louisgray.com: 2026

Showing posts from 2026 (4 posts). Show all posts

October 12, 2026

October 12, 2026 · 3 MIN READ · BY LOUIS GRAY

Engaging In Toxic Places Remains Popular

A common refrain through the rise of social media in the Web 2.0 surge was that "you are who you follow". Your personal choices of what you post and who you engage with are an echo of your personality and your interests, and it becomes a reinforcing loop. The people you follow select what you to choose to consume, and what they share becomes part of what you believe to be true. An extension of that view is that "you are where you engage" and where you choose to engage is as much a descriptor at this point as the people you engage with -- especially as large-scale social networks and platforms have increasingly been identified with specific political leanings, or, unfortunately, their billionaire owners.

Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter in 2022 marked a massive cultural shift in how that platform presented itself and how comfortable it felt to continue posting there or consuming content. That era has been much discussed and you probably know it by heart already -- inclusive of undisciplined rounds of layoffs, mockery of the previous leadership, open hostility to the open web and much more, which made it a very unsafe place for women and people of color, who had helped make Twitter such a success and so much fun in its early stages.

I opted out. I took the aggressive steps not just to stop posting, but I unfollowed my entire stream, deleted all my posts and made my profile private, despite having well over 40,000 followers at peak. I absolutely do not regret it.

While the site never actually fell over, as some had expected, and Musk took some odd financial mechanisms to not only have his new asset acquired and then reacquired, obfuscating the financial issues that plagued the site, I have never been tempted to go back. It is still absolutely acceptable to take a stand for something and not go back on that choice.

The last couple weeks have seen two high profile people who I respect say they are coming back to X after having walked away. First, Casey Newton, calling it "truly unpleasant", said he was "slinking back to X." Last night, massive Apple fan and creator of Markdown John Gruber said "X Once Again Marks the Spot", highlighting how Apple's leaders have used that as their sole outlet, and other platforms, from Bluesky to Threads, have not dramatically grown, while being hostile to advancements in AI. Them changing their minds is absolutely okay for them, but it hasn't changed the fundamental reasons I left, even if I feel not engaging on X limits visibility of my content, or reduces my exposure to some news.

I fundamentally believe X is not a good place for me to be, or really, anyone. I have told friends who have refused to leave that it's not a good place for them. But I don't think I am in the evangelist space any more. I am not hustling people to join Bluesky, which I strongly prefer, and I did give Threads a decent chance through the end of 2024, when I decided I didn't want to spend more time there. But engaging there would not reflect my values, and there's strength in staying out.

Those who stayed have tried to make the argument that the web has always had differences of opinion, or that they don't consider the politics of who owns a platform as a requirement for them to participate, but for X, and for many other places, I have found it's just not worth it. I do not need to spend time in communities where I am not learning or enjoying discussions with others. I don't use Snapchat or Nextdoor for similar reasons, and I don't envy tech leaders who have had to look away from what are likely their own personal beliefs, in exchange for access to Musk's other efforts, like Starlink and SpaceX -- even as I understand their need to do so.

Toxic places have always existed on the Internet. People have always enjoyed them, and that continues.

October 10, 2026

October 10, 2026 · 3 MIN READ · BY LOUIS GRAY

Vibe Coding: Automatic Transmission for Apps

The Human–AI Co-Creation Studio [Image via Gemini]

As a teen training to get my driver's license, my dad wanted me to learn "the right way". To him, that mean getting my first experiences behind the wheel with a stick shift, learning how to coax his sturdy and unimpressive 1990s era Mazda 323, with manual transmission, from low gear to highway cruising speeds, all while avoiding stalls and switching gears smoothly. Through this training, many trial and errors were had as I gained experience.

Eventually, I took and passed the drivers' test, but in an automatic vehicle - my mom's wood paneled Oldsmobile station wagon. Despite its heavy build and thoroughly unattractive appearance, the car's automatic transmission reduced complexity for me, letting me focus on driving the car, not just fighting to get it to work. Now, depending on which survey you choose, less than 1/5th of drivers know how to use a manual transmission, and those cars account for only 2% of all sales in the United States. While there will always be strong opinions about the efficiency or quality of manual vs automatic, from a technology perspective, it's a relic of a previous era.

The rapid ascent of AI-assisted coding, much like that transition from manual transmission to automatic, has reduced complexity and expanded the total market for participants -- not only changing how software engineers work, but making it possible for those without coding experience to speak their ideas into existence, and iterate to make them real. If you can think it, you can build it.

