I recently wrote and published an article where I raged against the marketing machine behind the AI hype train. This is a necessary addendum to that essay.
While this is in no way intended to walk back the sentiment that the unrelenting AI hype cycle campaigns are unimaginably distasteful (I hold fast to this view), I feel it’s worth clarifying that I find no fault inherently with people being happy to try new skills. I am a career changer myself. I am also a power user of Codex. I understand what I’m doing well enough to reign in the common shortcomings of AI-assisted workflows, and I must contend — *whether I like it or not — with the frustrating inevitability of yet another layer being introduced to the software developer job hunting landscape.
I take issue with:
- Intellectual Property Theft as a Service (especially with regard to cannibalized art & literature),
- subversion of hard-earned taste & craftsmanship as a marketing ploy,
- minimizing of the aforementioned hard-earned taste & craftsmanship by LLM salesmen and oblivious consumers (e.g. suno users fraudulently cosplaying as legitimate artists),
- the environmental wreckage data centers impose on local ecology (and secret subsidies via pillaging the utility bills of unwilling neighbors),
- hyper inflated expectations of toxic productivity,
- false advertising (generative tools still require skilled craftsmen to guide and check the output)
- and the corporate sabotage of people’s livelihoods being casually postured as a win.
I am in fact an intense proponent that people should try new things.
I believe people should learn instruments. I believe people should and . I believe people should become excellent communicators.
The disdain expressed in the previous article is for those who relish in exploiting the madness foisted upon the unwilling, and those who greedily and deceptively gain (be it monetarily, or accumulated publicity, or otherwise) from the hype at the expense of others.
I acknowledge that there are conscientious, respectful consumers (at least as conscientious and respectful as possible, given the insidious implications of this industry - again, read some Zitron). I am associated with some of these consumers via my consulting practice, and I’m grateful for it. I am happy to leverage my expertise to productionize people’s ideas and help them mitigate disaster. Contact me on my consulting website or on LinkedIn. I digress.
These types are appreciated, but they seem to be the exception.
The real problem? It’s the pirates. It’s the mega-corps who lie about why they’re firing tens of thousands of people at once.
It’s the “thought leaders” who don’t have any thoughts.
* y’all like them em-dashes?
Read part 1: “AI Boosters Are Rude (On AI Hype)”
Read part 3 here: “AI Token Price Hikes Are Here, Right on Schedule (On AI Hype, pt. 3)”