[adpirz]

The "iPhone moment" gets used a lot, but maybe it's more analogous to the early internet: we have the basics, but we're still learning what we can do with this new protocol and building the infrastructure around it to be truly useful. And as you've pointed out, our "bandwidth" is increasing exponentially at the same time.

If nothing else, my workflows as a software developer have changed significantly in these past two years with just what's available today, and there is so much work going into making that workflow far more productive.

[audunw]

But if this is like the internet, it’s not refuting the idea that this is a huge bubble. The internet did have a massive investment bubble.

And I’d argue it took decades to actually achieve some of the things we were promised in the early days of the internet. Some have still not come to fruition (the tech behind end to end encrypted emails was developed decades ago, yet email as most people use it is still ridiculously primitive and janky)

[edanm]

Yes. But this article argues two things at once - that the technology is itself not useful and not used, and that this won't change in the future. And it also argues that this is a bad investment, at least in the form of OpenAI.

I have very little idea of the second - it's totally possible OpenAI is a bad investment. I think this article is massively wrong about the first part though - this is an incredible technology, and this should be evident to everyone (I'm a little shocked we're still having an argument of the form "I'm a world-class developer and this increases my productivity" vs. "no, you're wrong!" on the other).

[linuxftw]

While there was certainly a software bubble during the early internet, it still took obscene amounts of investments in brand new technologies in the late 90's. Entire datacenters full of hardware modems. In fact, 'datacenters' had to become a thing.

Then came DSL, then came cable, then came fiber. Countless billions of dollars invested into all these different systems.

This AI stuff is something else. Lots of hardware investment, sure, but also lots of software investment. It is becoming so good and so cheap its showing up on every single search engine result.

Anyway, my point is, while there may have been aspects of the early internet being a bubble, there were real dollars chasing real utility, and I think AI is quite similar in that regard.

[newAccount2025]

Can it be an investment bubble but also a hugely promising technology? The FOMO-frothing herd will over-invest in whatever is new and shiny, regardless of its merits?

[simonw]

I recently compared the buildout of data centers for AI to the railway bubbles of the 1800s.

Nobody will deny the importance of railways to the Industrial Revolution, but they also lost a lot of people a lot of money: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/31/llms-in-2024/#the-envi...

[suraci]

> If nothing else, my workflows as a software developer have changed significantly in these past two years with just what's available today, and there is so much work going into making that workflow far more productive.

this is exactly the problem

The more productivity AI brings to workers, the fewer employees employers need to hire, the less salary employers need to pay, and the less money workers have for consumption.

capitalist mode of production

[simonw]

What's your opinion on the productivity boost open source libraries have brought to developers?

Did all of that free code reduce demand for developers? If not, why not?

[suraci]

> Did all of that free code reduce demand for developers?

the anwser is yes, while in the meantime, the expansion of the industry offset the surplus of developers.

[simonw]

I think the answer is that open source made developers more valuable because they could build you a whole lot more functionality for the same amount of effort thanks to not having to constantly reinvent every wheel that they needed.

More effective developers results in more demand for custom software, resulting in more jobs for developers.

My hope is that AI-assisted programming will have similar results.

[edanm]

How likely do you think this is Simon?

I don't really know myself, but I think there's a decent change that most developer jobs will actually disappear. Your argument isn't wrong, but when we're nearing (though still far from) the state where all productive tech work can be handled by LLMs. Once it can effectively and correctly fix bugs and add new well-defined features to a real codebase, things start to look very different for most developers.

[andsoitis]

Less productivity seems like a worse path.

[suraci]

it depends how you define good or worse

for humanity, the increase in productivity is progress

i'm not saying it's bad, i'm saying it has consequences