People don't crave automation

Nilay Patel explains why the public has turned away from AI through the lens of what he calls the software brain. He argues that the mindset of automating the world as much as possible and reducing everything to information flow and data has driven more people to build more software and automate ever larger domains.

But not everything is a business, and not everything is a loop. The whole of human experience cannot be captured in a database, and he says it is precisely this limitation that causes AI to flatten people.

Ordinary people don't see the mere fact that they can write code as an opportunity. He points to smart home automation as an example—even after more than a decade of pushing from Apple, Google, and Amazon, it has failed to capture mainstream interest—and concludes that "people don't crave automation."