GoKawiilFor a long time the tech industry revelled in the distruption of what it saw as old, legacy industries. But now, as AI takes over tech, we’re now starting to eat our own, and it’s dark and ironic.
If you’re not in tech you might not realize just how much of a panic has set in among the C-suite and investor class in the industry. Everyone is, of course, putting on a brave face, but as fears of a SaaS-pocalypse persist and a fictional financial analysis on Substack caused a real sell-off in markets, it’s hard not to see the sweat on everyone’s brows.
Meanwhile, CEOs and CTOs are falling over themselves trying to position themselves as visionaries, with the likes of Jack Dorsey, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, and Matt Biilmann each trying to out-AI-pill one another. Of course, one has to wonder how much of this is AI-washing and how much of it is intentionally eye-catching hyperbole, but these are just the most extreme and visible tip of a very large iceberg.
It’s hard not to enjoy the bitter irony, here. The tech industry once revelled in disruption. Whether it was Uber wiping out the taxi industry, Amazon destroying traditional bookstores, or Spotify wiping out artist revenues, time and time again we’ve seen the Silicon Valley enrich themselves by disrupting an established market and then transforming into rent seekers.
AI now threatens to do the same to countless professions. Everyone from writers to graphic designers to financial analysts can feel the wolf at the door.
But this time things are a little different.
This time it’s coming for tech first.
Anyone who’s working with large language models knows that, despite being incredibly powerful, they are also deeply (and in some ways fundamentally) flawed.
Take, for example, an incredible common use case: summarizing meeting notes.
I’ve used the latest, greatest, and most sophisticated models to perform this incredibly mundane task, and I’d put them at a solid 90% accuracy.
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