Rufus: The Shopping Assistant Who Moonlights As A React Dev

Ah, the sweet sound of developers collectively reaching their breaking point! That product manager who somehow manages to insert AI into every single conversation despite working on, I don't know, a calculator app? The development team has gone from polite nodding to desperate eye-rolling to finally summoning their inner Brad Pitt: "Shoot that guy." It's not that AI isn't cool—it's that not everything needs blockchain-enabled, machine-learning-powered, AI-driven toaster functionality. Fun fact: Studies show the phrase "We should add AI to this" increases developer blood pressure by approximately 43%. The more buzzwords added, the higher the spike.

The tech industry's eternal optimism in a nutshell! Companies burning through billions in pursuit of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) with that "we're just one funding round away" energy. It's like watching someone with $5 in their bank account plan their yacht purchase. For context, AGI is the holy grail of AI - machines with human-level intelligence across all tasks - and apparently, we're juuuust $20 trillion short! That's basically pocket change if you check between your sofa cushions, right?

The tech industry in a single image. Massive crowds fighting to post LinkedIn updates about how they're "leveraging agentic AI solutions" while VCs throw money at anyone who mentions the buzzword. Meanwhile, a handful of folks actually discuss job displacement risks, and even fewer build anything useful. And that lonely stick figure trying to generate actual value? That's the junior dev who just wanted to automate their unit tests but got pulled into an "AI transformation initiative." The hype-to-value ratio remains gloriously consistent across every tech wave I've survived since the dot-com bubble.

Someone asked ChatGPT about JavaScript's export default App; syntax and got the most refreshingly honest AI response ever: "I honestly have no idea." Finally, an AI that admits defeat instead of confidently hallucinating some nonsensical explanation about React components! If only my junior devs had this level of self-awareness instead of copy-pasting Stack Overflow answers they don't understand. The robots might replace us, but at least they'll be upfront about their limitations.

Behold, the precarious tower of modern tech! That tiny wedge labeled "AI" is the only thing preventing our entire digital infrastructure from collapsing like a Jenga tower at a caffeine addicts' convention. It's basically our entire civilization balanced on a glorified if-else statement. Sleep well tonight knowing your bank account, medical records, and embarrassing search history are all being held up by what's essentially a mathematical party trick with good PR.

When you spent years mastering tree inversions in C++ with all those pointer gymnastics, memory leaks, and segmentation faults only to watch some kid ask ChatGPT to do it in 5 seconds. The audacity. The betrayal. Back in my day, we debugged with print statements and cried silently into our mechanical keyboards.