Dead Internet Theory

Anchorage in Summer...

The fear of AI replacing software engineers comes a lot across our discussions. The issue I see is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Students regressing to "vibe coders" and using shortcuts, rather than getting fundamentals. Such behaviors could make them easily replaceable by AI or more likely by those who don't even have a CS degree. An enthusiastic manager may decide to "vibe code" themselves, rather than hiring a fresh CS graduate to vibe code for them.

On the other hand, if the CS graduate is very talented and knowledgeable in their fundamentals and latest technologies, they may become the ones who build the AI/LLM tools. After all, we still need CS folks to build those AI tools. Those tools don't build themselves. At least not yet.

Another argument that favors CS degrees are, at least for now, LLMs are good at individual programs - but they are not sufficiently sophisticated to configure and deploy complex systems. You can write some Python (or Java, Erlang, Go, ...) code with LLM. But it is still not possible to build a hybrid cloud architecture with load balancing and security policies configured. I can compare it with dishwashers. Dishwashers may wash the dishes - but you still need to do the initial cleaning (don't throw dishes in with huge chunks of food waste in them), loading, and unloading. These tools may have made our life easier - but did not eliminate house work completely (sadly).

Similarly, the AI/LLM tools may help eliminate redundant, repetitive, and boring tasks. But they won't replace the software engineers completely. But, if our undergraduates let the AI/LLM replace them, it will replace them (individually, not collectively). I emphasize in all my courses that students should see the AI/LLM tools as an extension to themselves, rather than a replacement to themselves.

Sadly, some students tend to misuse AI/LLM in places where it won't even function properly (for example, to summarize videos; ChatGPT cannot even watch a video!)

Another point is, coding is not the only job of a software engineer. It may be just 10 - 50% of the time. Rest of the time goes with attending meetings, making presentations, design decisions, testing, ... These cannot be replaced by vibe coding after all...

I also wonder... if humans stopped making content (blog posts, videos, drawings, audio recordings, ...) AI will continue to train on the slop it itself produced and keep regurgitating recycled slop. YouTube comment sections, Twitter feeds, LinkedIn comments, even YouTube videos themselves are AI slop. We are getting close to the dead Internet theory. Hopefully, it is just a minor, temporary phase.

Academia and how it distorts your perception of age

9-month academic contracts and
a little vacation in Barbados

Being a student can be fun. Yes, childhood and school days are fun. But I am not talking about that. I am referring to the university life. Especially if you do not have to earn separately for that. A lot of people, including me, lived with their parents during their undergraduates. It is very common when your university is in the same city where you already lived with your parents or family. That makes the undergraduate life more of an extension to the high school. For me, the real fun started when I went to grad school - two years after the graduation from my undergraduate program. For most grad students, one year gap between their undergraduate studies and grad school is inevitable. Because, you apply when you are done with your undergraduate program (usually in the fall semester) and that means, you are accepted for the following fall - making it a year-long wait. Some choose to apply for grad school while they are still in their final year of their undergraduate program. Works best if they already are extra-ordinary. But does not work for most. However, working a little before applying for grad school can be good idea if your grad school is going to be in a foreign country. So I worked for one year before applying for grad school. That gave me a two years of job experience in between my undergraduate program and grad school. In Sri Lanka, school years is meant to be 1 - 13. It shifts the US K-12 system by 1, with kindergarten becoming grade 1. So, there is no additional time. But our A/L exams, at the time I was a student happened in next year August (a delay incurred by 2004 tsunami) and then the university entrance was following year's August. Two extra years added! I was among the youngest in my undergraduate batch and I was among the oldest during my MSc... because of these two additional years and that I had worked for two years - compared to 0 to 1 year of the others.

Then, in Europe, compared to countries like Australia and the US, you usually must do a masters before starting a PhD. However, their BSc programs are usually 3 years compared to our 4 years. Oftentimes, in the EU, students do an integrated MSc of 5 years, where they complete their BSc coursework in 3 years and do the MSc courses in the last two years. For me though, that was a 2 years of MSc followed by a separate PhD program. In the US, MSc is often coupled with the PhD. You could start your PhD with just a BSc, and you could quit with an MSc in around two years if you have completed the necessary credits, on your way to acquire your PhD. I went on to do a PhD in Europe (Erasmus+ for the win!). I loved it. I was not in a rush. I spent five years to complete my PhD. I had scholarship after all. It allowed me to live comfortably. While US grad programs usually last up to 5 years, my MSc + PhD was 7 years. This added two more years, compared to my US peers.

I went ahead and completed a postdoc for 4 years, before moving on to my tenure-track position. In the US, a postdoc is usually considered a trainee. Or even a "student." Being referred to as a "postdoctoral student" was annoying to me. Postdocs are not very common in computer science. I did mine in biomedical informatics, as part of the school of medicine. Postdocs are more common in medicine after all. They last up to 5 years. Anyway, compared to many of my CS peers in tenure-track positions, my postdoc added 4 more years. So, I started my tenure-track position after a whole ten years, compared to someone who entirely studied in the US and then went on to their tenure-track position without spending time in a postdoc position. A decade spent extra indeed: one extra school year, one gap between school to undergrad program, two years working in middle, two extra years during MSc + PhD, and the four years of postdoc! I started my tenure-track position at 36. This is basically the early career in the academia, whereas, one in IT industry in this age will be in a mid-senior level as an engineer director or manager. The tenure-track assistant professor position lasts up to 6 years before you get tenure and get promoted to associate professor. These "early-career" years give you some benefits - such as additional training opportunities and grants targeting just you! You are young again, while you are heading towards tenure and (first) promotion in your life, in your early 40s! Fine, I just admitted I spent a whole decade with the slow academic progress due to my Sri Lanka -> Europe -> US migrations and long years spent due to these circumstances. But I tend to believe academia in general makes you feel younger since you are early career while those who went to industry are well into their mid-career. I know there are goods and bads in how this distorted perception of age. That probably is for another post.

