Chapter 18: Is AI a Scam?

AI Generated image of my dream house

I have serious doubts about all the AI hype.

It’s like my doubts about evolution. It’s not that I don’t believe it, but I don’t understand it. By common sense, it doesn’t seem like the story adds up, but in this case, there might be more than just my ignorance to explain my suspicion.

The constant message since the start of this hype train is that AI is going to make software developers extinct. Don’t learn to code, because AI will make programming obsolete in the next 5 years. I was nearing the end of my CS degree when I heard the news and, in despair, I thought to myself, “might as well finish this freaking thing then take up permanent residence in my parent’s basement”.

As the name of this blog would suggest, I’ve pretty well come to terms with the fact that I may be obsolete by Christmas, at least as well as anyone could in my position without deciding to become a plumber. But I’m starting to have more and more doubts.

Before I get going, credit where credit is due. AI is incredible. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. I work in a tiny team of 3 developers and over the past 12 months, AI has allowed us to fly. It has helped us with rapid prototyping, building ‘appendage’ features (features that are flashy to the user but are not core to the functioning of the app), and helping design and implement larger, core systems.

Despite all this fawning, I still have massive doubts.

Let me ask you a series of questions:

• Have you noticed software from big tech companies get noticeably better and more ergonomic in the past year? (I’m looking at you Teams…)

• Do these companies have a lot to gain by claiming their hiring/firing decisions were because of AI advancement? (See Forrest Knight’s excellent breakdown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QKcphdM5Cw)

• Are executives and middle management generally known for being taken in by salesmen who are offering them a magic fix for all their problems? (no hate but tropes exist for a reason)

• Do the owners of these AI companies have anything to gain from juicing the stock before going public? (not sure if that’s a real financial term but I’ve been using it)

• Do these AI companies have anything to gain from storing all your intellectual property and trade secrets? (i.e. your company’s most valuable stuff)

• Do these business-to-business AI salesmen have anything to gain from heavily discounting their AI services and telling companies they no longer need to hire developers?

“We promise we won’t raise prices once you become dependent on us because the next generation doesn’t know how computers work because we told them that learning to code was for poor people and losers…”

Granted, this ones a bit more of a conspiracy theory but honestly not that far fetched when you look at the business model of most of the big tech companies: undercut the competition and raise prices once you become a monopoly.

Bottom line, companies are incentivized to have good optics and are not particularly incentivized to give you honest, balanced guidance for planning your life.

For myself, I honestly don’t know if AI has improved the overall quality of my work but I do know that I’m glad I didn’t listen to the haters. Throughout my degree, I thought about dropping out many times but never pulled the trigger. Now I have a great job, I get to build products I like with talented people, solving interesting problems every day and get paid well for it. Maybe I will run on hard times eventually but for now, I’m chillin.

If you’re in a similar place of angst about AI disruption, know you’re not alone. I can’t advise you on the best course of action for you but for my part, I’m sticking with it. I’ll follow the money if it leads somewhere else (I have a family to feed now) but for the time being I can satisfy myself with the knowledge that outsized returns tend to come from investing in areas of uncertainty.

Concrete Step #18: Don't opt yourself out early

Its really difficult to live in uncertainty but I would caution against trying too hard to predict the future because that can lead to sporadic, fear-based reasoning. For example, when I watch the news, I often feel like the most reasonable course of action would be to give up on programming and become a farmer even though my career is moving in a great direction and I've never driven a tractor before. I guess you can probably take tractor lessons or some such but we can cross that bridge if and when AI actually takes my job.