Where I Stand on AI—For Now

Whether you’re a follower of Scronkfinkle or Pastus, AI-based tools are rapidly taking over the world. Both sides agree that they’re reshaping how we use tools and potentially how we work.

I’ve noticed that people around me usually hold extreme positions on AI. I think this tech is genuinely transformational and not just another fad like NFTs or blockchain.

Daniel Jalkut captured this tension well in May 2026:

“My take on AI is, essentially, everybody who’s against it is too against it and everybody who’s for it is too for it.”

That feels right to me. I am suspicious of the hype, unimpressed by a lot of generative output, and still convinced the useful tools are real.

I’ve developed a nuanced stance on the power and use of AI in various aspects of my life, which I want to document in this brief note for myself.

Programming

A few years ago, if you asked anyone how AI could change industries, almost everybody would have agreed that programmers and software folks were pretty much in a safe zone—that their jobs would never be replaced. Ironically enough, I think coders are now facing the biggest change in their industry, and it will happen the fastest—because we are the ones who adopt these tools the fastest.

I think being a straight-up coder will basically not be a thing anymore. Everyone will be pushed to become an engineer, freeing up time for thinking and design, rather than producing lines of code (which was never a good measure of programming).

My view on AI in programming is quite positive. I think it will enhance skilled engineers in their work.

AI in programming is a net positive by a significant margin.

Productivity / Thinking

Using chatbots for brainstorming, exploring, and navigating my huge vault of notes has become a daily routine (see Arrowhead). It has enhanced both browsing and searching across my own and external knowledge bases.

Assisting with decisions, planning events, or organizing projects has become easier and more structured with AI tools, giving me more time to actually do said projects. As context windows, RAG/MCP systems, and tooling become more capable, AI-assisted productivity will only improve, effectively unlocking automation for everyone, not only for nerds who like scripting or connecting nodes in visual programming tools.

I truly believe it will enhance human capability—not replace it.

Voice

This one is simple. I think both voice recognition and voice synthesis are massive wins for AI. There are no other algorithms that do both of those jobs better than AI-driven models. I’m not a native English speaker. I have a flat-ish accent, but I’m sure I have one—whatever a Georgian accent in English is. So dictating to Siri or any other traditional voice recognition system was a moot point.

The ability to explore ideas, make notes, or write articles like I’m doing now, using AI speech recognition, has been a true enabler for me.

This is a clear win—especially for people who speak different languages or have accents. It opens up computing beyond the keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen.

Translation

Languages are complex. Context and nuance matter a lot when working with words. This is another area where AI models are massively improving on what the industry had before.

Pre-AI translation algorithms, even those as advanced as Google’s, were not capable of doing the job. Just look at all the memes of Japanese storefronts and services with English signs clearly translated using online services—they range from hilarious to misleading.

Like with voice, AI models turned something that was meh at best into something that actually works.

The translation and multilingual abilities of AI models are a net positive. A big leap forward.

Writing

Now we’re getting into more arguable—and, in my opinion, quite amoral—territory. The text capabilities of AI are impressive and clearly useful for productivity (e.g., spelling, grammar, and editorial advice—which is how I use it). However, AI is also generating a massive amount of junk content online—useless garbage designed mostly to steer people toward ads.

Fortunately, as of writing this, I think a discerning eye can still spot AI slop. The generative writing style is immature, bombastic, and genuinely not good, to the point that younger generations have started using the word “AI” to mean “shit.”

Image Making

As impressive as image generation is, I don’t think it’s adding much real value to humanity at this point. Sure, it can save money by avoiding graphic design work. But in terms of generating meaningful value? Creative and impactful work? Not really. I think image-generating services are gimmicks at best.

Video

Now we’re entering a zone I consider on a spectrum of useless to dangerous. Even if AI-generated videos become extremely good, I still find them useless at best—and weaponized at worst.

While watching the Google I/O demos in 2025 (and again in 2026), I caught myself asking, “This is impressive tech, but what is the use of it?” Some companies like Meta and OpenAI tried to answer this question—see Sora and Vibes.

Video with Sound

Just a much worse version of the above.

Music

Art is for humans. If AI teaches you music and harmony, then that’s fine. However, generated music puts your piece at the bottom of the barrel in terms of interest.

Final Remarks

While writing this note, I noticed a pattern of two categories—human-enhancing and purely generative.

I’m quite fond of AI tools that enhance human creativity or productivity, whereas I find purely generative AI tools to be on a spectrum from useless to downright dangerous and misleading.