AI

The Ai Con

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For irony, yesterday I finished reading The AI Con, on the same day ChatGPT 5 was presented.

As the title says, the book talks about the cons of AI: environmental issues, exploitation of people, copyright, educational problems, political problems, and so on.

I understood that a book like this can feel anachronistic nowadays (especially for AI fanboys — not for the people who really study the topic and are actual experts, but they are few), but I still recommend reading it.

One advantage of the book compared to AI is that you can hear different perspectives.

What I don’t like about the AI hype.

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Two things I don’t like about the current AI moment:

The word “democratization” in the context of software development.
Why is it considered democratized only now? Was it impossible before to learn computer science through university, courses, books, or videos? Did we not already have resources to learn?
Calling it democratization can be misleading—it may actually be (a fake) simplification. If you don’t understand the fundamentals of computer science, should you really be building software for a bank? (And if you are, please let me know the name of the bank—I’m very interested!)

Schools have long democratized writing: if you know how to write, you can use a pen, or draw letters in the sand with a stick.
But if you build something using AI tools without understanding how it works, and one day the tool breaks, what will you do? Nothing. So where is the democratization in that?

And please don’t tell me that without internet, software engineers wouldn’t be able to work. Sure, we’d be slower without access to documentation, but we can still do our job.

The mantra: “AI doesn’t steal your job, but people using AI will.”
Is this a way to reassure yourself—or just a marketing slogan?