Vasilis’ nerd blog presents

I used to enjoy talking about the web, in many ways. I love the fact that it is for everyone, by design. And I used to love talking about the consequences of this design decision: that everyone is allowed to do whatever they want on the web, and that everyone is allowed to use the web any way they want to, and that everyone must be able to use the web, and that it is hard, but fun, to make stuff that everybody can use. And I used to love talking about, what I consider to be the wonderful material of the web: HTML and CSS, two beautiful, and extremely powerful languages, if you take your time to understand them.

I am forced to talk about other stuff

Since a year or two it gets harder and harder to talk about these things, things that I care about. Every time I mention such a thing, someone will say “but AI can do that”. And now, immediately, instead of continuing discussing this wonderful thing, I have to think, and talk about the question if an AI can really do that. So instead of talking about the beauty of taking your time to write well considered HTML, I am now talking about the idea that a robot could do this wonderful work instead. Instead of talking about working out a complicated layout with CSS, and trying and trying until it works, I have to answer the question why I don’t just use an LLM to fix this for me. And instead of talking about the life changing experience I give to my students when I invite real people into our classrooms, people, with their very particular ways of using the web, people with screenreaders, or people who cannot use a mouse, instead of talking about these incredible experiences, that really change the perspective on design of some of my students I have to talk about synthetic users, the most cynical concept of all.

I do not want to talk about this stuff

I think this tactic is called something like “fill them with bullshit.” The idea is that they fill us with so much bullshit, in such enormous quantities, that there is nothing else left anymore. It is a weapon used by certain politicians, and silicon valley is using it as well, in an incredibly aggressive way.

Naiveté?

I’m not sure what to do about this. I’ve noticed that being naive helps. People tell me that a senior developer with an AI can do the job of 10 junior frontend developers. Instead of becoming desperate about these kinds of things, I have decided to ignore them. I try to keep on doing what I do in order to stay sane. I keep on teaching about the wonderful web to my students, even if nobody will ever hire a talented, creative, junior developer again. I keep on teaching about the consequences of the open web, even if it’s harder and harder to find anything open in this monopolised web anymore. And I do that because I still care. Because I still think HTML and CSS are wonderful creative materials, and I still think we should use these languages to make nice things that really work for everybody.

So, next time you ask me if an AI can’t do that job I’ll ignore your question and keep on talking about what I believe we should be talking about.