Princeton researchers Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor write about AI as a normal technology, covering agent reliability, jobs and policy.
HN commenters cite it for the view that AI layoffs are partly AI-washing and that reliable AI agents are harder to build than claimed.
This all sounds like it has been covered in detail by the "AI as a Normal Technology"[1][2] guys (formerly AI Snake Oil - they decided they preferred to engage rather than just be snarky).
Invention vs innovation vs diffusion - this is all well-known stuff.
It's a completely different episteme than the one IABIED guys have ("If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies").
I don't think there can be any meaningful dialogue between the two camps.
1. Substack: https://www.normaltech.ai/ book: https://www.normaltech.ai/p/starting-reading-the-ai-snake-oil
2. "Normal technology" like fire, metals, agriculture, writing, and electricity are normal technologies.
Yes, we're aware! Fortunately our book is not a broad indictment of AI :) And none of our claims are premised on tasks people can do remaining out of reach for AI. More here: https://www.normaltech.ai/p/faq-about-the-book-and-our-writing
Our more recent essay (and ongoing book project) "AI as Normal Technology" is about our vision of AI impacts over a longer timescale than "AI Snake Oil" looks at https://www.normaltech.ai/p/ai-as-normal-technology
I would categorize our views as techno-optimist, but people understand that term in many different ways, so you be the judge.
- i really dont get why some of the guys go out of their way to hide the archive page https://www.normaltech.ai/archive
- i would assume it is reasonable that anyone comes and see what other posts a person has written except you cant find that page anywhere linked
Yup, precisely. Turns out getting AI to be reliable at doing useful things is harder than we've all been led to believe by the dominant narratives.
https://www.normaltech.ai/p/new-paper-towards-a-science-of-ai
https://www.normaltech.ai/i/201537309/the-stories-of-ai-driven-mass-layoffs-in-software-seem-to-be-classic-ai-washing suggests AI is used as an excuse rather than being a real reason.
From his keynote at ICML 2026
More here https://www.normaltech.ai/p/what-will-be-left-for-us-to-work