Parallels between the AI boom and Soviet Russia
Soviet Russia was a terrible, terrible place. The satellite countries behind the Iron Curtain were no better off. Romania for example was worse off than Moscow.
What was so bad? The government, in theory, gave you cradle-to-grave security. Government food, government housing, government work. And it completely failed, because there's no point to living if you have no control over your life.
I see parallels in the tech industry. I am lucky enough to work for a great tech company, that historically has paid well, hired very talented software engineers, given tough assignments with tight deadlines, all the stuff we live for. Until six months ago life was great.
And then they pushed AI onto us. Full unlimited tokens to Claude/Anthropic models. Anything you can imagine, AI can write and it takes just minutes instead of all day. It was supposed to be a utopia.
But it's the opposite. Like I said about life in the USSR, there's no point to living if you have no control over your life. With software, it is literally soul-crushingly boring to feed prompts to an AI agent instead of solving problems in your imagination. In six short months, all the fun has been sucked out of this career.
It will not change, and from a business perspective it shouldn't change. AI is a very useful tool with obvious benefits. But let me ask: why is my team of competent engineers delivering features at a slower rate today than last year? I think the answer lies in the sunken eyes and stooped posture of a Soviet factory worker standing in line for the same government food he had the day before.