Hey, friend!

I'm trying to post once a week on LinkedIn, and I've found the last few posts have been about AI.

I've fought talking about AI much publicly, because I don't like to talk about things when I don't know what I'm talking about. It feels like no one knows what they're talking about but everyone's talking, and it's hard to bounce back and forth between "everyone's hype last week has completely disappeared, and this will disappear too; this is such a fad" to people I trust proclaiming that AI is going to eat everything and if you're not a pro you're going to be left behind.

If you don't have time to read my posts, you'll basically see that I'm saying what I usually do: "it depends." We use AI when it's helpful, and make sure to stay on top of the latest greatest, and help our clients incorporate it into their projects when it makes sense, but we're not AI hype bois like it feels like so much of the industry is becoming.

I hope it's a reasonable middle space. I hope we can stay on top of things and not lose ourselves. Catch on to some excitement and have some fun and stay skilled up without feeling the anxiety that our jobs will disappear or that everyone else has caught up to this new technology faster and better than us.

I don't believe I know the future. I do believe that I haven't seen a single advancement that will replace expert practitioners with experience, wisdom, insight, and creativity. So as long as we keep focusing on those things, not on the ability to churn out (code/design/writing/whatever), I feel hopeful.

Am I missing it? Are the only people who will succeed in the end the AI maximalists? Is this all just NFTs and Web 3.0 all over again? Or is it, like I'm seeing it, somewhere in between?

What Else?