Crazy as it sounds, the impact of AI on computing hasn’t yet sunk in. Today I’m parting company with Fly.io to work with Kurt on a new project. When I was a kid, our first computer booted straight into BASIC. I wasn’t about to learn BASIC, and computers weren’t as awesome as I’d imagined. By my mid-teens, coding only reinforced that crummy lesson. Suddenly, everything has changed.

I’ve been writing about how AI dissolves boundaries between backend and frontend, web and native. But AI is knocking down a much more important boundary: between programmers and users. My Mac menu bar is cluttered with programs I conjured for myself, with English as my programming language. Any power user can do the same. It’s inevitable.

Consider: what does computing look like when many applications have an audience of just 1-2 people? I’m about to see the entire concept of prefabricated fixed-function applications wash away. Users will interact with stuff they themselves conjured into being. Programs will solve their specific problems: getting an accurate weather forecast for Roscoe Village in Chicago, or whether to take Roosevelt, Madison, or Lake home.

These sound trivial. That’s the point. Soon, strangers will stop supplying our apps.