It is not lack of imagination, it is the lack of the social need for the performative aspect of an assistant.

There are all these douchebags that use to have to hire a human assistant in order to tell other douchebags that they have an assistant.

Now every wanna be douchebag can just get a mac mini. Of course, that is going to be super popular.

Think about how openclaw can automatically send email to book guests on your podcast that no one watches.

It is a game changer. It can even automatically send email to other people who have podcasts and youtube channels no one watches to come on your podcast no one watches and you can both discuss what a game changer openclaw is.

It can even then watch the podcasts for both of you so now you both have viewers!

I'm reminded of Douglas Adams's take on video recorders as machines to watch television so you don't have to. He should have been around to see Marvin built for real!

Because the trends are bullshit and nutrition is just not that complicated.

The trends are a strange type of nutrition entertainment for people to read and then ignore in practice. There is some kind of psychological comfort in the knowing you can switch to oatmeal next week while gorging yourself at the Cheesecake Factory.

Oatmeal is good for you. News at a 11. We have known this for at least that last 50 years.

Or it just really is AI.

Maybe Dario Amodei saying this tsunami is coming and people are arguing it is not a tsunami and just a trick of the light are wrong.

We have had a giant bubble in white collar bullshit jobs the last 15 years and AI is going to pop that bubble incredible fast.

That doesn't mean the brilliant programmer is going to be replaced by Claude Code. The brilliant programmer type + AI what is going to do the popping, put more people out of work and massively gain from it financially themselves.

In other words, an extension of the same process that has been going on for the last 30 years.

There’s definitely going to be a shift over time. But it’s clearly not here just yet. So why preemptively lay off anyone? Isn’t that inefficient?

> But it’s clearly not here just yet.

That's not clear to me, and apparently not to Block.

> There’s definitely going to be a shift over time.

Yep, and as the transition happens, it'll probably be bell-shaped. Someone will be on the left side of the bell, and someone will be on the right side. Block has chosen to be on the left side.

> We have had a giant bubble in white collar bullshit jobs the last 15 years and AI is going to pop that bubble incredible fast.

Even if they are "bullshit jobs," they are what keeps food on the table for many people.

So the question is, what's bullshit about them? Are they bullshit because the capitalists could keep more money to themselves? Or are they bullshit because there are more socially beneficial jobs those people could be doing?

At some point, with increasing automation, "bullshit jobs" are going to be increasingly necessary, without radical changes in social or economic structure. Without them, you might as well just start sending the unemployed workers to death camps to be culled (though capitalism isn't so kind, and prefers to cull workers through slow deaths of neglect).

The despising drug addicts and welfare moms being supported by 'productive people' has now spread to despising working people making six figures. The thought seems to be there are elites/productive types that deserve it all, and the rest are just parasites and fuck 'em.

> The thought seems to be there are elites/productive types that deserve it all, and the rest are just parasites and fuck 'em.

Yeah, the misanthropic individualism is really getting out of hand.

Also, the irony is a lot of people who imagine themselves as "elites/productive types" are going to find out too late that they actually aren't.