Thoughts on the Current State of Buzzwords in Tech
Preface: This article is a collection of thoughts given my experiences in Technology. It does not necessarily describe the whole tech space however enough to the point that I believe that it is worth having a conversation on.
AI. Machine Learning. Neural Networks. These are words that have engulfed the tech industry and are keywords that students such as myself are trying to scatter across their resumes in order to attract recruiters at big tech firms. It seems like nowadays every company is trying to apply these concepts to their products and services and although there seem tangible benefits these offer in almost all industries, it seems that they are slowly becoming nothing more than marketing ploys. To further illustrate this point we can refer to a recent example of this with the IOT. A couple of years ago, a major push came to make all products part of the Internet of Things and in turn, we had the “smart” revolution. Thus products such as
Smart Fridge,
Smart Toothbrush,
and even Smart Fork came to market. Why were companies so focused on building such worthless products compared to real products that could use the IOT? It is because, at the time, so many were willing to invest in any product that was labeled as “smart” despite its practicality and usefulness. Due to this many companies exploited the real promise that the IOT offered as a way to get unaware consumers to buy their “smart” products at a raised price which resulted in companies actually focusing on advancing their products in a more relevant demeanour being ignored.
The reason I bring this up is because it seems as if this phenomena is repeating itself again. Nowadays investors are looking for a product that incorporates Machine Learning, AI and Neural Networks in anyway possible almost looking for how many buzzwords it can check off rather than the actual substance it offers. It is sad that companies that have used these concepts purposefully seem to now be categorized with irrelevant cash grabs that only use these technologies at a face value to market themselves.
This is the biggest issue I have with this cycle. Entrepreneurs and students like myself get caught up in trying to hack these technologies in their products in any way possible rather than actually find a meaningful way to apply them. I have seen many coop students trying to force some application of Machine Learning and AI in their side projects rather than actually envision a useful application for it. At Hackathon’s, we see projects that are truly ingenious and groundbreaking lose to products that found the best way of incorporating these buzzwords into their submission. In the same way, you have entrepreneurs trying to find impractical and unnecessary applications for these technologies rather than build products that advance us in a different way.
I look forward to seeing what the future holds with these technologies. We have seen already seen great developments utilizing them such as Dynamic Traffic Systems, Cancer Detection Algorithms, and Financial Fraud Detection. It is just frustrating how these technologies have become marketing words that everyone is scrambling to incorporate in some way rather than seeing them as technologies that can truly have a major impact when implemented correctly.
I am curious to see if you guys agree or disagree with what I had to say and have anything you want to add to the conversation. Given that this is my first article I hope that it was easy to follow along with and was an interesting read.
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Thanks for reading,
Daivik Goel
