Finding the Middle in AI Narratives

Another major AI vibe shift is happening.The tech is moving so fast that our collective reactions are emotionally exaggerated.In mid 2022 most people didn't think anything could pass the Turing test. We got chatbots in 2023. We got agents in 2024, but nobody trusted AI for coding.We got Claude Code in 2025, and in one calendar year we went from "I'd never let AI code for me," to "I let it write the code but I review it," to "I don't even write code anymore."In late 2025 and early 2026 most boards and CEOs started demanding everyone use AI. For what, they weren't quite sure. The vibe was "we need to immediately replace workers with AI." People thought everything would be AI inside companies within 18-36 months.And now in mid 2026 the pendulum is coming back. "Oh crap, that's hard and expensive. We better slow down and rethink this." People start thinking this was a giant miss, and that human workers will never go away.The swing from "it can't code" to "I don't code anymore" happened in…