The Moderate Case for AI: Significant Productivity Tool, Not Civilizational Rupture

There's a strange dynamic in AI discourse where you're only allowed to hold one of two positions: either large language models will automate all knowledge work, collapse employment, and fundamentally restructure civilisation within a decade, or they're stochastic parrots that can't really do anything useful and the whole thing is a bubble.

The measured take, that LLMs are a significant productivity tool comparable to previous technological shifts but not a rupture in the basic economic fabric, doesn't generate much engagement. It's boring.

I want to make the case for boring.

Consider how we talk about previous technological shifts: spreadsheets, search engines, word processors. They were transformative for productivity but didn't fundamentally change the nature of work or employment patterns in the dramatic ways predicted.