by
Adrian Daub
1
YOUR AI AGENT NEEDS A WORKFLOW ENGINE.
The billboard stands by a nondescript stretch of highway somewhere between Redwood City and Mountain View. A boom, likely a bubble, made manifest. A cry of triumphant return. And probably one day, a monument to a bubble bursting. All hype seems destined to furnish tomorrow’s ruin. But for now, this ruin in waiting stands by the side of Highway 101 to inform us that our AI agent needs a workflow engine.
Exactly 101 years ago, F. Scott Fitzgerald described a postindustrial wasteland on Long Island, “halfway between West Egg and New York,” with a giant billboard towering over it, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. This stretch of highway may be less desolate than what Fitzgerald described, but the billboards seem just as unsettling and disconsolate as the unnerving, faceless eyes of the fictive Queens optometrist.
Fitzgerald uses those eyes to find something sublime amid capitalist kitsch: the ephemera of consumer culture come to watch over and judge their creators, with the bizarre advertisement standing in for last things: God, fate, judgment, time. I feel judged by “Your AI Agent Needs a Workflow Engine.” First of all, because I had no idea, having left my AI agent lamentably bereft of a workflow engine. Second, because I don’t even have an AI agent. And third, because I have no clue what any of it means. Like Rilke before the torso of Phoebus Apollo, I pass before the monument and get a sense that I am being told to change my life. Unlike Rilke, I have no idea what is wrong or how to go about remedying it.
god he's so good
YOUR AI AGENT NEEDS A WORKFLOW ENGINE.
The billboard stands by a nondescript stretch of highway somewhere between Redwood City and Mountain View. A boom, likely a bubble, made manifest. A cry of triumphant return. And probably one day, a monument to a bubble bursting. All hype seems destined to furnish tomorrow’s ruin. But for now, this ruin in waiting stands by the side of Highway 101 to inform us that our AI agent needs a workflow engine.
Exactly 101 years ago, F. Scott Fitzgerald described a postindustrial wasteland on Long Island, “halfway between West Egg and New York,” with a giant billboard towering over it, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. This stretch of highway may be less desolate than what Fitzgerald described, but the billboards seem just as unsettling and disconsolate as the unnerving, faceless eyes of the fictive Queens optometrist.
Fitzgerald uses those eyes to find something sublime amid capitalist kitsch: the ephemera of consumer culture come to watch over and judge their creators, with the bizarre advertisement standing in for last things: God, fate, judgment, time. I feel judged by “Your AI Agent Needs a Workflow Engine.” First of all, because I had no idea, having left my AI agent lamentably bereft of a workflow engine. Second, because I don’t even have an AI agent. And third, because I have no clue what any of it means. Like Rilke before the torso of Phoebus Apollo, I pass before the monument and get a sense that I am being told to change my life. Unlike Rilke, I have no idea what is wrong or how to go about remedying it.
god he's so good
2
The fact that this billboard poses an unremitting demand, but that even on repeat drive-bys I cannot for the life of me figure out what that demand is, says something about the company it’s advertising. A company that, by the way, I have already forgotten. American billboards tend to be solicitous: they offer you a McDonald’s, a world-famous geyser, a strip club, they tell you it’s only five miles, and which exit to take. But these are the least solicitous billboards imaginable, solitaires throning over the highway, haughty and without any desire to be understood.
In this respect, this sphinx feels like a perfect distillation of Silicon Valley. The billboard makes a demand without being able to clearly express what that demand consists of. This billboard seems to be telling a story about something entirely different: the fact that people no longer project onto this region what they once did, and that the region has therefore ceased to offer a screen for those projections.
The fact that this billboard poses an unremitting demand, but that even on repeat drive-bys I cannot for the life of me figure out what that demand is, says something about the company it’s advertising. A company that, by the way, I have already forgotten. American billboards tend to be solicitous: they offer you a McDonald’s, a world-famous geyser, a strip club, they tell you it’s only five miles, and which exit to take. But these are the least solicitous billboards imaginable, solitaires throning over the highway, haughty and without any desire to be understood.
In this respect, this sphinx feels like a perfect distillation of Silicon Valley. The billboard makes a demand without being able to clearly express what that demand consists of. This billboard seems to be telling a story about something entirely different: the fact that people no longer project onto this region what they once did, and that the region has therefore ceased to offer a screen for those projections.
