[apollo_mojave]

I was too young to understand the dot com boom when it happened, being in grade school at the time. But I do remember when smartphones became not just a luxury, but a necessity, and how amazing the iPod seemed when it first came out. It was like something out of Star Trek.

Personally, I have that feeling when I use ChatGPT. It consistently blows my mind. OpenClaw is even more incredible, and I'm certainly not any kind of power user. I'm just testing the waters.

So why not that feeling of amazement / wonder / shock / awe? If you asked me, I'd say two things: first, I think the "wonder cycle" on older products has made us a bit jaded. Consider again the smartphone. When it came out, everyone was blown away -- now, our smartphones are more like chains to work, life, etc., and all anyone can talk about is how badly they want to be rid of them (while, of course, they use them every moment of the day!).

I think there may be a bit of, "Great, another technological miracle -- how long until I hate this, too?"

Second, I think Silicon Valley / tech has lost a lot of trust over the years as an industry. I remember once upon a time really loving Google's products. But Google got creepier and creepier, less and less consumer friendly and seemingly more focused on its bottomline, and . . . now I don't use any Google products. Same with Microsoft -- growing up near Seattle, Microsoft (like Boeing) was a "cool" company. Amazon was the same way. I even had a Facebook!

And now, not only do view all of these companies with some combination of disgust / suspicious / fear, I see pretty much any new tech company the same way. I would bet a lot of people feel this way. We're just waiting for the rug pull. I think the OpenAI ad thing was probably the first time where I felt my skin crawl a bit, and I think that'll keep on happening as time goes on and corporate drift makes these AI companies just like any other company out there.

Anyway, point being, I don't know if it's really tech itself that turns people off. It's the culture, the failed expectations, the lack of trust, everything, all smushed together.

[jcgrillo]

You've hit spot on something important here, that AI arrived at a time when the shine has worn off the tech. Google got evil, Twitter was eviscerated by a clown who likes to make nazi salutes, Facebook plumbed depths of enshittification previously unknown to science. The metaverse turned out to be hot air. Bitcoins did not in fact change anything, let alone everything. And now we have the same spoiled brats who did all that stuff and told all those lies trying to say that chatbots are going to "real soon now" be somehow the most valuable technology ever made.

All that, and the constant deluge of lies--coding agents will make you 10x as effective in six months, AGI is pretty much here, etc. When Jobs did his demos generally (maybe every time?) he had something to show. It wasn't some empty promise, it was real. I want that kind of tech, not the imaginary stuff.

[karakoram]

> AI arrived at a time when the shine has worn off the tech. Google got evil, Twitter was eviscerated by a clown who likes to make nazi salutes, Facebook plumbed depths of enshittification previously unknown to science.

Perhaps the most underrated point here. To add to this point, people think Gen Z love tech by default, they were first generation to make Facebook accounts as kids etc. but I actually believe they have grown up to be the most tech skeptic generation.

All those kids that made their Facebook accounts faking their age, deleted those accounts before actually turning 18.

Tech industry and tech founders are not seen as hip and cool anymore.