If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.
(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)
Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.
Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.
Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and
But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.
So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.
But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.
But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.
So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.
You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.
The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.
Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.
Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.
You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.
Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.
Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.
Never mind that last part.
And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.
Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."
To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.
It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.
So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:
Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.
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First time - Lando Norris x Innocent! Reader
Plot: Lando finds out his girlfriend is more innocent than he ever thought and that turns him on hard core.
Warnings: SMUT Innocence Knik etc MINORS DNI 18+
Credit to princemick for the GIF
When Lando first started dating you he knew you were pretty innocent and oblivious to the world around you.
The first time he noticed it was when he first met you. You were in a club and he sat back watching you the whole night, run around like mother hen after your friends who ... arguably weren't being good friends to you and were using you as their sober ride home.
You were making sure your friends had clean drinks straight from the bartender and handing them tissues or hand gels when they touched anything dirty.
Your friends had left you that night, leaving Lando to take the opportunity to come and introduce himself. He wasn't shocked to find out this was your first time in a club, that you hated it and wanted to go home.
"So, what brings you to Monaco?" he'd asked you and you gave him this big gummy grin that he couldn't help but fall in love with.
"My friends and I are on a girls trip celebrating graduation!" you answered, trying not to yell incase the music went quiet but loud enough so he could hear.
"And that's why they've all abandoned you?" he chuckled walking you over to the bar.
"Yeah, I think they just have different ideas of fun than I do, we saw some really beautiful museums earlier which was my idea!" you smile thinking back to the earlier part of the day which you had favoured.
"Drink?" he asks you and you smile nodding your head.
"I'll have a Coors again and ..." he says naming his beer before looking at you.
"I'll just have a Spite please!" you order in French from the bartender who smiles at you.
"You can order something more expensive like alcohol i don't mind!" he smiles down at you, only for you to shake your head.
"I erm, don't drink! I've never drank alcohol actually!" you smile, pretty proud of you lifestyle.
"Yeah, I used to say I didn't drink and then my friends introduced me to it. Never been the same since!" he frowns in a joking manner making you laugh.
"You're funny!" you giggled.
You guys talked for the rest of the night, until it was the closing hours of the club and you had to part ways.
He'd regretted not getting your number.
The next time he met you was a complete coincidence. He was travelling around and caving in Vietnam. You were there building sustainable housing on your year after graduating. He knew it was you right away and everyone was so confused when he went running of to go say hello to you.
After that he got your number. He had to secure it after a second chance of meeting you which he'd been considering was gods gift to him.
After a few dates and texting back and forth for a while you started dating.
"Y/N, can we talk about something serious?" he'd asked you and you nodded coming to sit next to him on the sofa in his apartment.
"Yeah what's wrong?" you ask him with a frown thinking you'd done something wrong.
"How would you feel, about becoming my girlfriend..." he asks before presenting you with a little gift bag in papaya orange that had chocolates, flowers, a little card and a pair of expensive Cartier earrings. Not that you knew that until you got back to the hotel you were currently staying in and opened them up.
"Oh my! Yes! Please" you replied happily and he was trying so hard not to laugh at your super polite and formal answer to his ... well what now felt like a proposition
You were so happy and getting to spend time with Lando was everything! You came to races and everyone adored you, not just the people in McLaren with Lando but all the TV presenters, the fans and the other teams.
Lando was confused that after having dated for three months you hadn't done anything within a sexual nature. Not that it was an issue for him but he was just used to his girlfriends being bold and upfront compared to you, who was a little shyer and more reserved.
He knew he just needed to be a grown up and talk to you about it but he didn't think he could have this conversation with you. It felt wrong almost.
"Baby, can we talk?" Lando says patting the sofa while you were in the kitchen starting to prep for the lunch you were going to make the both of you.
"Yeah, what's wrong? Did I do something?" you ask looking at him carefully and taking a seat next to you.
"No, no not at all. It's kinda the opposite actually!" he laughs at his own joke not thinking you'd take notice of it.
"I haven't done something? I - did i forget to do my dished? I'm so sorry if i did!" you say looking back to the sink frantically thinking you'd missed your glass of orange juice and bowl of cereal you'd had this morning.
"No no, and don't think of it that way. I was just joking around - erm, I just wanted to say we've been dating for a while now and I was hoping we could start to be more intimate?" he asks holding your hand and your eyes widen and your cheeks redden.
"I- erm" you start to stutter and he rubs his thumb over your hand.
"We don't have too... if you don't want too! But I just wanted to ask!" he rushes out not wanting to make you uncomfortable.
"It's just that ... I've never ever done anything like that!" you say looking at him with those innocent doe eyes that made him go crazy.
