Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building today?

Posted by akashwadhwani35 on Sunday June 21, 2026 @01:47AM
from the ask-hn dept.

Feels like every idea now has “AI” stapled onto it. Curious what people would focus on if that wasn’t an option, what problems would actually be worth solving?

( 11 comments | 4 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by neuralkoi on Sunday June 21, 2026 @03:45AM (#48616602)

FB would still be throwing money in the metaverse furnace.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by austin-cheney on Sunday June 21, 2026 @02:32AM (#48616217)

The same thing as now at the same speed as now.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by purple-leafy on Sunday June 21, 2026 @05:04AM (#48617021)

Lol good one, made me chuckle

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by __patchbit__ on Sunday June 21, 2026 @03:07AM (#48616393)

Popper's 3 World ontological space for Artificial Conscious Intellect (ACI) in JAXA's Kirobi.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by mindcrime on Sunday June 21, 2026 @02:17AM (#48616146)

I'd be working on AI.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by pknerd on Sunday June 21, 2026 @02:33AM (#48616222)

bots/scraping/websites

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by blinkbat on Sunday June 21, 2026 @01:52AM (#48616044)

Same as now, games, but slower.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by purple-leafy on Sunday June 21, 2026 @05:04AM (#48617025)

Honesty is excellente

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Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by purple-leafy on Sunday June 21, 2026 @05:05AM (#48617029)

I’d be building an app that can build me apps that build apps.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by giardini on Sunday June 21, 2026 @03:33PM (#48621859)

I did that once! It was a rare opportunity caused by a system whose database was (predictably) corrupted by six months of programming errors. Took 3 days to examine the problem and code the fix and 36 minutes of tense run-time to fix the entire database (followed by 3 days of checking done by the DBA independently). What a rush - can't say I miss it though!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: If AI didn't exist, what would you be building to... by mikewarot on Sunday June 21, 2026 @10:54PM (#48625088)

I still want to build a bitgrid, and see if I can democratize petaflops.

Other things I'd like to build/have include an actual Memex that can ingest HTML, and actually use it to mark up hypertext, logging everything for at least a month before discarding the stuff I don't reference again from the cache.

[ Parent | on HN ]