In other words, change for the sake of change does not an improvement make.

This is a real risk. The copyright washing machine is an average of our collective "spoken consciousness", and in turn it influences the way we express ourselves, then it ends up inside the next training slopdate. Real organic human reasoning will eventually be as valuable as low-alpha steel was for a long time, at least till the background levels drop. AI businesses are raiding libraries for "sunken knowledge", the similarity is uncanny.

Edit: link to the paper

https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19969

(it was published 2026-09-17)

It could be argued that the Netflix catalog nowadays is akin to some kind of torture.

In case you're wondering as well:

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-cmp-170hx-8-10-gb-prices-explode...

It restores firmware features related to RAM, PCI-e speeds, BAR size, VFIO...

https://github.com/amoghmunikote/cmpunlocker

That said, there's definitely some influence, and not only on development. Teams are shrinking not only due to the economy, there's a real pressure to deliver more with less, and AI has raised expectations all around.

- (hw) Hardware issues can be debugged and worked around by an amateur (like yours truly) at home, meaning you no longed need to pay to fix lots of things yourself;

- (dev) refactoring and rewrites are not as expensive as before, meaning no need for dedicated teams and processes, and _some_ businesses (not all) chose to turn that into budget optimization ("doing the same work with less team", instead of "doing more work with the same team")

- (media) you can generate a decent 1 minute SaaS landing page product video for 20 bucks and and openRouter key, meaning less need to rely on or shop for specialized marketing/media service.

And the list just goes on an on. We're in the big pressure cooker of history as usual, but this is one of those occasions where the temperature is rising really fast due to AI and the further commoditization of a lot of workflows that were career specialties yesterday.

Edit: a killed post below mentions interviews now valuing system design knowledge (like tradeoffs, cost etc) instead of rote memorization (since the need for encyclopedic knowledge arguably hit an all time low). This shows the change in the median profile businesses and recruiting staff are after, certainly influenced by AI.

This, pretty much. Money removes consequence form your actions. If every time you screwed up, instead of being fined you had to wear a silly hat, go on TV and apologize, or get some time behind bars, even if it were 1 or 2 days it would be very effective.

[1]https://xkcd.com/806/

Sometimes it is the question. "Yes" is the answer.

Therefore, one must assume it is always vibe coded.

Therefore, one must always be hesitant :(

"X... button?"

"Focus, Sweeper! Sweeper? SWEEPEEEER!"

when has it ever not?

> Maduro

(Not an american citizen btw)

> extradition

...

IMHO, the US is already cooked. Technological superiority is one of many ways to exert influence, and foreign initiatives are closing in, fast. There's nothing the US can do do stop it, unless it can find a way to stall China's advances in the area, and this is incredibly unlikely.

My take is: the bar to what counts to HR as "senior" will go down as businesses everywhere try to adapt and hire more seniors - "senior" now just a name, as it becomes the new "junior". Then everyone will pat each other on the back till it all goes down in the flames of bankruptcy.