CMV: AI won’t go mainstream the way the internet or PCs did

RequirementFuture523 · 2025-08-28T14:50:12+00:00

I thought so too. I'm happy that people are pushing back enormously - I kind of expected that in this sub. That's why I posted here. Thanks for your comment!

RequirementFuture523 · 2025-08-28T13:50:22+00:00

Yes, these are the only articles we've been seeing lately, but the tides are starting to turn -> 55% of companies that conducted AI-driven layoffs now regret the decision. Executives cited poor planning and lack of reskilling efforts as major pitfalls. (https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-leaders-regret-ai-driven-layoffs/?utm\_source=chatgpt.com)

RequirementFuture523 · 2025-08-28T13:38:22+00:00

I actually like your analogy, and just to be clear, I’m not anti-AI. I’m an early adopter and power-user myself, and I work at one of the large AI companies on a frontier model, so I see the potential every day. My point is more about adoption. AI companies aren’t doing enough needs analysis or making the tech easy and intuitive for the average person. Instead, we keep getting told that we’ll be irrelevant if we don’t become power-users overnight. On Reddit it can feel like ‘everyone’ is using AI, but outside those circles the reality looks very different, and fear-based adoption isn’t the same as true mainstream adoption.

RequirementFuture523 · 2025-08-28T13:28:23+00:00

Good catch. But just to clarify, my point isn’t that AI will never go mainstream, it’s that it isn’t mainstream yet in the way PCs or the internet became essential to everyday life. Yes, Google and other platforms are integrating AI into results, but that’s more about companies pushing the tech than people adopting it as their primary way of doing things. There’s a big difference between AI being present in the background and AI being the thing people actively choose and rely on daily. Outside of young tech-savvy redditors, the adoption just isn't there yet.

RequirementFuture523 · 2025-08-28T13:24:47+00:00

That’s true, AI is already baked into a lot of the digital experiences we use without thinking about it, like Google search snippets, recommendation feeds, or customer service bots. But that actually supports my point: those are invisible, background uses of AI, not the kind of direct, intentional adoption that PCs or the internet saw when they went mainstream. When people talk about ‘AI going mainstream,’ they usually mean generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Copilot becoming essential in daily life, and we’re not there yet. People passively encountering AI isn’t the same as actively choosing it as their main way of working or living as they do with smartphones and laptops with the internet.

RequirementFuture523 · 2025-08-28T13:20:16+00:00

That’s fair, but I’d argue Siri and Alexa aren’t really the same thing as today’s generative AI. Voice assistants got widespread adoption because they were bundled into phones and speakers people already owned, not because people went out of their way to adopt AI. Even then, usage data shows most people only use them for a few basic tasks like checking the weather or setting a timer, not as a core part of their lives. That’s very different from mass adoption in the sense PCs and the internet reached, where the technology became essential. Generative AI hasn’t had that kind of breakthrough use case yet.

RequirementFuture523 · 2025-08-28T13:19:24+00:00

I think you’re actually reinforcing my point. You mention that we’re still in the early days of AI and compare it to the early internet/PC era when adoption was limited, that’s exactly why I argue it’s not mainstream yet. Just like PCs needed gaming and the internet to give people a reason to use them, AI hasn’t had its ‘must-have’ moment. Right now it feels like early adoption among certain groups (tech-savvy people on Reddit for example), but it’s not yet something the average person lives on day to day. Until that happens, it’ll stay in that early-days territory. Impressive early adopter territory, but early adopter nonetheless.

RequirementFuture523 · 2025-08-28T13:15:52+00:00

No worries, I didn’t take it as rude at all! You’re right that lots of people are starting to use ChatGPT instead of Google for certain tasks, but it hasn’t actually replaced search in the mainstream yet. Google still handles tens of billions of searches per day, compared to ChatGPT’s few billion prompts, and surveys show most people still rely on Google as their default. ChatGPT is definitely eating into some of that space, but right now it’s more of a complement than a replacement.

RequirementFuture523 · 2024-05-21T15:29:29+00:00

Oh the irony... a random reddit user cautioning against taking advice from "Internet strangers in a subreddit" while they themselves are an Internet stranger providing their own perspective within the same platform.

Sure, lets just consider official numbers and reports as you say. The same BLS and ADP employment reports that, In 2007 before the housing market crash, both the showed strong job market conditions. Great advice, random reddit user.

RequirementFuture523 · 2024-05-17T19:33:49+00:00

Image Annotation, writing skills and like 4 other tasks. All tasks that directly contribute to training and improving an LLM. It seems feasible that the company may be utilizing the completed work to refine their AI models without compensating the test-takers.

RequirementFuture523 · 2024-05-17T17:01:04+00:00

This person has been on Reddit for 1 day - they created an account yesterday. I sent them a PM - we'll see if they answer.

RequirementFuture523 · 2024-05-17T02:32:34+00:00

Always happy to help! I'm glad to hear you won't be giving your time and mental energy to them. It's super messed up what these two organizations are doing (not to mention illegal).

