I’m trying to find the rights words about how people are talking about AI.
Here’s the thing. People are saying “It’s not like blockchain”.
And it really is, from my vantage point.
1) The people really hyping it up are all still on Twitter. Yes that does say something.
2) Every demo that’s really wowed me has, it turns out, had loads of preparatory effort put in to make it work right.
3) In most cases it’s either a less efficient and more expensive way of doing something that we can already do, or it allows us to do something that we shouldn’t be doing in the first place!
4) Every large product company is adding the label to their products even if it’s not what they are actually doing.
5) I’m open minded and totally convincable that it’s a huge, amazing, transformative thing. Despite all the hype, and noise, and products, I’m just not convinced.
6) The number of wow moments is far outweighed by the number of total disappointments and failures.
What’s different is that the AI stuff is in a nice, friendly, chat box interface. Or baked into tool that you’re already using. It has been made easily available to the average person.
These are things that blockchain/web3/crypto never was. It was nerds hanging out in their bubbles using weird language on Discord.
Don’t get me wrong. Like with blockchains, AI is useful for some things. But whenever I see something that is “game changing” or “revolutionary”, a peek behind the curtain shows that it requires substantial experience and effort to make anything of any actual quality.
More than anything, this stuff could go away at any moment. It won’t go away entirely. But it could be monetized, paywalled, gatekept, at any time. THAT will be game-changing. Any system built on top of the APIs could break. And if you’re reliant on it – which they want you to be – you’ll be stuck and have to pay them for continued access.
It’s like hosting and storage services. Getting in is easy, but then the friction to change providers will be big. Once you’re in, it’s going to be very hard to get out.
Do you want to be dependent on another technology that is gatekept by the billionaires?
That’s where I’m at. You don’t need my opinion on top of everyone else’s. But there it is.