Entering November, in the recurring cycle of the years, it is once again time to prepare for the 2026 outlook.
So I dug out the materials from offline exchanges back when ChatGPT was first released in 2023.
Looking back now, whether I was right or wrong then doesn't matter at all. In fact, it sends a chill down my spine to think how arrogant I must have been to dare write and draw like that back then; and how much free time I must have had to create such drawings...
Every time this moment arrives, I always return to the end of 1989 and early 1990—the first "BEGIN END," and the first time I played the first game of my life on a Laser-310 with a green phosphor screen: timed typing from A to Z. I even took a little detour while writing this: I asked Gemini to recreate that program and timed myself. The code was simple and worked on the first try, but seeing that fluorescent green screen and the blinking full-width cursor still moved me.
More than thirty years have passed, and every time I return to that moment, I marvel that no amount of imagination could have made me believe what the world looks like today. So, at this moment, how much arrogance and ignorance would it take to dare predict the future?
Unfortunately, I still have to talk nonsense with a straight face; fortunately, it's not at this very moment, nor is it happening immediately.
Indeed, computer programs opened a door. Theoretically, through something called programming languages (such as BASIC, PASCAL, C/C++, Python, ...), computers can be made to achieve any functionality.