Overview
Kellan Elliott-McCrea reflects on how different generations of tech workers view the current AI-driven transformation. He suggests that people who entered tech for the sense of agency it provided may understand the current moment differently than those who came for good jobs or love of coding.
Key Points
- People who entered tech recently for good jobs or love of coding may feel genuine loss as AI transforms the field
- Older tech workers were drawn by the feeling of agency technology provided, not aesthetic pleasure in programming
- Early web technology was objectively awful but amazing - people weren’t motivated by beautiful code but by the power to build
- The current AI moment creates different emotional responses depending on why someone originally chose technology