I'm an AI maximalist. Over time, I expect AI to become much, much more capable than most people imagine. In time, I expect AI will be able to do anything a human being can do, and much faster. AI will not be able to directly manipulate the physical world, of course, but with some initial support from human beings, it will be able to build robots that can.

That's not to say I'm an accelerationist or optimist. That's another issue entirely, and I don't know exactly how I feel about it. I tend to believe AI will probably do immense harm to humanity in the long run, however, either intentionally or unintentionally. I'm not confident enough in that view to change my behavior in any way, and even if I were, I wouldn't know what to do about it. Superintelligent AI is coming, and there doesn't seem to be any way to stop it.

In any case, I do expect that AI will soon replace almost all human knowledge workers. How soon is “soon”? It's hard to say. We may need a revolution in AI technology, not an evolution, to get there. LLMs may not be enough. Still, if the AI takeover of knowledge work takes 100 years, I would be very surprised. If it takes 5 years or less, I'd be only modestly surprised. I'd guess there's about a 50% chance of it happening before 2050.

My reasoning is straightforward. I don't believe intelligence requires a human brain, computers are much faster than human beings, and the first company to develop a superintelligent AI is going to make a tremendous amount of money. The race is on.

I've heard the argument that AI will only complement human beings, forging partnerships that are greater than the sum of their parts. I consider that wishful thinking. Consider chess.com, which provides an analysis of each game after it's completed, identifying mistakes and suggesting better moves. It's a huge asset to the platform, and it's one reason people pay for premium memberships. Is chess.com tempted to hire human beings to do this work? Of course not. Computers are vastly better at chess, they are incredibly fast, and they are much more cost effective, not needing sleep, health insurance, bathroom breaks, or team-building exercises. Yes, there are some human commentators at highly-publicized matches, but for the millions of other games played on the platform each day? Hell no. The computers do it, and why shouldn't they? It's a “no brainer.”

Get ready for the same thing to happen to software engineering, media production, accounting, and just about everything else that largely involves transforming information.

What happens after that? Only time will tell.

#Tech

These days, when someone tells me they “did their own research,” I immediately suspect they have no idea what they're talking about and have no idea how to think critically. We know that Google and practically all other search engines customize their results based on what they know about the user and what most pushes their buttons. For that reason and others, sadly, “doing one's own research” is now code for falling prey to confirmation bias and being manipulated by online platforms and filter bubbles.

#Life #SocialMedia #Tech

There should be an app, browser, browser add-on, or some other tool called Deshittify which does everything accomplished by uBlock Origin, Pi-hole, Unhook, DeArrow, SponsorBlock, Fakespot (which is now discontinued), ClearURLs, and more, with reasonable defaults and in one convenient package. God, that's a long list. For those who aren't familiar with those tools, they block ads, trackers, addictive designs on YouTube, fake reviews, and more. The web is a mess.

If anyone wants to steal this idea—not that the idea is all that original—please, go right ahead. Mozilla, Brave, someone: do this!

#SocialMedia #SoftwareDevelopment #Tech

Why haven't I been using Google Forms all these years? It makes data entry for spreadsheets (e.g., weight, pet's health information) so much easier.

#Life #Tech

I enjoy the craft of computer programming, the endless desire to solve problems better than I did last time. I may enjoy it more than any other aspect of my job, and it’s served me well in my career. I’ve become a good programmer. I may even be a very good programmer. I don't know. I’m not sure I can make that distinction myself.

Is that enough? I don’t know. In all commercial art, the artist needs to sacrifice some amount of beauty and perfection to pay the bills. (I don't mean for that to sound too pretentious, but I do think of software development as art, or at least much more like art than most people imagine.) Too many sacrifices, though, and the work becomes painful. Where's the line? How much should one allow it to move? I don’t know.

#SoftwareDevelopment #Tech

I've been rewriting my Neovim configuration in Lua to take advantage of the built-in LSP client, leverage mini.nvim as much as possible, and use more modern plugins in general. I honestly struggle to understand why the process is so much fun. Maybe it's that perfect balance of challenge and relaxation, novel and familiar. It feels like playing a good video game.

In any case, as enjoyable as it's been, it has only cemented my view that Helix is the future of terminal-based code editing, at least for those who like modal editors. Setting up Neovim for feature parity with Helix is a monumental effort, requiring many, many hours of work. I can't imagine most people being crazy enough to do it, unless of course they find it intrinsically enjoyable. That said, given what I know about the Vim and Neovim communities, a surprising number of people besides me do find it intrinsically enjoyable.

#SoftwareDevelopment #Tech

Mozilla, just let me pay for Firefox. No telemetry, no Google, no bullshit. I get it. Nobody likes ads, nobody likes their data being sold, and building a web browser isn't cheap. Just let me pay. I'd proudly pay for a web browser that puts users first.

edit (2025-12-19): I later wrote a proper blog post about this.

#Tech

“People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter inch hole!”

—Theodore Levitt

I read this today in the 2013 edition of The Design of Everyday Things, and oh goodness, is it true. For the vast majority of people, software is a means to an end. How easily we geeks forget that. The world is not like us.

My mother doesn't want to use Facebook. She wants to connect with relatives. She certainly doesn't want to remember her password, complete multi-factor authentication challenges, create a profile, change her settings, add people as friends, upload images, check her notifications… She wants to connect with relatives. What we techy types call “fun,” what we enjoy perfecting and tinkering with, my mom calls “garbage that gets in the way of what I actually want to do.”

No one wants to use your software. Well, no one but the geeks like us, and even we don't want to tinker with everything. Most people most of the time just want to get things done.

How different would software look if we remembered that?

On the password front, I'm certainly not suggesting we sacrifice digital security for user experience—being hacked isn't a great experience, anyway—but let's use something better, like passkeys. They're just as secure, if not more secure, and they're practically invisible. People hardly even notice themselves using them. That's a good thing.

#Favorites #Quotes #SoftwareDevelopment #Tech

“Irritability is not bad temper. Nor is bad temper irritability. Bad temper carries the heart into it. The bad tempered man really does delight to vex and torture. Irritability flames and is gone. But both ruin happiness.”

—Charles Buxton in Notes of Thought

#Life #Quotes #SocialMedia #Tech