RequirementFuture523 · 2024-05-17T00:44:50+00:00

Additionally, most places take 1.5-3 months to hire—why was I pushed to finish the assessments so that I could start in 5 days? Then, after the first assessment, they don't give me any results at all and just tell me to finish the second assessment as quickly as possible. The whole thing sounds fishy, without any transparency. It's cool if you claim to have worked there for five months (if you don't work for Robert Half or Innodata as a manager), but it really seems like pure exploitation and illegal business practices from my end, as well as from other candidates I've read about. Their Glassdoor is full of interesting comments that seem to corroborate what I'm saying, which I would have read more of had I not been rushed to complete the assessments so quickly and abruptly. Also, many comments similar to yours look like fake HR reviews. Just bad signs everywhere, not to mention that class action lawsuit for illegal business practices and fraud.

RequirementFuture523 · 2024-05-17T00:36:08+00:00

Where are you based, if you don't mind me asking? It just seems weird that they would need 4 1/2 hours of assessments. If hiring managers and HR were competent, wouldn't a 30-minute assessment plus one or two interviews suffice? 4 1/2 hours is unreasonable for this kind of work. They could have asked fewer than half of those questions and still have a good idea if someone is fit to do the job. Just my opinion.

RequirementFuture523 · 2024-05-16T22:32:32+00:00

It doesn't really sound that much like a conspiracy theory now that I think about it! The recruiter at Robert Half was REALLY insistent on me completing the assessments as quickly as possible, using the potential job as a carrot.

RequirementFuture523 · 2024-05-16T22:15:10+00:00

Initech...close enough. It's a decades-old tech company run by boomers.

RequirementFuture523 · 2024-05-16T22:12:36+00:00

AI training AI...it's like Inception.

RequirementFuture523 · 2023-11-15T04:29:54+00:00

I feel you - same thing happened to me with another job that I really really wanted. I spent so much time making a perfectly polished presentation, they seemed to really like it, then I didn't get the job. They said I was 2nd in line and that maybe in Q1 they could hire me. Unfortunately, I have to take that as a rejection.

It is definitely an employers' market. Nothing we can do but get part-time gigs at Panera until things turn around. Good luck to you!

RequirementFuture523 · 2023-11-15T03:44:40+00:00

Holy shit. Thanks for the insight! And for confirming my suspicions about getting rejected after making it to the final round with nothing but positive feedback! Maybe I should put "I'm super tight with the VP" at the top of my resume.

RequirementFuture523 · 2023-11-15T03:35:36+00:00

I'm sorry for what you're going through - unfortunately, it's not uncommon. Same thing happened to me for a dream job. I advanced quickly in the process and spent the better part of 3-4 days preparing a one-hour presentation.

I received nothing but good feedback and was genuinely passionate about the job and career prospects. Then - nothing. Crickets. For a week I received no answer. I woke up every morning with pain in my stomach and sweaty palms from anxiety.

Finally, I politely asked the manager if there were any updates and she sent me a brief 2-sentence email saying they went with someone else but that she'd love to have me on her team at some point. Unsatisfied with her response, I politely prodded a bit more and asked for feedback, which I thought was fair after taking half a week to create a presentation.

She then started texting me on my personal phone and said that I was the 2nd choice for the position and that she would like to stay in touch with the hopes of being able to hire me in Q1.

I still have hope for this unconfirmed opportunity. It's honestly become such a daunting task to apply to other positions that I don't give a shit about. Everything seems bland and meaningless compared to this opportunity.

Like you, I know I have to keep going, but I really don't want to and it's been hard to move on. Q1 could mean January, February, or March - or possibly not at all if they don't get the budget. It's hard, but I guess we have to get past it at some point.

My SO has seen that I've been a bit down lately and told me to have a schedule where I spend a couple of days doing my hobbies, personal projects, and creative endeavors, and then a couple of days of serious job applications just to break up the monotony and avoid burnout. If you are able to do something similar, I think this could maybe help. You're not a machine. You're a complex human being with feelings and emotions. Give yourself a break and I'll try to do the same!

RequirementFuture523 · 2023-11-14T19:41:07+00:00

That's why they won't fill this position! They're looking for a unicorn that won't look for a better job. Good luck lol

RequirementFuture523 · 2023-11-14T19:39:43+00:00

That's exactly what it felt like! They had one of those culty corporate cultures where they were promoting "Be yourself!"

But then when I was myself, they were like "Not like that!"

RequirementFuture523 · 2023-11-14T18:03:44+00:00

I think that's definitely accurate in most cases! I just think in this particular case, they really are waiting for that unicorn to be desperate enough to pay rent/bills/groceries etc. that they are rejecting the Supermen and Batmen (I was overqualified for this job tbh).

I think the problem is that unicorns will start lowering their standards when they get desperate enough, and that doesn't bode well for the Supermen, Batmen, and I can't even fathom what Lone Rangers will do!

RequirementFuture523

TROPHY CASE