4
There was a moment when people readily confused men in turtlenecks with lapel mics pacing across a garishly lit stage with thought leadership. As a whole, we seem to have gotten better spotting that sort of thing as what it is: a pitch. Silicon Valley's ability to take over the world's collective imagination has noticeably diminished, in inverse proportion to its ability to actually take over our labor, our politics, our media. Silicon Valley's new innovations hardly get anyone excited, and they aren't presented to us as potential cult objects.
If your new iPhone now comes with Al and your vacation photos are automatically compatible with the virtual reality headset you'll never buy, the tech industry has replaced yesterday's glittering promises with the exhausted air of neoliberal government - the shrugging acceptance of having no alternative.
In the last five years, companies have stopped promising us the world and are instead content to dominate it. Their power of persuasion has run out; raw power remains. Every story about Silicon Valley will always be incomplete.
But this unassuming stretch of highway might offer a glimpse into how this happened.
There was a moment when people readily confused men in turtlenecks with lapel mics pacing across a garishly lit stage with thought leadership. As a whole, we seem to have gotten better spotting that sort of thing as what it is: a pitch. Silicon Valley's ability to take over the world's collective imagination has noticeably diminished, in inverse proportion to its ability to actually take over our labor, our politics, our media. Silicon Valley's new innovations hardly get anyone excited, and they aren't presented to us as potential cult objects.
If your new iPhone now comes with Al and your vacation photos are automatically compatible with the virtual reality headset you'll never buy, the tech industry has replaced yesterday's glittering promises with the exhausted air of neoliberal government - the shrugging acceptance of having no alternative.
In the last five years, companies have stopped promising us the world and are instead content to dominate it. Their power of persuasion has run out; raw power remains. Every story about Silicon Valley will always be incomplete.
But this unassuming stretch of highway might offer a glimpse into how this happened.
5
Successive waves of Silicon Valley hype have washed over these billboards, and then vanished from the earth. Ten years ago, the billboards overflowed with a cacophony of messages about e-commerce, customer relations management, chatbots, the Cloud. Then there was a moment in 2020, when they fell into disuse, when Silicon Valley-the region, as opposed to Silicon Valley the set of companies-seemed unsure of itself. Work-from-home became the new watchword, and the campuses along this highway stood empty. The shock of the COVID pandemic was global, but it chipped away at this region's self-image in a very particular way.
The region, the industry, and its billboards have recovered, and today they appear more triumphant than ever. And yet, as with so much that's currently making a comeback in the United States - Trumpism, oligarchy, white supremacy - one gets the impression that this isn't a more-or-less-normal swing of the pendulum. The boom, the bubble, the power that is currently swelling in Silicon Valley, and the ruthlessness with which boom, bubble, and power are presenting themselves by the side of this road, are more or less trying to equate themselves with the fate of the country, of humanity: if our bubble bursts, you, your planet, your future is going down with us. And so the billboards symbolize the fait accompli that Silicon Valley presents us with today: systemic relevance as an all-or-nothing bet.
Successive waves of Silicon Valley hype have washed over these billboards, and then vanished from the earth. Ten years ago, the billboards overflowed with a cacophony of messages about e-commerce, customer relations management, chatbots, the Cloud. Then there was a moment in 2020, when they fell into disuse, when Silicon Valley-the region, as opposed to Silicon Valley the set of companies-seemed unsure of itself. Work-from-home became the new watchword, and the campuses along this highway stood empty. The shock of the COVID pandemic was global, but it chipped away at this region's self-image in a very particular way.
The region, the industry, and its billboards have recovered, and today they appear more triumphant than ever. And yet, as with so much that's currently making a comeback in the United States - Trumpism, oligarchy, white supremacy - one gets the impression that this isn't a more-or-less-normal swing of the pendulum. The boom, the bubble, the power that is currently swelling in Silicon Valley, and the ruthlessness with which boom, bubble, and power are presenting themselves by the side of this road, are more or less trying to equate themselves with the fate of the country, of humanity: if our bubble bursts, you, your planet, your future is going down with us. And so the billboards symbolize the fait accompli that Silicon Valley presents us with today: systemic relevance as an all-or-nothing bet.
6
As an individual driver on Highway 101, you don't get the impression that these billboards want anything from you. These billboards are simply telling you how important they already are. Of the ninety billboards we pass during our drive, only about thirty have no connection to AI. The ones advertising Al are nondescript and interchangeable to a depressing degree. As Wendy rattles off what these companies actually do-background checks, website design, and (again and again) compliance - you get a sense of a crowded marketplace with very few ideas. "Wearable tech, shareable insights," reads one, promising "the AI data cloud." Saying that AI could have written that one feels generous. It reads like a bingo card.
