A Practitioner's Sense of AI, and Keeping a Distance from the Noise

Lately, when I open YouTube, AI-related videos keep catching my eye. Well, I’m the one searching for them, so of course they get recommended back to me…

Watching these videos, I get the sense that they roughly fall into three categories.

1. “The Singularity is here” content
2. “Get rich with AI!” content
3. “Stories from people actually using it” content

I’m firmly in the third camp.

When you write code with AI every day, your view inevitably becomes more grounded. It’s useful, no doubt. But it’s not quite the “magic” the world makes it out to be.

Is the Singularity Actually Coming?

“AI will surpass humanity.” “All jobs will disappear.” These stories are entertaining, sure.

But from a practitioner’s perspective, today’s AI still feels more like a super-high-performance mimicry machine than anything else.

It’s impressive, of course. Code completion, text generation, search — all at levels unthinkable a decade ago.

But building a worldview from scratch, making decisions with real accountability, behaving like “autonomous intelligence” — that still feels far away.

So when people ask, “Will a world-flipping singularity arrive within your lifetime?”, honestly, I don’t feel it.

It might come. But looking only at the current trajectory, it doesn’t seem that simple.

The AI Side-Hustle Bubble Looks the Same Every Time

Every time a new technology arrives, the same pitch follows: “Now anyone can easily make money with this!”

Blogs, videos, NFTs, the metaverse, and now AI.

The pattern repeats.

Of course, some people do ride the wave well. But in most cases, the ones actually making money aren’t earning from “AI itself” — they’re earning by telling others they can make money with AI.

So these days, watching that genre of video barely moves me anymore.

What actually matters is how you embed AI into your own existing work and expertise.

For me, that’s programming. Design, investigation, code review, drafting prototypes — the speed has clearly gone up.

But the flip side: trying to win with “AI only,” with zero base expertise, feels brutal.

Even “Practitioner AI Content” Gets a Cool Look from Me

The recent wave of “in-the-trenches AI engineer” content also leaves me with mixed feelings.

When I see someone posting “New Feature Review!” or “Latest AI Tool Comparison!” videos almost daily, a thought drifts in:

“Does this person actually do real work during the day?”

Sure, some of them genuinely fight in the trenches. But when “reviewing” itself has become the job, I can’t help reading it cynically — this is probably a funnel toward a school, a paid course, or a community membership.

When you actually use AI at work, what matters less is chasing every new feature, and more:

• How do I fit this into the current workflow?
• Will it survive team-level operations?
• Can it lower review cost?
• Can humans take responsibility when it fails?

These boring questions matter far more. But they don’t generate views. So videos drift toward “AI That Changes Your Life in 5 Minutes.”

In the End, How Do You Live with a Tool?

For now, my personal distance from AI looks like this:

• Don’t over-expect
• Don’t under-estimate
• Don’t get too close to the trendy noise
• Keep your hands moving

Honestly, I think AI is a lot like the microwave oven.

When it first appeared, people apparently said, “We won’t need to cook anymore.”

But thirty years later, everyone still holds a knife and swings a frying pan. The microwave sits quietly in the corner of the kitchen, silently reheating leftovers and warming frozen meals.

AI will probably end up the same.

The “humanity will be freed from labor” narrative will quietly fade, and before we notice, AI will just be a useful box sitting next to us. And that’s fine.

Let the loud people stay loud. I’ll open my editor again today.