Blogging About AI and "Alternatives"

I really do not like talking about AI, because I lack crucial validation of its various contextual realities. It is clear to me that there is a lot of dissociation and conflation in its overall representation in the media. It is also clear to me that it is an important topic for more than its raw technological ability. 

This iteration of a tech bubble can certainly be compared to other past tech bubbles, but there is also so much more tied up in politics and power dynamics compared to what the past tech world has ever been.

It seems to me the important discussion around AI is the missing details between the lines of general distinctions of power over technology, and the abilities of the technology itself. Although there are very important discussions around the power of the technology itself, these discussions seem to be leveraged for the sake of piecing out exploitation of the technology towards conflated ends, such as overreach and monopolization in corporate power (by the technologically illiterate), or creating doomed taxation laws around impossible legal designations of AI (by the technologically illiterate).

Part of the "novelty" of the AI tech bubble is that now the vast majority of even the technologically literate people are also being told they cannot possibly understand it. I believe this is touching many reasons surrounding why this AI tech bubble has a heightened hysteria around the issue - and is actually why the discussion has a heightened importance. I think that particular importance is also how to characterize how much the whole of media has lost touch with the conversation. It's not that all the other topics are wrong though, because they're all relevant.

A much larger portion size of the conversation has to be like a magnifying glass just about cloud access, and general power over technology and information etc. You don't leave that entire conversation by the wayside, as you allow the discussion of AI to replace all other reasoning on these general issues of technology. Or, that entire conversation does not morph into a completely different conversation, in a completely different narrative, as to render it completely forgotten.

You know: How much dumb can be done under the banner of AI? . . . Seems to be the central mantra of the industry.

Industry Alternatives Always Die?

First, who is this blog post for? Is it for the industry as a whole? Is it for your average professional hoping to get a job in the most dominant market? 

There is something wrong with having to ask these questions, but they seem to be the end result of the discussion I am going to attempt to take part in. ie: what is the point of talking about something that might as well be against the natural laws of the Universe? 

Too cryptic?

There's something sad about these questions' existence, and I do not know if I can express something meaningful here. Success would raise the issue out of the sadness that is its perceived pointlessness, and into communicated relevance of the concepts.

Industry Casualties

1. The tech industry produces premature technological casualties that get abandoned
2. The tech halts in progress
• they do not achieve their most optimally usable forms
• there exist many additional implementations that are highly usable outside of intense market dominance
3. They are widely assumed to have already peaked in progress
4. It is widely seen as pointless to focus on progressing them further
• the idea of continuing to focus on progressing the tech often comes with actively negative undertones, rather than a mere neglect of the idea.

I am not trying to describe "enshitification" per se. Perhaps it is closer to a comparison to an industry scale of a general "planned obsolescence" (which term typically refers only to single product lines or product types).

Some Perspective

Interesting point: What are the industry alternatives that are scheduled to be neglected with AI on the horizon?

Everything?

• coding
• UX design
• discussion forums
• human language ergonomics
• language ecosystem
• graphical infrastructure
• writing and documentation
• lessons and tutorials
• domain knowledge

Ask yourself if you have come to think that somehow any of these things are less worthy of investment of time to improve than they were ten years ago.

Maybe it's literally just me, but it feels like the tooling and applications for these technologies listed above have somehow been overshadowed in importance. And yet, they are just as important as they have always been, even with AI assistance.

Continued Necessity for Good Tooling