June 13, 2023

Nature abhors a Hypecycle Vacuum

Here we are on the backside of the hype cycle for crypto, blockchain, social media, sharing-economy, 5G, and half a dozen other internet-enabled "disruptive" technologies.

But nature abhors a vacuum. Power Vacuums, literal vacuums, apparently functional ones in my closet that don't get used often enough, and hype cycle vacuums.

People apparently need the distraction of something-anything to pay attention to besides their immediate locus of influence.

So now we have billions of dollars being thrown around by investors into companies and solo projects under the umbrella of "AI" which is powered by a foundation of statistics and layers of increasing-sophistication of code. The result is something that is something that produces bullshit - but convincing bullshit. Much like how a Rube Goldberg machine does "work".

What do we call this new spectacle?

• "Spicy Autocomplete"
• "Stochastic Parrot"
• "LLM"
• "AI"

So here we are - living through another hypecycle of AI where billions of dollars will slosh about looking to solve the grandest problems of society, burning millions of pounds worth of CO2 in compute time so we can shovel bullshit around the office a little faster.

But hey - at least we be distracted by the entertaining Rube Goldberg nature of it all.