Normally I am one to get excited about new technologies. But with AI the story is different. I am hostile to the entire field. I get sick to my stomach every time I hear or see “AI.”

Why?

I think Stephen Diehl has summed it up perfectly:

. . . the backlash against artificial intelligence, especially within circles sensitive to economic inequality and corporate overreach, is not a random or irrational phenomenon. It is an entirely predictable consequence of a decade scarred by tech disappointments and malfeasance, amplified by the unsettling ideologies and political stances of AI’s leading figures. The industry’s penchant for reality-bending hyperbole, coupled with legitimate concerns about intellectual property, data privacy, and job security, has created an environment where distrust is and should be the default position.

Diehl is a computer scientist who writes a lot about public policy.

The sad part about all this is that large language models and neural networks are really cool tools with some very interesting and important applications. But they are kind of like table saws—only useful to a small number of people. The “average joe” is not going to benefit from most of this stuff.

Diehl adds:

. . . the core reasons for the backlash are deeply rooted in the industry’s own presentation and practices. By cultivating an image characterized by unlikeable leaders, bizarre eschatological pronouncements, anti-democratic leanings, and ethically questionable methods, the AI industry has largely engineered its own public relations problem. It should not wonder why it faces skepticism and hostility; it is, in many ways, a backlash of its own making.

I’m old enough to have lived through many boom-and-bust cycles and seen lots of hype and failure. Right now, our Tech Bro Overlords are still living on the spectacular success of the iPhone. That wave has crested, but everyone is still riding it. There is no new killer app or killer piece of tech that will have the impact of the iPhone. Silicon Valley peaked out with that one. They desperately want to get back to that place of cultural and economic hegemony that the smartphone market produced.

But it ain’t happening. These guys are high on their own supply and clinging to their mythology about the transformative nature of their products. But there is no there, there, and no amount of hype is going to change that.