use AI’. Watching our overall quality of work decrease, but leaders celebrate it because “mediocre but done with AI” is gold standard now…
All of it feels like a sham. Feels like we’re trying too hard to prop up AI as amazing, rather than letting it succeed on its own merits.