“They’re Not Confessing, They’re Bragging”

AI skepticism as self-owning performance art

I genuinely don't understand the viewpoint that “AI doesn't work.” I occasionally stumble into some sub-community where all the internet medals / Zuck Points / social credit score is bestowed to a pithy post dismissing artificial intelligence. “AI is a fad driven by FOMO.” “AI can’t do anything in [insert posters profession].” They then go on to explain AI and how they used it in ways that only a true noob can express, followed by comments that they don’t really “get” AI anyway. I didn’t understand it at first. Why are they confessing they don’t “get” AI while opining on it?

You can feel the echoes from earlier tech eras facing similar skepticism. Personal computers, internet, smartphones, and cloud all had their skeptics, but the pace plodded and the ferocity seemed a bit more tame than today. Perhaps this higher intensity is simply a combination higher velocity of progress coupled with social media contagion.

(To be fair, I was a major skeptic of the iPad. To this day I don’t understand the idea of “a laptop, but worse” unless you’re looking for a portable television or a mediocre gaming device.)

In the mid-2010s, an acquaintance at a neighborhood barbecue asked me about my work. In simple terms, I mentioned building a machine learning recommender system. He literally LOL’d. Absolutely incredulous that anyone would seriously invest in something called "machine learning" that would recommend products or TV shows you might like. It’s all another tech hype cycle to hoodwink the investors and management.

That reaction stuck with me. “Highly confident and dismissive on a subject he knows nothing about.” Where are my similar blind spots? Where are yours?

Today, millions of people hold similar attitudes toward AI, claiming that it fundamentally "doesn't do anything" in their field. You can argue that AI is currently overhyped (fair). You can insist that it's not quite ready for certain complex or nuanced applications (very fair). You might even voice genuine concerns about potential risks or ethical issues (fair-ish depending). Those are valid conversations.

But to categorically claim AI doesn't work is to ignore reality. Millions of individuals and thousands of organizations are actively leveraging AI today, creating tangible value across companies and industries. They’re busy grinding out incremental improvements in healthcare, finance, logistics, retail, and manufacturing.

This stubborn skepticism feels like déjà vu to earlier times. I remember the late '90s when plenty of smart, capable individuals insisted the internet was nothing more than a passing fancy, a solution looking for a problem. But this current dismissiveness feels even more out of step. It’s less “late '90s skepticism,” and more “2006 stubbornly insisting that the internet would never significantly impact retail, even as traditional stores visibly struggle.”

At this stage, confidently proclaiming that AI "doesn't work in my field" is bragging about one's ignorance. It's publicly diagnosing oneself with a severe skill issue.

Perhaps it's time to level up.