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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1829 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 18, 2026

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AI is business class. What I figured out recently is that while AI is making my development more comfortable it doesn't make me more productive. For me dev work has always been primary problem solving and writing the code secondary. So I spend more time on logic, understanding and occasionally debugging. And human brain does seem to have limited capacity for decision making and understanding per day. It is like long haul flight - arrive at the same time at the airport. But the seats are nicer and you can nap in the full flat ones.

I read business class as business class.

Like an MBA course.

But I not only agree with you, I am elated by this line of thinking (which I also arrived at independently). AI, well deployed, should remove a lot of the drudgery of modern knowledge work - TPS reports, powerpoints, progress reports and the like. Instead, you'll actually get paid to think well and deeply.

Obviously, this means 80+% of people are scared shitless because thinking is their least favorite thing to do.

Will the compliance layer not just adapt to this and expand, though? Lot of the things that AI does effectively are more structural constraints than absolute requirements.

Can you add some more here, I'm having trouble parsing your meaning.

What do you mean by "compliance layer", for instance?

I expect "compliance layer" refers to that portion of the workforce/job duties which is not devoted to doing the actual thing, but to checking records and requesting reports so that it can be shown that you are "in compliance with (Company Policy X/Regulation Y/Client Moral Standard Z/what-have-you)" as regards doing the thing.

Essentially this, yeah. Box-ticking for the sake of bureaucracy isn't going to just be solved

(including @MachineElfPaladin as well)

Ah, got it!

Yes, this is absolutely a massive potential problem. We will mandate that a human is put in the loop to slow down AI work in the name of safetyism.

I think, however, that this can only go so far and I know it is self-defeating.

Crypto (specifically Bitcoin) showed that even with something as hyperregulated as literal currency, people will find a way around it. You can't outlaw math, which means you can't outlaw encryption and cryptography in the digital world. It was a matter of time before people figured out the precise mechanisms to turn this into permissionless money. Are there still issues with BitCoin? Of course. Is it going to replace the USD? No. But it's already broken contain - MicroStrategy, a publicly traded "old" tech firm - is now effectively a Crypto Hedge fund that uses real USD from public markets as fuel for fake internet money scheming.

I expect that several companies will willingly hire their armies of "AI compliance people" and then will be defeated - fast or slow, doesn't matter - by new companies (DAOs?) that say "fuck that" to compliance and, instead, rely on new technologies to just get shit done.

Will this result in a wild west and semi-to-totally unregulated economy? Yes. Will there be a lot of chaos in the interim? Yes. But I do believe it's not only the only choice, but inevitable. The only alternative is slow death by bureaucracy.

You can't outlaw math, which means you can't outlaw encryption and cryptography in the digital world.

Let me introduce you to the concept of locked bootloaders and secure boot.

That's a choice people make. There's always going to be some sort of radical, free linux distro that the technically capable can load onto third party hardware.

Again, if you're buying fully integrated hardware, firmware, software from a corporation that puts these kind of things in place - that's a choice. There will always be bad faith actors out there. We should do our best not to reward them for that behavior.

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