I'm burned out and so are you.
I've been following the tech space for nearly 20 years. It's through hacking PSPs for my friends in my early teens that I got into tech, and over the years, this fascination only grew. It grew to a point that I now type these words for a tech website I co-founded.
I love tech. I am deeply fascinated by it, and spend a lot of time thinking about how it can make our lives better. I am looking forward to how it will evolve and how it will change society.
But I am also very burned out by it. Something broke lately. Wherever I look, it seems to be the year I'm observing a general dissatisfaction and mistrust in the tech space.
I believe this is fueled by two things: the AI craze and how tech hijacks our minds.
AI is taking over the wrong parts of our lives
While I am convinced that AI can have benefits if used correctly, the way it's currently encroaching on our creative lives is something I struggle to come to terms with.
I always believed being creative is what makes humans human. It's how we can express ourselves, and feel seen, one of the four traits I believe all humans share.
But now AI-bros are trying to replace this creative expression through the click of a few buttons — separating it from the creative struggle, a necessary part of everyone's journey to mastery.
All this would be fine, if this was just a bunch of weirdos working in their own corner, but the hype cycle that AI is living through, keeps shoving this into our faces over and over again.
Tech makes sure you can't escape
On the other hand, we have the iron-tight grip of social algorithms on the world.
It's hard to escape the brain-rot if we're glued to over-optimized screens, which are hooking into our lizard brains and transforming us into addicted zombies. There is a reason these apps are often compared to slot machines, which are famously addictive.
Unlike AI, I don't see any benefits to social algorithms, except if purely used as a marketing vehicle (but if we all just use it to post and not consume, why use it in the first place?).
I don't seem to be the only one experiencing this. Just look around on, ironically, social media feeds, and you find people sharing their dissatisfaction and disillusionment with tech, wondering how they can opt out in a way that still aligns with living in an always-connected 21st century.
I don't believe that turning to "monk mode" is the solution to any of this. If you still want to be a functioning member of society, you can't just easily disappear from the internet, replace your phone with a brick, and go live in a monastery on a mountain. Also, monk mode is for the manosphere.
Instead, I think that the solution to all this is to rethink our relationship with tech. And while I don't believe to have all the solutions, I am slowly discovering a way that might be helpful for others.
So let me share it here.