[mid-kid]

The snake oil is how the people at the top scream "in x years we won't need programmers" and end up proving themselves wrong time and time again. It's a real technology and it can do a lot, but it's being sold like snake oil while we're still figuring out what it's actually useful for and how to leverage it properly.

[tptacek]

Snake oil implies that it does nothing, not that it doesn't do everything it's boosters claim it does. Snake oils were medicines sold as cure-alls with no active ingredients.

[girvo]

I wonder what the better pithy phrase would be then for "thing that is obviously useful, but is being hyped beyond it's (current) ability by those with a vested interest in doing so"

[tptacek]

You could reasonably call it "overhyped". People will disagree with you, but that's fine; you won't be making a falsifiable claim.

[akerl_]

That seems pretty par for the course for every major advancement in technology. So maybe just “capitalism”?

It’s hard for me to think of any piece of new tech that hasn’t been over hyped by the people selling it.

[girvo]

For sure. I'd argue this cycle is operating at a different scale though

[lostmsu]

> "in x years we won't need programmers" and end up proving themselves wrong time and time again

This is how it looks in your head, maybe. But in reality since Sonnet 3.5 - when the whole "no need programmers" started - no "years" have passed. Sonnet 3.5 came out on June 20, 2024. We are still 5 days away from the lowest possible "years". So even if you quoted them literally, they could not have possibly proved themselves wrong yet even once, let alone "time and time again".

[mid-kid]

It was just an example of the type of shit they say to sell it, and then walk back from.

https://fortune.com/2026/05/26/sam-altman-dario-amodei-walki...

[lostmsu]

Yeah, and you hallucinated that example.

The link isn't any stronger either.

[otabdeveloper4]

The moronic "no need programmers" hype cycle happens every 15 years. We've all been here many times before.