"Like never ever?" he asks in shock, you were a gorgeous girl and even when he was out with you, guys would always be coming up to you, making conversation and flirting with you.
Now that he thought about it, you never actually could tell when you were being lightly flirted with. You were very oblivious too all moves guys made, unless they were literally asking for you number.
"Mmmm no, I mean ... you know you're like my first boyfriend right?" you ask him, cocking your head to the side.
"Wait, you've never been with anyone else other than me?" he asks, and fights to keep the smirk off his face. There was something so dirty, about the fact that you were so pure and untouched, and that it turned him on that he would be the first, and hopefully last to show you everything he could.
"No" you whisper and he looks at you, before cupping your face and pulling you in for a soft kiss.
"Will you let me show you, everything I want to?" he asks looking at you, brushing some of your hair behind you so he has full view of your collarbone.
"Yes..." you breathe out, feeling flutters in your stomach at both his words and actions.
"Now?" he asks with a little gulp, hoping the answer would be a yes.
"Yes, show me now Lan!" you say, climbing onto his lap getting excited about the actions to come.
"Okay, baby. Lets slow down" he laughs holding you in place. He shifts about so he's comfortable and starts to run his hands over your body. Little goosebumps rise to the surface coating your arms as his fingers roam across your collarbone, down over your clothed boobs and down until he had a firm grip on your hips.
"As much as I like your wearing my shirt baby, I'm going to take it off you now, is that okay?" he asks looking you in the eyes and you nod, looking down a little intimidated by the intense eye-contact.
"Words baby, you gotta tell me" he smiles at you and you smile.
"Yes, you can"
And he does, he fingers brush against you and a groan comes out of his mouth as he see's what he's been missing out on seeing. Your perky tits were currently clad in an orange coloured bra. He didn't know if that was a normal colour for you or if you'd brought it since dating the McLaren driver.
"You are so fucking beautiful" he says looking at you, teasing against the straps of your bra before slowly pulling down each of them, before reaching round the back and unclasping it so it fell off you.
In reflex your hands came up, to cover your exposed chest, it wasn't something you were used too.
"I want to see and touch baby, please let me!" he says softly.
You felt comfortable and confident enough with Lando that you felt like you could show this part of yourself to him, a part that no-one apart from you had seen.
The moment was getting more and more intimate as his hands started to fondle your boobs, pinching squeezing and kneading. Lando learning what you liked from the noises you were making as he continued.
The more intimate it got, the hotter and more impatient you got with the new sensation in you stomach and the slickness and heat building between your legs.
Naturally, your body is craving friction. Your mind is going haywire not really knowing what to do to get the relief its craving. So your body automatically started to grind down on him, and you could feel just how excited he was getting with the large bulge building in his sweatpants.
You could tell it was something he liked too from the little whines and groans that came out overtime pressure was applied.
"I- I want to make you feel good. But I don't know how" you offer and he nods.
"Do you want me to show you?" he asks and you nod. He takes your hand and starts to help you palm him through his joggers, breathy moans coming from him.
"That's it, and when your ready you can take them off" he breathes out softly, not wanting to rush you into anything.
You take him out of his jogger, having a grip on him that was tight and he couldn't help but moan at the sensation.
"That's it baby. Now just run your hand up and down in a fisting motion!" he says, but you make no move to start, his head that was thrown back raises to look at you in question.
"Can you show me?" you ask, wide eyes and he nods, taking your hand that was around him in his as he helps you start to move up and down, showing the pace and grip that he liked. His moans were constantly flowing out now as he let go to grip the edges of the sofa and lean back. You started to go a little faster, before slowly right down and placing a kiss on his cheek.
"I heard... from friends that you really like when we use our mouths?" you ask and look at him.
"You dont have to if you don't want to" he groans.
"I- will you enjoy it?" you ask.
"I think i'd enjoy anything you did to me"
"Then i want to do it" you nod and he sits up a little more.
"Okay, get on your knees baby..." he directs and you get to the floor in between his legs.
"You want my help?" he asks and you nod, he takes your hair into a ponytail to keep it out your face.
"Okay, open baby. Remember no teeth baby, it hurts!" he smiles and you start by what you thinks right and go straight in. You gag a little and he pulls you head back from the grip.
"No need to rush hunny. Just start with the head, and then you'll feel a vein on the underside that always feels good, okay? But don't rush to fill your mouth up okay?" he chuckles a little bit as he watches you listen to him.
You start with small movements around his tip, moving your tongue over his slit where pre-cum is leaking out. It was a strange taste that the first few times had your eyes screwing but you slowly got used to it.
You run your tongue along the underside feeling the throbbing vein he was talking about and he went crazy, moaning above you and desperately trying not to thrust up.
