100%. It just happened with the advent of the internet and then smartphones.
This is a permanent part of the software industry now. It will just stop being such a large part of the conversation.
Once upon a time, all software was local, with no connectivity. The Internet commercialised and became mainstream, and suddenly a wave of startups were like X, but online! Adding connectivity was a foundational pillar you could base a business around. Once that permeated the industry and became the norm, connectivity was no longer a reason to start a business, but it was still hugely popular as a feature. And then further down the line, everybody just assumes all software can use the Internet for even the smallest, most mundane things. The Internet never “died down”, it just stopped being the central thing driving innovation and became omnipresent in software development.
Mobile was the same. Smartphones took off, and suddenly a wave of startups were like X, but as an app! Having an app was a foundational pillar you could base a business around. Once that permeated the industry and became the norm, being on mobile was no longer a reason to start a business, but it was still hugely popular as a feature. And then further down the line, everybody just assumes you’re available on mobile for even the smallest, most mundane things. Mobile never “died down”, it just stopped being the central thing driving innovation and became omnipresent in software development.
Now we’ve got intelligence as the next big thing. We’re still in the like X, but smart! phase. It’s never going to “die down”. You’re just going to see intelligence became a standard part of the software development process. Using AI in a software project will become as mundane as using a database, or accessing the Internet. You aren’t going to plan a project around it so much as just assume it’s there.
— https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/1jylp6y/ai...
I know that there have always been disruptive technologies, but I the the rate of "technologies that are disrupting everything" as opposed to "technologies that are disrupting just one thing" has been kind of crazy
Indeed. For the past 30 years, every 10 years people were raised in a completely different environment. TV -> Internet -> Smartphones and now the next 10 years of people growing up influenced by LLMs.
I'll admit, a lot of the reason for me being reticent of jumping into the AI game is an increasing amount of distrust towards the current state of the tech industry. Social media giants rose up, made everybody excited about the opportunities to communicate with anyone (which are perfectly valid, I was on board too) and years later, we come to realise the addictions, the fractured information landscape and the surveillance. Now a bunch of companies from the same part of the world come along asking for billions to change the world again and I'm just exhausted by the whole conversation.
An innovation by one person can be distributed to the majority of people on the planet within minutes. It's amazing and all of our social and political norms aren't built to handle this.