While some debate if AI is conscious or sentient (it's not), it certainly isn't yet fully autonomous. Working with any of the leading AI-powered code environments is a continual give and take between the LLM and the human, a hybrid approach Sean Goedecke calls our "centaur age", reflecting the reality of a time when the machines are so fast and so capable, humans can't directly compete alone but work in tandem with their silicon partners.

Goedecke says:

"It is no longer possible to credibly argue that an unassisted software engineer can beat a centaur team. The value provided by coding agents is just too great: not just the speed of producing code, but the speed of review and testing."
-- Software's centaur age may last decades

What I have experienced, both at the office, and in my own side projects, is that AI isn't just changing the end product of what we build, or speeding our ability to eliminate tasks -- but more importantly, enabling us to do things we simply were unable to before, expanding our scope and redefining what we could achieve. In the last three years, we've graduated from simple question and answer chatbots to progressively capable workspaces that are waiting to take our instructions, and agents eager to do our bidding.

As I shared one recent experiment, a friend messaged me, "someone has been having fun vibe coding" and I almost recoiled from the description. Even if I never touched an official single line of code, I was able to turn to a software tool, design an idea, work with available technology, and deliver a project users could experience themselves. This was not just for vibes, but a celebration of capability.

The complexity that has defined the world of software development for decades was never the end goal, but a necessity to get there. Now, that journey of pain has been greatly reduced. No more stalling out, no more grinding of the gears. There will always be elite software development. People who have specialized in the field are going to approach invention in ways we amateurs wouldn't think to, due to their education and experience. But vibe coding is a lot more than frivolous toying based on mood -- it's automatic transmission for development, which will put a lot more drivers on the road.

Disclosures per always: I work at Google and vibe code with Gemini and Antigravity tools a lot. I wrote this post by hand.

October 07, 2026

October 07, 2026 · 4 MIN READ · BY LOUIS GRAY

Filtertainment Eviscerated our Informed Monoculture

Two major pillars feeding my views on technology since the beginning of the Web 2.0 era have been especially consistent: first, there is no information overload, as you control the levers of what you view and engage with, and second, true personalized feeds that you understand and prefer over a chronological or curated experience are ideal. You should be delighted and informed from the content you engage with. It shouldn't feel uninvited, and it shouldn't feel strange to you. Yet the last decade-plus, as many services, applications, devices, channels, and influencers have fought for our attention, and we have become deeply aware of how tailored algorithms have changed to keep us engaged, we have given in to quick hits of entertainment instead of deep information.

The dizzying array of podcasts, newsletters, TikToks, Instagram Reels, subreddits, Spotify recommendations, YouTubers and Twitch streamers, all asking us to tune in, like and subscribe has ensured we don't have a common thread of media consumption, a shared reality and foundation for discussion with a common experience. It became inevitable, as I predicted this attention crisis back in 2010, saying there was "no off button, ever", with our devices "in a state of constant connectivity." When given a choice between bitter truths and dopamine, we as a population have been begging for the sweet stuff every time.

Each revolution in media creation and consumption has followed technological innovation that enabled it. It took the printing press to make books cheap and abundant, leading to a sharp rise in literacy five-plus centuries ago. The telegraph, the radio, the television followed. Eventually, the Web.

Constant connectivity, infinite choice. [Image via Gemini]

Initially a simple text medium with low quality images and buffering sound, the Web later expanded to include video, though not great at first. As bandwidths increased at home and at work, and wireless broadband became ubiquitous, we have always found a way to fill the container. As those containers filled, the media consuming them evolved as well, from static text sites we discovered through links and forwarded emails, to user generated content, up to the high fidelity real time multi-camera experiences we can experience today from practically anywhere.

The Gen Z early career entrants to today's work force have only known a world where everything is available all the time, on demand, where anybody can become famous for a moment, and being an influencer is a totally normal thing. Their first phones were smartphones. They never had to know what channel something was on, or when it aired. For them, news channels have always been 24/7 and hyper partisan, with no need to wait around for evening updates that just recapped everything they might have already seen online.

As Garbage Day (no really, that's the name of it) has pointed out regularly, the monoculture has essentially gone away. Even the top songs topping the Spotify charts seem foreign. We don't all participate in the same trends. We don't follow the same people. Even as people vainly wished the web would bring us together to shared experiences, I knew twenty years ago the web would enable us to retreat to safe spaces with like minded individuals. When given the chance to participate with people who agree with us and share our views, we will choose them, instead of engaging with communities we may not enjoy or feel contentious.