You slowly take more and more in your mouth and what you cant fit you decide to use your hands to cover the rest and use the movements you were doing earlier.
"Holy fuck! Are you sure you havent done this before baby?" he asks in shock of how good it feels. Maybe it was just because he was so in love with you that it felt 10x better than he ever had, or maybe you were just a quick learner and good at observing what he liked.
A minute later and he was coming into your mouth, you were quick to swallow all of him and leave his dick with a string of saliva attaching you together.
"Fucking hell baby" he smiles pulling you up onto his lap resting you on top of him, your knees either side of him.
"Was that good?" you ask, shyly. He can only nod as he catches his breathing.
"Your turn!" he smirks, one had on your hip the other one inching up your inner thigh under the skirt you were in. His hands starts to rub your clit through your underwear, and he smiles as your head falls into the crook of his neck and he can feel your breathing pick up against him.
His fingers curl round the edge of your panties pulling them to one side rubbing his fingers through your wet folds.
"Is this all for me baby!" he asks using his free hand to run through your hair as you keep your head in the crook of his neck rocking against his movements. His fingers eventually find there way in, the stretch a little painful at first.
"It's okay, it'll start to feel good in a minute" he says rubbing your back comfortingly.
"Tell me if i should stop yeah?" he asks and you just nod before quickly shaking your head, realising that may have come across as you want him to stop when you really don't now that a coil is building in your stomach and his fingers are feeling incredible inside you.
"Lando!" you whine starting to kiss along his neck and jaw, needing to occupy yourself with something to focus on the growing feeling inside you.
"Fuck baby, the things you do to me!" he exclaims feeling himself get hard again from the whole intimate situation occurring.
In seconds you're letting that coil go, not being able to hold it in any longer and gushing over his fingers. He pulls them out, taking them into his mouth, licking them clean groaning at the taste of you, his gorgeous girlfriend.
"I gotta have a taste of you baby!" he practically whimpers out, before laying you on the sofa and spreading your legs open. You shyly try to shut them but he just tuts.
"Lemme baby please!" he says softly and he stop resisting against his hands. He dives in, nipping and licking at the parts he knows are most sensitive, before devouring you as if your a five course meal. It felt incredible, better than his hands and you legs were shaking the whole time.
Your mind was fuzzy and you could only let out little swear words and his name to let him know just how good he was making you feel.
And only minutes later and you were releasing into his awaiting mouth where he fully cleaned you up. He draw back, a small sheen on his nose and corners of his mouth from your release that had you blushing.
"Lets finish this in the bedroom yeah?" he asks and you nod eagerly as he picks you up tossing your over his shoulder, giving your arse a light tap on the way out that had you giggling and squealing.
He places you gently on the bed hovering over you. He starts to take the rest of the clothing that was left on you off and chucking it to the floor before he starts to take his own off. He reaches into the bedside draw, grabbing a condom and opening it with his teeth before rolling it on.
"You are so beautiful baby! Are you ready?" he smiles, now lining himself up with your entrance. You hesitate for a split second, before remembering its your incredibly kind and beautiful and caring boyfriend Lando above you right now who wouldn't dream of hurting you.
"Yes" you nod, and he slowly starts to push himself into your warm, wet caverns. He moans at the tight feeling of you, kissing across your neck and collarbone trying to help you un-tense a little.
"Baby, you gotta relax" he guides you, starting to play with your boobs to get you feeling good. He pushes in a little more when he feels that you arent tensing as much and you sigh.
"Woah, your so big!" you exclaim, thinking he'd bottomed out from the stretch as you try regain your breath.
"Baby... hate to break it to you but I'm only halfway inside you" he laughs with a chuckle, nearly loosing his balance on his forearms that he is using to hold himself steady above you.
"What?" you ask opening your eyes too look at your laughing boyfriend.
"Thank you for the compliment though baby, that makes me feel really good about myself" he says honesty before he pushes the full way in, finally bottoming out. You wiggle a little trying to get comfortable before giving him a nod where he starts to move in and out of you.
It starts to progressively feel better and better to the point where you can start meeting his thrusts to make it a little quicker. The sounds in the room are anything but innocent, both of your breathy moans and your high pitched whines when he reaches in between you to rub circles on your clit and the sound of slapping skin.
"Lando fuck! I love you" you cry as the pressure builds up and up.
"I fucking love you too" he breathes out, his thrusts coming a little sloppier.
And soon your both releasing at the same time as he pulls you in closer to him, almost laying all his weight on you.
"I'm like so glad we had that talk!" Lando laughs pulling himself up to look at you.
"Me too, I cant wait for you to show me more!" you grin pulling him into a kiss making him groan and grab the pillow to put over his face. He was exhausted but ... round 2 sounded like a shout.
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