Tech

If you live in a first-world country with a sizable knowledge work sector, you might find it hard to escape the subject of AI. That’s probably an understatement. We are saturated with talk of artificial intelligence and, in particular, large language models. The economist Edgar R. Fiedler is quoted as saying, “He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass,” but that hasn’t stopped the proliferation of prognostication on the subject of AI.

Matt Shumar posts his take as an insider working with AI on the Xitter site. He issues a clarion call to those who may not be as close as he is to what is happening in the industry.

I should be clear about something up front: even though I work in AI, I have almost no influence over what’s about to happen, and neither does the vast majority of the industry. The future is being shaped by a remarkably small number of people: a few hundred researchers at a handful of companies… OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and a few others. A single training run, managed by a small team over a few months, can produce an AI system that shifts the entire trajectory of the technology. Most of us who work in AI are building on top of foundations we didn’t lay. We’re watching this unfold the same as you… we just happen to be close enough to feel the ground shake first.

Okay, I’ll admit it: I love the ambitiousness of 37Signals rolling their own Arch-based Linux distro (called Omarchy) and the obvious enthusiasm CTO David Heinemeier Hansson has for the project. The minimalist distro has now reached what they are calling 2.0 and DHH made another demo video of himself geeking out over the capabilities.

Oversized ambition seems to be an increasingly common feature of new software applications and services. Many of the new apps I try are swinging for the fences and walking away when the home run or grand slam doesn’t materialize. As I’m evaluating software now, I have to dig into what the expectations are for the commercial performance of the software. If they are unrealistic, it may be better not to get attached in the first place.

One of my favorite tools is the read-it-later app Matter. A few months ago, the founders of Matter posted about their health issues and how they had to give up on their goal of making Matter the next Duolingo. At some point, it became clear the product wasn’t going to have the same level of success. Their response was to call the app feature complete and put it in maintenance mode.