The golden age of AI.

This moment feels familiar.

It takes me back to middle school—’97, ’98—when the early internet was starting to bloom. The tech bubble was inflating, but everything still felt kind of pure. You could build something weird or brilliant or broken, put it online, and it might actually get seen. Distribution was easier, in a way, because the web was smaller. Today, distribution is harder because the landscape is infinitely bigger with a diversity of people online.

Still, that same feeling is back: wonder, dazzle, possibility. We’re in the golden age of AI.

And like the early internet, we’re operating in a kind of legal vacuum. No one’s really enforcing IP laws. Copyright? Who’s checking? It’s the wild west again, and we’re just riding out into it. Everyone’s aware of AI, but not a lot of people are fluent yet. It’s still a novelty for most. Still a toy.

But that’s going to change.

OpenAI just announced they’re giving their product to the U.S. government for a dollar. A dollar. That’s the kind of move that signals a new era is coming fast.

I remember when the internet was mostly nerds. We joked about the “internet hate machine” like it was just our thing. Then everyone got online, and everything changed.

Right now, AI is still mostly in the hands of that small, curious crowd. But it’s not going to stay that way. It’s about to hit the mainstream.

And I’m really curious—what does that shift look like this time?