The vast array of choices, and our decision tree, means our small sliver of space is uniquely our own. Fatigued by the real world, people have found comfort in the hamster wheel of short form videos, memeification of pretty much everything, and the collapse of discussions to finding the perfect reaction emoji as the smallest gesture available to avoid leaving the other party on read. As we see everyone with their earbuds in, staring at their phones, flipping from one piece of content to the next, vaguely approximating the humans in Wall-E, we get it. It's the result of the containers, the personalization, and the need to feel connected and entertained. The apps do an incredible job of giving you what you want. If they didn't, you would find another way to kill the time.

October 03, 2026

October 03, 2026 · 4 MIN READ · BY LOUIS GRAY

An AI Tech Revolution? The Solution: Human Evolution.

The tech industry, and Silicon Valley specifically, has long set out to 'change the world'. The clear eyed idealists will tell you the long hours and dreary social lives they espouse are a worthwhile exchange for making lives easier, helping people achieve more, connecting with one another. Discovery. Invention. The cynics will tell you it's a smokescreen - a sprint for riches, to aid the most greedy to take an even bigger share, all while diminishing opportunity for those with less. Advancements and progress for some may come at the expense of others, who encounter reduced job opportunities, stagnant wages, increased commutes and pollution.

Apple cofounder and one-time CEO Steve Jobs famously said, "We're here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else even be here?" Google cofounder and one-time CEO Larry Page, perhaps a little less famously, said we should have "a healthy disregard for the impossible." Those are massive goals, but many find themselves a little skeptical.

In our extremely partisan world, it can be tempting to just pick a side and get entrenched. Are you with us, or are you against us? Are you the good guys or the bad guys? Is big tech bad? Is AI going to kill us all? Should we be buying backup property in New Zealand or throwing our smartphones into the closest lake? Are we all going to become subservient to the machines and live unsatisfying lives of uncomfortable mediocrity?

Will the machines deliver a future of perfect harmony? [Graphic via Gemini]

Every evolution, every wave of progress, requires adaptation. It was true in the Industrial Revolution, it was true when the Internet evolved our businesses and our interactions, it was true again more recently when we all started carrying smart phones (and almost never putting them down), and it's again true with AI. It can absolutely be uncomfortable -- forcing us to question our own strengths and capabilities, and even whether what we see or hear actually happened, or was it just AI?

AI actually isn't that particularly new. In 1983, the very same Steve Jobs took questions about AI a full year before the debut of the Macintosh, contrasting the human's consciousness with the computer's ability to do simple things, while forecasting scientists would look at the human brain and teach computers to think. Alan Turing brought the ideas of machines learning to the public in the 1950s, and the Turing Test remains the benchmark for measuring if a computer is human enough to make you think it's an actual person. What is new is the velocity and the accessibility of AI-powered technology to everyone - helping students with homework, composing documents and emails, answering multi-turn questions, and even performing creatively, for better or worse.

Technology marches on with benefits, and drawbacks too. [Graphic via Gemini]

Despite my sometimes bot-like behaviors, I am human, and this onslaught of AI tools can be daunting, even for a self-proclaimed early adopter. What value is being able to write well if everyone can? What value is knowing history if everyone can look it up? What value is being able to code if the AI can code faster and better? It can be humbling and scary. When faced with this challenge as AI tools increasingly marched from recommended to required, my initial reaction was just no... no, I don't want to do that. I'm perfectly comfortable doing things the way I always have, with the tools I know well. But I also know my 2026 workflow is vastly different than it was in 2016, and even more so than it was in 2006. New entrants to the workforce will have grown up with these tools, be comfortable with them, and could run circles around me. So I've adapted, and found new ways to automate, reduce friction, and just do more.

To remain relevant, we have to evolve and we have to rethink our role. Engineers and product managers can now use AI tools to build creative presentations and handouts in moments. Marketers can now build complete working demos and products from scratch instead of just describe them. Colleagues who once studied hard to be awarded readability in various computer languages now tell me they don't write code, but instead load up prompts in their IDE and instruct the AI to build what they used to do by hand. I can now spin up working arcade games in the web browser in minutes that used to require entire teams. It's wild. But it's also exciting -- in a good way.

Vast adoption of the Internet hasn't yet led to the downfall of civilization. It has led to challenges with communications in some ways, helped spread misinformation, broken down people's attention spans, and enabled isolation for some, but it's also enabled a steady evolution of how we live. Our constant attachment to smartphones has changed the way we engage with one another and are entertained, and yes, it too comes with downsides. AI will no doubt do the same. It will find its lanes where its use makes the most sense, and also try and show up in places where it's not welcome. We will know the difference. Our responsibility is to reaffirm what makes us human, taking the best of technology and using it where beneficial, and celebrating our individuality in all other places. It's going to be bumpy.

Disclosures per always: I work at Google and use our Gemini and Antigravity tools a lot. I wrote this post by hand.