Personal computing in the ’90s and early ’00s moved at a rapid pace. At least, that’s how I remember it. School curricula, not so much. Around 2003, I was being taught about the merits of dot-matrix printers, how to choose between a command line interface and graphical user interface, and the intricacies of network topologies. At the same time, I made a hobby of keeping some of my school’s ageing Macintosh Performas performing, replacing their clock batteries.

From the perspective of my career, where I have had insight into syllabus design in computing education, this experience of Higher and Advanced Higher Computing in Edinburgh could be seen as far from ideal. I’d disagree though: I had the opportunity to learn the basics of how personal computers work. That’s an opportunity denied to students in cohorts since, as computing and ICT focusses on either relatively superficial user skills or hyper-specific app development.

I loved learning about computers. I still do. The power that these remarkable machines offer us to explore human knowledge, learn new things, and create, is phenomenal. Around the time I was sitting at the Bondi Blue iMacs in my school, Web 2.0 was kicking off. I remember listening to podcasts (new back then!) and reading blogs (relatively new back then too!) following the latest platforms and ideas coming out of Silicon Valley. It was exciting, and the companies involved were exciting.

Alongside an interest in computing, I also grew to love science fiction. I’m sure I’m unique in combining the two. A few years ago, I stumbled across a Becky Chambers novel. The descriptions of how technology could be used were striking. In her later ‘monk and robot‘ books, the longevity of the personal computers and how they networked together stood out. Somehow, reading Becky Chambers led me to Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, with the prominent featuring of the ‘feed’ on space stations, ships, and planets. These concepts of how technology could work (interoperable, serving users, non-disposable) inspire a nostalgia in me for a possible future. Though perhaps one without Murderbot’s Corporation Rim. Or SecUnits.

I think this nostalgia is fuelled particularly by the state of computing today. I still find computers exciting; the tech companies, less so. The inevitable enshittification of any commercial platform or service robs any joy that could be found in them. The hyping of artificial intelligence for nakedly money-grubbing reasons and its shoehorning into everything is depressing. Beyond the direct impacts of all this, views on technology become tangled with views on tech companies and objectivity about technologies goes out the window.

I started writing this in response to Anil Dash’s post about AI in Firefox, hoping to find some clarity in my own opinion of AI. I’m not sure I found that clarity, but I do want to hold on to the optimistic feeling I have about technology. I want to divorce that feeling from how I feel about the companies sucking computing dry. I want to own my tools, not be owned by them. I want to feel the pure possibility that a general purpose personal computer (whatever the form factor) offers. I want to play with technologies and discover how they can enhance my life, not detract from it.

I’m listening to an audiobook of R.F. Kuang’s Babel at the moment, which, not to provide any spoilers, puts colonialism and its intellectual backing, imperialism, in stark relief. While listening, I keep finding myself reflecting on another audiobook I listened to recently: Karen Hao’s Empire of AI. AI is morally agnostic technology. It can be used for good purposes. It doesn’t have to consume the physical resources current models do. It doesn’t have to exploit workers to be developed. It doesn’t have to displace workers’ jobs. It doesn’t have to resemble imperialism. But today, AI is being developed and applied, explicitly to weaken workers, cut jobs, and fatten pockets that are already straining at the seams.

New York Magazine’s article this month, titled, ‘There’s Just No Reason to Deal With Young Employees’, featured a particularly disgusting quote from an executive, which I think says enough about the direction we’re going:

Neckes sees AI as a total workforce reset. “Our economy has a decent percentage of fake jobs that barely had a reason to exist in the first place. There’s just no reason to deal with the headache of having young employees who frequently do the wrong thing, who frequently, you know, take up time and space.” I asked him what Gen Z — the entry-level coders and associate attorneys in those fake jobs — were supposed to do without opportunities. “Be smarter around the new shit and be cheaper,” he says.