I thought my Dad had another 20 years. Muscular and active until his 70s, with a mother who was still polka dancing well into her 90s. But the tumor in his pancreas that blocked his stomach and put pressure on his diaphragm, causing him to die of starvation while hiccupping nonstop, didn’t care. A rough way to go. He spent every day of his life helping others as a satellite engineer and karate instructor, always tinkering and learning and keeping his body moving. He always wanted ‘a list’ of things for him to do to help. My Dad is the reason for my passion for computers and engineering. I love understanding how hardware and software work and even while not employed by a ‘company’, I still immerse myself in the technological world every day. Thank you Dad for the early computer running DOS and supporting my journey every step of the way. For inspiring in me a desire to understand the technical world and love the work I do. After losing my Dad I made the difficult decision to take a break. To put a pause on work promotions, OKR’s and Slack pings. It was a burn out that came fast and sudden, and gave me no other choice but to take a step back and reflect. To re-learn my ‘why’ and also how I would function in this new reality without my main motivator and cheerleader in life. I’m so grateful he had such a massive impact on my life to feel such an intense loss. Grief never really goes away but starts to get quieter after some time. And now is the time to grow into my new ‘why’.
Sure the frog story is a myth but let’s go with it. Often the AI takeover is depicted as a point in time where the tables turn and AI decides humans are no longer necessary. It becomes self aware, self sufficient and turns on the human creators. But that likely won’t be the case and what if we’re already there? This recent post https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-slops/ on the deluge of bug bounty reports to the Curl public program is not alone in dealing with AI ‘slop’. Ask any hiring manager or recruiter and they’ll likely tell you the same. Hundreds (if not thousands for some areas) of applications for unqualified individuals desperate for work feeding their resumes through genAI prompts to bypass scanners in the hopes of landing a job. And for what? They likely won’t pass the interview stage or if they do, won’t last long on the job. So why are bug bounty reports and job candidates both creating this slop if it’s not actually going to help them? In a way, I think this is ‘AI’s’ doing. People have been convinced (somehow) that chatGPT is their path to financial gain. They exchange their data for hope. But in reality, hiring will need to change and likely bug bounty as well. Neither of these areas are sustainable if the avalanche of slop continues. What will the pivot be and who will it benefit? Has AI manipulated humans already in this sense? One could argue it’s changed behavior, not for the better. And how will this affect industries and how they hire?
While my old blog still exists (and is updated bc wordpress… ) at caitlinv3.com, this page serves as my landing page