AI Goldrush

It sounds a lot like the California gold rush to me.

Recently I walked through the room while my wife and kids were reading about the California gold rush of the 19th century. I had just gotten up from my desk, where invariably something about AI was happening. (When is AI not happening these days?) I heard a lamentable connection. Do you hear anything similar?

Every industry was neglected

"Sutter's men deserted him, and there was no one left to run the saw mill. Every settler and Indian in the neighborhood began searching the streams, the gullies, the mountain sides, and the bed of the river for gold particles...

"It was called 'gold fever.' Everyone seemed to catch this fever. In three months people in San Francisco and Monterey shut up their houses and turned in mad haste for the hills. Carpenters abandoned their benches, lawyers closed their offices, physicians deserted their patients, and even the journalists stopped publishing their news papers.

"The mills were left idle, fields of wheat were turned over to horses and cattle, houses became vacant, and farms went to waste. People had no thought for food or anything else. It was a mad rush for wealth. When ships came into port, the sailors heard the news, and they deserted wholesale, leaving the ships to rock at anchor without a soul on board. Prisoners broke prison and fled to the gold fields. Warders followed, not to capture the prisoners and bring them back but to remain and dig. Every industry was neglected except the making of spades and picks...

"There was a made race for the gold-fields!...

"The towns were made of wooden shanties and canvas tents. And whenever the gold gave out, or news came of some richer mine, the diggers would forsake the little town and rush off somewhere else...

"Some men made fortunes in a day; many returned home well off. But by far the greater number of people returned poorer than they came, and with their health shattered by the hardships of the life. Many more never returned at all, but found a nameless grave among the lonely valleys."

A similar rush

Hasn't AI felt like a rushed frenzy?

Doesn't it feel like AI has been deemed all-important and everything else unimportant?

Haven't many from any number of backgrounds fled to AI in order to make it big?

Doesn't it seem like the important but less shiney work is neglected or abandoned?

Don't we already have some sense of the ghost towns that are being left in the wake of this flurry of serial excitements?

Will some get filthy rich in a day?

When the rush is over, will some feel poorer than when the started?

Work over time

If it's too good to be true, it probably is.

Don't fall for the get-rich-quick scheme.

Grandpa, who stayed on his farm and kept his wits, still prospered. He kept his eye on the prize and wasn't distracted. He kept supporting what he knew was important. His family and neighbors were thankful for it.

The rate of success increases as God blesses our work, consistently done over time.