As an individual driver on Highway 101, you don't get the impression that these billboards want anything from you. These billboards are simply telling you how important they already are. Of the ninety billboards we pass during our drive, only about thirty have no connection to AI. The ones advertising Al are nondescript and interchangeable to a depressing degree. As Wendy rattles off what these companies actually do-background checks, website design, and (again and again) compliance - you get a sense of a crowded marketplace with very few ideas. "Wearable tech, shareable insights," reads one, promising "the AI data cloud." Saying that AI could have written that one feels generous. It reads like a bingo card.
6
There was a time when tech took the effort to lie to you. The future it envisioned for you was undercooked and sketchy, self-serving and arrogant, but it was a future envisioned for you. The future imagined on these billboards is terrifying, and at best these billboards promise you might be spared that future.
They don't tell you what you can do with their tech; they tell you what you can prevent. Six of the thirtyish non-AI ads promote the new iPhone, five have to do with customer relations management (CRM), one has to do with crypto. The rest: United Airlines, Coors beer, a NorCal casino, a steak house, and "Caring Erin", a divorce attorney. We both cheer when a billboard appears for Shen Yun, a dance troupe sponsored by a Chinese cult. At least it's not AI.
There was a time when tech took the effort to lie to you. The future it envisioned for you was undercooked and sketchy, self-serving and arrogant, but it was a future envisioned for you. The future imagined on these billboards is terrifying, and at best these billboards promise you might be spared that future.
They don't tell you what you can do with their tech; they tell you what you can prevent. Six of the thirtyish non-AI ads promote the new iPhone, five have to do with customer relations management (CRM), one has to do with crypto. The rest: United Airlines, Coors beer, a NorCal casino, a steak house, and "Caring Erin", a divorce attorney. We both cheer when a billboard appears for Shen Yun, a dance troupe sponsored by a Chinese cult. At least it's not AI.
7
Silicon Valley has returned, with fire and fury. It does not promise a world in which Al makes previously unimaginable things possible but a world in which only Al companies can protect you from AI. "You" in this case being the owner of a tech company, not a regular user, citizen, human being. For the rest of us, these billboards evince open contempt: "Who says hiring has to be fair?" asks a billboard for Metaview, "unfairly effective AI, built for recruiting." "Trust Humans" declares one Orwellian billboard for Checkr—a service that uses AI to run background checks on future employees, pitched at people who definitely do not in fact trust humans.
Silicon Valley has returned, with fire and fury. It does not promise a world in which Al makes previously unimaginable things possible but a world in which only Al companies can protect you from AI. "You" in this case being the owner of a tech company, not a regular user, citizen, human being. For the rest of us, these billboards evince open contempt: "Who says hiring has to be fair?" asks a billboard for Metaview, "unfairly effective AI, built for recruiting." "Trust Humans" declares one Orwellian billboard for Checkr—a service that uses AI to run background checks on future employees, pitched at people who definitely do not in fact trust humans.
7
Just as Fox News sometimes runs segments with exactly one viewer in mind (President Donald Trump, these billboards have a target audience that runs in the low double digits. For all their parochialism, these billboards stake a claim to the world. It's unlikely there are billboards for these companies anywhere else in the world, but these companies nevertheless claim world domination.
They can justify their valuations only by promising to destroy not just your job, but your entire line of work. They can justify their high-flying claims only by strip-mining your posts, comments, photos. And they can scale only by building a gigantic data center near you, sucking up your water and polluting your air.
These billboards are claims to dominance, but those claims are not addressed to you. You are a mere onlooker to your own domination. There is something deeply unsettling about a power that seeks to justify itself but doesn't seek to justify itself to you. Such is the power of Silicon Valley. We can all opt out of caffeine, frame, C3.ai, and together.ai. Whether our opting out has any effect whatsoever is another story entirely. In many ways, witnesing the Al boom feels like driving along this forest of billboards: it's the dubious honor of getting to watch money fornicate with money.
Even Chevron's billboard along 101 is AI themed, emphasizing how many data centers run on burning oil and gas. Amid the glitter of solar panels to the left and to the right, the billboard is almost sneering in its petro-masculinist swagger: our Al is so important, we're feeding it your environment.
