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I’m still processing what’s going on in tech at the moment. I used to feel at home in that world. It used to feel incredibly creative and positive. Now it’s increasingly full of bugs, dark addicting patterns and AI slop.
I’m not sure how to change that. We need to provide a better vision for the future than what’s currently pushed by most tech companies. They have a lot of power and (e.g.) many politicians listen to them. That’s why different narratives are important.
@rauschma I think now more than ever programmers should be discerning who they work for, what they do and how they do it.
This quote from The Pragmatic Programmer comes to mind:
"If you can't change your company, change your company."
2/ My impression: In *some* ways, tech has peaked: Do we really need to constantly surveil, measure and control every last aspect of our lives? Do we really need the constant notifications, upgrades and quickly outdated devices? More of our focus should go towards maintenance, repairability, recyclability and longevity of devices.
3/ On the other hand, a lot of exciting things happen elsewhere:
• The electrification of transportation (e-bikes, cargo bikes, small cars, etc.)
• Regenerative agriculture (which is low-tech but high-knowledge)
• Etc.
@rauschma as a programmar increasingly frustrated by the AI mandates at both my workplace and the industry in general, I've been thinking more and more about switching industries, specifically looking at programs to retrain myself in the field of electrical and power engineering because I'm also passionate about electrification and feel like it'd be much more fulfilling than prompting the machine to generate slop. Now as somebody in the middle of their career such a switch is easier said than done so I'll be giving this proper thought over the next 12 months before acting on it, but I'm sure your other account has been a source of intuition in my train of thought so thank you for that.
I'm sorry you had to shut down the website and I really wish the times were more hopeful, but the fact is I'm just sitting here hoping for the AI companies to go belly up while feeling powerless and alone in my circle of friends and colleagues when it comes to resisting the AI movement. Here's hoping for better times!
its double edged sword, for instance I see a lot of interesting smaller electric cars and e-bikes but even those often have the surveillance apps built in (often with a deal from some adtech companies for selling the data of users, or at very least they are capturing the telemetry as a way of using the early adopters as unpaid beta testers rather than making things work "right first time" as much as possible.
No one seems to want to sell a car/bike which is just a vehicle (or if they did it would be at premium price), its same flawed model as "smart" TV-sets being sold at a loss in return for the users coughing up their data when they connect the set to the Internet (so its made to not work properly without a net connection)
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