How a Few Developers Saw the AI Revolution Coming in 2021 While the World Chased NFTs

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In mid-2021, mainstream tech attention was dominated by NFTs and the Metaverse, but a small group of developers quietly gained early access to tools like GPT-3 and GitHub Copilot. These developers described a sense of dread rather than excitement, recognizing that the technology represented a fundamental shift in how software — and knowledge work broadly — would be done. When GitHub Copilot entered closed beta in June 2021, it was already writing significant portions of boilerplate code, yet public discourse remained focused on virtual real estate and digital avatars. Attempts by these developers to warn others were largely dismissed, as the wider public had little awareness of what large language models could already do. The period between late 2020 and ChatGPT's late-2022 launch is described as a quiet but pivotal window when the AI revolution was already underway, visible only to those with access to early APIs and closed betas.

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