I’ve always thought myself somewhat of a nerd and a technically oriented. My first computer was an Apple II, yes, the one with a green screen, launched in 1977. It was too hardcore and without a tutor I never got the hang of it, but once my friends started to get VIC 20s and Commodere 64s, I was hooked. Mainly for the games, of course. We had a 386 and a 486 at home, but PCs at the time were nothing like today and most games were made for Commodore based computers anyway, so I only became addicted once my father bought us an Amiga 500.
All the years of gaming and tinkering with computers finally led me in 2003 to become a co-founder in a web development company. It was few years after the “IT bubble” had burst and there was this great expectation that all the promises of the changes the internet would bring, would now be fulfilled. In retrospect, this is largely what happened and the internet is today so much more than what any snake oil salesman could have imagined.
Which brings me to today and the current shenanigans with AI. I have been following the AI development and the news around it with mild interest and some amusement. I have had a gut feeling that history is repeating itself and it is almost certain that some kind of AI bubble is forming. If and when it will burst remains to be seen, but at the same time, I see the same kind of excitement I saw during the original IT bubble – that something permanent will come out of it, and things will never be the same again.
Until very recently the AI had been to me what it has been to most people – a form of entertainment and peculiarity. Many of us have seen AI Chuck Norris kicking people in old TV shows and movies and have used ChatGPT or maybe edited photos with AI. And we have even seen some great AI powered tools, like the NVIDIA Broadcast, which I have used for a couple years now. I have also seen what AI powered tools can do for software development and how it has revolutionized that industry.
But even with all these steps, AI has been a niche and not a true game changer for me. I have worked pretty much in the same fashion I have, for most of my adult life. The use case for me personally just has not been there. In October of 2024 I was at a conference with my alma mater, and the topic was how AI has changed or will change the way we work. Back then, the event reinforced my view that it will take several years or more before anything truly significant appears in mainstream.
And I was wrong.
A few weeks ago, I was working in Amsterdam with a colleague for a project we are developing. He showed me some of the material he had prepared with Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.6. That morning in Amsterdam was one of those moments I will never forget. Within 30 minutes it was clear to me that the world will never be the same once AI truly trickles down to ordinary businesses, much like the internet did 25 years ago. Only this time it is much, much more significant and many people will be out of a job. There will be new jobs, for sure, but the transformation will be painful and will require a completely new mindset.
Since that morning in Amsterdam I dove into the rabbit hole, got the paid version of Claude, completed tutorials and at the same time felt old, uneducated and unprepared for the new world ahead. I have never felt a greater change coming towards us, like a tsunami after an earthquake. I am excited about the new possibilities and opportunities, but at the same time I am terrified that many people will be left behind.
And this is not the first time this has happened in human history. In 1768 a group of angry hand-spinners burned and destroyed James Hargreaves’ spinning jennies. These machines increased production significantly, initially 8x, later up to 16x. Hand-spinners feared this efficiency meant the loss of their livelihoods, lower wages, and unemployment. This act was part of the early Industrial Revolution resistance, like later “Luddite” activities, where workers smashed labour-saving machinery to protect their wages and jobs. The AI is doing the much same, but not only to one industry, but to most.
I really hope we do not see angry mobs burning down data centres in the not-too-distant future.
Regardless of the AI tools available, I will continue to write my blog posts the old-fashioned way. Even with all the praise I have given to Claude (and I am sure the others are similarly good), true originality and creativity is not in jeopardy, at least not yet. AI in its current, undeniably amazing form, is primarily a productivity tool – not an original creator or grand designer.
Whatever your current work is, you should familiarize yourself with what the AI is and what it is not. Unless you are retiring within few years, you will have to deal with it, one way or another. The Claude 101 course is a good place to start. And even if you have chatted with ChatGPT and think you know what AI is and how it will transform the working life for most people, I promise, you do not – I most certainly did not.
