AI Doomers

How Doomers learned to look good, shooting down new ideas.

Abel Sanchez (Prof, MIT Generative AI for Digital Transformation) ) wisely told us there are two types of people when it comes to AI; "Boomers" (not the generational kind, the positive thinking kind) and "Doomers." Although my Nvidia stock took a hit last week, I'm firmly a boomer.?Why? Because If you want to look smart and be right, go ahead and shoot it down. New ideas fail nine times out of 10!

If you want to be part of something unique, possibly game-changing, take the risk to say yes. May the odds be ever in your favor.

A few years back, embattled executive Creative Director Toygar Bazarkaya, whom I worked with back at BBDO in New York, saw more than his share of good ideas extinguished by mediocrity. Once he whimpered…

"I had the seedling of an idea; I shielded it, watered it, and protected it from the wolves, account people, executives, Jr clients, and anybody else who might try to kill it. The moment I let my guard down… BAM! Stomped dead in its tracks.” (or something like that)

Don't be a Doomer if you want to contribute anything to the world, especially in technology or creativity.

Remember the top 10 web technologies in the 1990s that the Doomers called a "Fad"?

Prodigy, Netscape Navigator, Geocities, RealPlayer, Flash, Front Page, Alta Vista, Yahoo Directory, Winamp, Usenet?

"Oh, the dotcom bubble burst... I told you so!" - Doomer

Meanwhile, the Boomers made Amazon, Google, eBay, PayPal, and Priceline (now Booking Holdings) all launched in the 90s.

Remember those useless iPhone apps that ruled the App Store in 2008

Koi Pond, Texas Hold’em, Moto Chaser, Crash Bandicoot: Nitro Kart 3d, Super Monkey Ball, Cro-Mag Rally, Enigmo, Pocket Guitar, Recorder, iBeer? All but gone.

"Oh, the iPhone is just for play; I'll never give up my Blackberry!" - Doomer

Meanwhile, the Boomers made apps like Pandora, Facebook, and Google Earth, all launched in 2008

We saw it with social media: Friendster, MySpace, Flikr, Snap, and Google Circles.

"Oh, Social is just for losers with too much time on their hands" - Doomer

Meanwhile, the boomers made Instagram, Facebook, TicTok, YouTube, WeChat".

We saw it with hardware: Texas Instruments, Atari, Amiga, SGI, Nokia, Gateway, Sony)

"Oh, only IBM can make a good computer." - Doomer

Meanwhile, the boomers made Apple, Dell, HP, Samsung, Alienware, Toshiba, Asus, Acer

We saw it with blockchain (NFTs, BlockFi, FTX, Three Arrows Capital, Genesis)

"Blockchain is a fool's game- Crypto and NFTs. Ha! I say. Ha!" - Doomer

Meanwhile, Crypto and NFTs weren't the game at all for blockchain; it's about data security from Boomers building Nu, Coinbase, CoreScentific, etc.

AI has not yet been packaged and commercialized, and we don't even know what the killer apps will be.

I rarely disagree with Cory Doctorow's technology thoughts... but I think he has a lot of blind spots in his article What kind of bubble is AI?

"All the big, exciting uses for AI are either low-dollar (helping kids cheat on their homework, generating stock art for bottom-feeding publications) or high-stakes and fault-intolerant (self-driving cars, radiology, hiring, etc.)."

Yes, there is an AI bubble right now, but why let the stock market determine the "good tech"? I used AI to help me write this article. I needed to fix my grammar, research, and train my "AI Learnings" RAG with all I was finding.

Have you Googled something lately? Have you turned on a light switch? Have you looked up the weather? You have used AI. Know anybody with motor neuron disease who is banking their voice and their dignity, for when will they lose it? They are using AI. There are uses beyond our imaginations or scope of observation.

Bubble indeed. Let us get it over with and get back to business.