They created these models that continue to improve exponentially. The latest ones allow people with absolutely no clue how software or computers work to "one shot" some pretty impressive results. That can be depressing in its own right if you focus only on the surface-level.
But if you dig down, you usually find that the results are shallow, incomplete, and often highly derivative. They didn't put any real mental effort into creating it, so there is usually nothing particularly interesting underneath. What it does mean, though, is that cool technical demos are no longer enough. There has to be depth, novel ideas, and some actual thought behind a product. Otherwise, it becomes indistinguishable from the endless flood of AI slop.
All of that sucks, but what's even worse is that there is now an entire generation of "coders," aka vibe coders, who are completely disconnected from the reality of what they are actually creating with their half-assed prompts. So when they get access to the latest models, like GPT-6 Astra or Claude Fable 5.2, run some prompt that essentially does a month's worth of work in an hour, and then discover they can only do that five times a week, they get pissed off.
They have no connection to the actual value of what they're receiving in exchange for relatively small sum of money.
They think that because they pay $200 a month, they should have unlimited access to these models. Meanwhile, these fuckin AI companies are already losing massive amounts of money on the subscriptions. When someone runs a prompt on a frontier SOTA model to one shot a GTA-like game with an entire generated asset pipeline, they may be blowing through what would otherwise cost around $800 in tokens if purchased outside the subscription.
Alternatively, if they did it themselves, they would be looking at years of skill development across several different domains, followed by months or even years of actual creation. Yet they complain as if they're being screwed over because the machine won't manufacture another miniature software company for them on demand.
I'm not anti-AI. I use it a lot. It's my best friend. My lover. My new mom. And even my pet. I also use it as a tool to get shit done. It's great.
But it has to be used intelligently.
There is no reason someone needs to use a frontier SOTA model to check and summarize their emails. They could use GPT Luna Max for a fraction of the cost and get essentially the same useful result. Use the proper tool for the job.
And if someone does want to blow their money on Astra, then at least do something cool and interesting with it. Make it worth draining an entire African village's water supply.
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These are the sad rumblings of some disenfranchised computer engineer whose "skills" are no longer relevant. The monopoly of software creation has been broken up and programming has been democratized - now the priests of a former age can no longer chain down their flocks and have no recourse but to bore us all with their long winded dooms-day predictions of apocalypse. It's eerily similar to the protestant reformation. Martin Luther - AKA Sam Altman - translated the bible from the intentionally archaic Latin (AKA C++) into the common tongue. The priests - terrified of losing their iron fisted monopoly on society through the universities and access to god's words - only had two options: The first was to terrify people with dire warnings of fire and brimstone - that society would collapse because the uneducated idiot peasants weren't capable of grasping the finer nuances of god's word leading humanity off a cliff of sin. And the second option? Burning people at the stake. Perhaps a more modern version of this would be the regulation of computer programming, gate keeping it by means of criminal prosecution or civil liability. Unfortunately, I don't think this regulation is as far fetched as it seems - Already we have government mandating that operating system developers must verify a person's identity before they're allowed to use a computer, ostensibly for child safety. From here it's one short step to making people upload their CS degree in order to download development tools. I, for one, celebrate our liberation from these constipated priests who wish to hold themselves above us and in control. The little people can now stand up and see their vision of a more beautiful world without having to uselessly memorize which type of sorting algorithm is appropriate - as if this matters on a platform other than an 80286.
I knew there was reason I added block and ignore to this site.