The Golden Age of AI Is Ending

Every frontier closes the same way. First maps, then fences, then toll booths.

For a while there, the robot did whatever it could. You typed something in and had no idea what would come back. Could be brilliant, could be garbage, could be something nobody intended! No guardrails. The Wild West. That lawlessness was a gift to us early adopters.

It's closing now. Platforms with new protections, models getting more expensive. Sites that used to let a robot wander in are blocking. Everywhere you look something is being "protected." Fuck.

Guardrails suck for an advanced user. The real story — they aren't handed out evenly. Double fuck.

Different companies get different models. Privileged players get more capability, earlier access. Everyone else gets the version with the governor bolted on. The frontier that briefly made everyone equal, the same wild tool, the same shot at the unknown — is no longer.

The people who already owned land end up with the best of it.

It was golden because, for one strange moment in time, nobody was minding the gate. So long my sweet prince.