Goodbye Sweetheart

Ah, the modern tech hero's journey: "I wrote a prompt, AI generated an API, and now I'm basically the next unicorn founder." Sure buddy, and I once wrote a regex that worked on the first try – doesn't mean I'm Jeff Bezos. The gap between "my AI prompt worked once" and "billion-dollar company" is roughly the same as the gap between "I installed Linux" and "I now run NASA." Those compute bills will hit harder than the reality that prompt engineering isn't the same as actually engineering. Ten years in the trenches and I've learned one truth: the harder someone humble-brags about how easy something was, the more spectacularly it'll explode in production.

Scientists: "We've created an AI that's consistently wrong." Tech CEOs: "Ship it." And that's how we ended up with chatbots that confidently explain why you should add milk before cereal, virtual assistants that send your grocery list to your ex, and AI that swears your code will work perfectly despite 47 syntax errors. The modern tech industry in a nutshell: if it's broken but profitable, it's a feature not a bug.

The only difference between AI consultants and LLMs is that one costs $300/hour. Both will confidently hallucinate a solution to your problem using words nobody understands, then gaslight you when it doesn't work. At least the LLM admits it's not sentient... yet.

The classic tech hype cycle in its natural habitat. First, AI writes 90% of code. Then AI writes 100% of code. Then reality hits and humans get paid premium wages to fix the AI's spaghetti code. Reminds me of that time we deployed an "automated" monitoring system that generated so many false alerts we had to hire three people just to monitor the monitoring system. Progress!

Ah yes, the revolutionary AI integration strategy: squirting a tiny bit of machine learning onto a bar of legacy code and calling it "innovation." That soap dispenser is working exactly as intended – technically dispensing something, but completely missing the point. Just like how adding a chatbot that can only say "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" somehow justifies a 20% price increase. Investors impressed, users unimpressed, developers wondering if they should update their resume.

Ah, the modern developer's version of "my code is compiling." Remember when we had to wait for actual compile times? Now we just blame the AI for our extended coffee breaks. The beauty is that nobody can verify if ChatGPT is actually still working or if you've been scrolling Reddit for the last 45 minutes. And the best part? Management can't argue because they're doing the exact same thing. It's the perfect crime - you're technically "waiting for a tool" while secretly planning your weekend. And if anyone questions the time it takes, just mutter something about "token limits" and "complex prompting strategies."