Before Sunrise

Vancouver, a day with friends.

I recently watched the movie "Before Sunrise" on a flight. How did I miss it for this long? The movie follows the two lead characters as they walk across a new city, enjoying minor activities, all while having a non-stop conversation along the way. One thing that I loved was how the hero did not try to make perfect conversations, and did not hide their imperfections and conflicts. The lengthy walk and the conversations reminded me of some of my days. However, one thing that stood out was their decision not to share contact details by end of the movie, and rather deciding to meet at the same location six months from then. This is obviously in close contrast with how I have (and most likely most of us have) dealt in similar situations. We do not leave the friendship or relationship in the hands of fate when there are technologies available to be in conversation beyond the day we bid goodbye to each other.

But it got me thinking. The "online phase" of a once a real-world close relationship often just make the magic fade away. The tail end may not be as exciting as those few days. The frozen memories are powerful. The person in the memory does not change or age. They remain intact until the time does its thing. Events happen in order. Memories does not have to follow the same order, although the ordering dictate the experience. The most beautiful aspect of an experience is the memory it leaves behind...

This time for Africa

Kigali, Rwanda

My desire to travel to Africa started almost as soon as I moved to Europe. 2012 August. The Erasmus Students Network (ESN) planned a trip to Morocco. It was a cheap flight to Barcelona and then onward to Morocco in a cheap ferry. I really wanted to join that trip. Unfortunately, I could not join that trip as that group trip was for anyone who did not need a visa for Morocco. 12 years passed by and I visited every continent except for Africa and Antarctica. Of course, Antarctica is not even permanently inhabited. I visited Australia in 2024 August. Since then, countries of the African continent dominated my top-20 bucket list - with Sierra Leone and Kenya in top 2 spot.  

Eventually, this month, I visited Kigali, Rwanda. Rwanda was my 51st country. Kigali is a very safe city. A solo trip. But with many friends I made there, it felt home. Now, finally I have also visited Africa, and Antarctica is the only continent that I am yet to visit.

The missing pages and the return to normal

Charlotte: A pandemic era local trip

It has been five years since the pandemic was declared. Many posts are resurfacing to recall that weird period in time, the early pandemic. Hopes and fears. It took me four years to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic era. COVID-19 is a name unfair to the year 2019. Sure, the disease started in 2019. But it was not known to most of us until the last two weeks of January. The full impact of the disease was realized only in February with the travel restrictions and then March with "work from home" mandates. People eventually started to return to "normal." For me, 2024 was the first "fully normal" year. A full year with no more work from home. 2024 felt like a natural continuation of 2019. A perfect year. The stories of pandemic feel like a weird dream in the middle.

Recently, Microsoft announced it will discontinue Skype and migrate its users to Teams. No one likes Microsoft Teams. It is bundled with Windows Operating System and admins keep using it when better alternatives are available. As for Skype, its fate is sad. Skype started its journey as a peer-to-peer system. Microsoft acquired it, but still Skype was largely untouched. The pandemic time could have been a good time for Skype to pick up momentum. But somehow it lost that race to Zoom. Skype was a tool we used to communicate with family and friends. Teams was entirely for work. Merging Skype and Teams would be like merging Facebook with LinkedIn. Imagine your Facebook friends are now forced into your LinkedIn, as you have no option but to use the newly merged LinkedIn where you also have your Facebook friends. I can understand Microsoft realized there is no business potential for Skype. However, Skype will leave a gap no app can fill yet. Whatsapp and similar apps are phone-based, where Skype is available to computers across the operating systems as well as mobile phone. There are computer-based video alternatives based on computer operating systems - but they either lack mobile support or do not have the support to add friends. Having friends that you can check to see whether they are online and then calling them is a nice feature which Zoom does not have. Apps such as WhatsApp and FaceTime are also tied to the mobile phone number. Skype gives some sort of anonymity as it just needs an email address. Perhaps, that might be another reason Windows wanted to give up Skype?

Blurred memories of early 2020s

Social media keeps evolving. We had a period of "being nice" that made us all tip even the Starbucks baristas for that take out coffee order. Now, that habit sticks around, incorporating tipping in cashiers and self-checkout machines. Twitter was a refreshing part of our life during the early pandemic days. When the outside world was dark, Twitter gave us some light. Now we are back to normal. Twitter has gone dark and X. It is filled with weird people and bots. Everyone with a blue tick is focusing on engagement to get their cashback. Algorithm is skewed to incentivize arguments rather than happy memories and celebrating achievements. Most of my friends have left Twitter. I am still around although the conversations have either become boring or died down. It maybe time to quit. I am unlikely to quit while I minimize my time there to focus more on the physical world. The world has a lot to offer, and we are so back to normal.