ME:: tl;dr AI: AGI is more like twitter than jet engines in that it is fed by people and not predictable and not apparent from inside the software industry how others use it. But how general is it? And I agree, where do we go from here? Still skeptical but super thought provoking piece ; Robin Sloan:: AGI is here (and I feel fine)
Discovered: Jan 12, 2026 17:05 (UTC) ME:: tl;dr AI: AGI is more like twitter than jet engines in that it is fed by people and not predictable and not apparent from inside the software industry how others use it. But how general is it? And I agree, where do we go from here? Still skeptical but super thought provoking piece ; Robin Sloan:: AGI is here (and I feel fine)
QUOTE:
It’s not that the companies don’t know anything — they know a lot—but rather that a regular user can have an experience with these systems, an idea about them, that is not available to even the deepest, dankest, insider-iest insider. I contend that regular users are having such experiences & ideas all the time.
I think this is just how these systems work, when they have so many different people using them for so many different reasons. It’s pretty weird, compared to other products. After all, the company that manufactures jet engines & sells them to five customers can reasonably claim to understand the uses of those engines.
That’s all to say, for all the math & matériel involved in their care & feeding, the big models are more like Twitter than they are like jet engines, & this whole thing was a surprise anyway — from which no one has quite recovered — so I will defend vigorously the right of anybody/everybody to reflect & opine on AI’s properties & potential, & to declare, when it seems obvious: AGI is here.
Recently, I have been reading a lot about the early history of personal computers, the 1970s & 1980s. (This book was wonderful, because its present — the pinnacle from which it surveys a tumultuous history — is … 1984.) It’s been interesting to discover that many of the visions & promises of that era “rhyme” with the visions & promises of the present boom. It’s clear that Bay Area tech is, if not one continuous project, 1957-2026, then for sure one continuous culture. (I happen to think it’s one continuous project.)
The pace is familiar, too: hot new companies were appearing every month, fading just as fast. Yes, the dollar amounts were smaller — the computer was still a niche product — but the feelings really seem to be the same.
And … the visions of that era were substantially realized ! Today, everybody really does own a personal computer, or something like one. Everybody really is connected to a global information network, or something like one.
I’m an avid user of both my personal computer & the global information network, & I observe that we appear not to live in utopia. The and … ? of those inventions roars in our ears.
Today, everybody really can call upon AGI, or something like it: a wildly general computer program. I mean ! Wow!
The question, always, forever: what now?