Just as Fox News sometimes runs segments with exactly one viewer in mind (President Donald Trump, these billboards have a target audience that runs in the low double digits. For all their parochialism, these billboards stake a claim to the world. It's unlikely there are billboards for these companies anywhere else in the world, but these companies nevertheless claim world domination.
They can justify their valuations only by promising to destroy not just your job, but your entire line of work. They can justify their high-flying claims only by strip-mining your posts, comments, photos. And they can scale only by building a gigantic data center near you, sucking up your water and polluting your air.
These billboards are claims to dominance, but those claims are not addressed to you. You are a mere onlooker to your own domination. There is something deeply unsettling about a power that seeks to justify itself but doesn't seek to justify itself to you. Such is the power of Silicon Valley. We can all opt out of caffeine, frame, C3.ai, and together.ai. Whether our opting out has any effect whatsoever is another story entirely. In many ways, witnesing the Al boom feels like driving along this forest of billboards: it's the dubious honor of getting to watch money fornicate with money.
Even Chevron's billboard along 101 is AI themed, emphasizing how many data centers run on burning oil and gas. Amid the glitter of solar panels to the left and to the right, the billboard is almost sneering in its petro-masculinist swagger: our Al is so important, we're feeding it your environment.
8
No, it feels like these billboards are a sunk-cost fallacy given physical form. They appear to be here for people who have already invested, or are fairly certain they're about to invest. This is why they are so maddeningly withholding. That's why this advertising is so unbearably self-absorbed. For a long time, tech companies reveled in the role of outsiders, even when the basis in reality for this self-conception was rather thin. But the self-driving cars roll through San Francisco courtesy of subsidiaries of the Magnificent 7. And the Al ecosystem, through the practice of circular financing, resembles a fortified encampment: gigantic companies like Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Oracle all own stakes in one another or are interdependent through licenses, for example, in data centers or chips. Here, too, the focus is no longer on catering to individual consumers or investors, but rather to the state. Because only the state could still save these companies if the sector were to implode-yet again.
No, it feels like these billboards are a sunk-cost fallacy given physical form. They appear to be here for people who have already invested, or are fairly certain they're about to invest. This is why they are so maddeningly withholding. That's why this advertising is so unbearably self-absorbed. For a long time, tech companies reveled in the role of outsiders, even when the basis in reality for this self-conception was rather thin. But the self-driving cars roll through San Francisco courtesy of subsidiaries of the Magnificent 7. And the Al ecosystem, through the practice of circular financing, resembles a fortified encampment: gigantic companies like Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Oracle all own stakes in one another or are interdependent through licenses, for example, in data centers or chips. Here, too, the focus is no longer on catering to individual consumers or investors, but rather to the state. Because only the state could still save these companies if the sector were to implode-yet again.
9
I begin to picture someone who works for one of the small "family offices," investment funds charged with increasing the fortune of a single wealthy family. When it comes to venture funds, family offices are often at the back of the line. A venture capitalist would much rather have a pension fund, a university endowment, or a sovereign wealth fund dumping billions into his accounts than a midsized family office. As a result, family offices often feel like they're on the outside looking in. I could imagine one of them looking at one of these billboards and thinking, "They're no unicorn, but at least they're an AI company." The investment world often operates with a distinction between "smart money" and "dumb money." But here it's probably more about early and late. The investor swayed by a billboard that simply says "caffeine" knows they're getting table scraps. Note that, in this image, our money doesn't even bear grifting.
We're not eating. We see a billboard with the word "caffeine" on it, and drive on, borne ceaselessly into their future.
I begin to picture someone who works for one of the small "family offices," investment funds charged with increasing the fortune of a single wealthy family. When it comes to venture funds, family offices are often at the back of the line. A venture capitalist would much rather have a pension fund, a university endowment, or a sovereign wealth fund dumping billions into his accounts than a midsized family office. As a result, family offices often feel like they're on the outside looking in. I could imagine one of them looking at one of these billboards and thinking, "They're no unicorn, but at least they're an AI company." The investment world often operates with a distinction between "smart money" and "dumb money." But here it's probably more about early and late. The investor swayed by a billboard that simply says "caffeine" knows they're getting table scraps. Note that, in this image, our money doesn't even bear grifting.
We're not eating. We see a billboard with the word "caffeine" on it, and drive on, borne ceaselessly into their future.