[daveguy]

3 years ago is about when the BS "AI can do anything!" hype started. So, it is not a misinterpretation, but an accurate assessment of the hype cycle. Exactly the kind of things managers are bumbling into because "AGI any day now!" for the last 3-4 years. GPT 3.5 was released May 2022. I'm curious how many AI project in industry have crashed and burned during this hype-Summer before the Winter. Speaking of which, whatever happened to that "software dark factory" you were gushing over a while back?

[simonw]

When I said "misinterpretation" here I was talking about people assuming that the Ford story was a simple case of "Ford fired their employees because they thought AI could replace them, then had to hire them all back again". That's not what happened.

A TON of AI projects have crashed and burned in the past few years. This stuff is really hard to adopt at an organizational level, much more so than for individuals.

I've been pretty consistent in saying that I think the dark factory stuff is interesting more as an exploration of the edges of what this stuff can do. It's a great way to highlight the question of how we can get agents to demonstrate their work without reviewing every line of their code.

I've released two pieces of software inspired by those ideas myself - Showboat https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/10/showboat-and-rodney/ and shot-scraper video: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/30/shot-scraper-video/