The Real GenAI Issue

Summary

Last week I published a featherweight narrative about applying GenAI in a real-world context, to a tiny programming problem. Now I’m regretting that piece because I totally ignored the two central issues with AI: What it’s meant to do, and how much it really costs. What genAI is for · The most important fact about genAI in the real world is that there’ve been literally hundreds of billions of dollars invested in it; that link is just startups, and ignores a comparable torrent of cash pouring out of Big Tech. The business leaders pumping all this money of course don’t understand the technology. They’re doing this for exactly one reason: They think they can discard armies of employees and replace them with LLM services, at the cost of shipping shittier products. Do you think your management would spend that kind of money to help you with a quicker first draft or a summarized inbox? Adobe said the quiet part out loud: Skip the Photoshoot. At this point someone will point out that previous technology waves have generated as much employment as they’ve eliminated. Maybe so, but that’s not what business leaders think they’re buying. They think they’re buying smaller payrolls. Maybe I’m overly sensitive, but thinking about these truths leads to a mental stench that makes me want to stay away from it. How much does genAI cost? · Well, I already mentioned all those hundreds of billions. But that’s pocket change. The investment community in general and Venture Capital in particular will whine and moan, but the people who are losing the money are people who can afford to. The first real cost is hypothetical: What if those business leaders are correct and they can gleefully dispose of millions of employees? If you think we’re already suffering from egregious levels of inequality, what happens when a big chunk of the middle class suddenly becomes professionally superfluous? I’m no economist so I’ll stop there, but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to predict severe economic...