I’m writing again… | I, Cringely
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I’m writing again…
I’m Writing Again
For those of you who are still here — and given how long it’s been, "still here" is a real act of patience — thank you. I haven’t written a column since 2022.
Just like everyone else, I’ve been busy all this time on Artificial Intelligence, founding with two partners a company called 2Brains (why it wasn’t 3Brains I’ll never know) that I will explain to you shortly. The work we were doing together is unfinished, but it’s not stopped. The patents are filed, the architecture is documented, and the small team continuing the work includes me. Writing is part of how I think; not writing for three years has felt like holding my breath.
So I’m back. Not on a fixed schedule yet — I’ll publish when I have something worth saying — but back. The first real piece is coming this week, and it makes the case that the trillion-dollar bet the AI industry is making right now may be wrong, and that there’s an architectural alternative we’ve patented and built. We’ll see what you think.
For the readers who’ve been here since the InfoWorld days, or the PBS series, or the early years of this site: I’m grateful you waited. For the readers who found me more recently and are wondering what they signed up for: welcome. The work continues.
— Bob
By Robert X. Cringely|May 21st, 2026|Uncategorized|25 Comments
25 Comments
Ade<br>May 21, 2026 at 11:29 am - Reply
Welcome return! been following since the late 90s. Read the book, watched the series 🙂
Scott<br>May 21, 2026 at 12:04 pm - Reply
Been with you since the Triumph of the Nerds days. Welcome back Bob.
Jeremy Reimer<br>May 21, 2026 at 12:08 pm - Reply
Wow. I was not expecting to find this in my RSS feed. And I have to say: welcome back.
Still, I’m disappointed to find yet another startup that will never go anywhere. Except this time it’s AI. Of course it is. Everyone is all AI all the time. All the scammers have jumped off the crypto bandwagon and they are full on with the latest grift. It’s exhausting.
Generative AI is just another tool. It’s useful for some things, but useless for others.
It’s like we live in a world where all the tech companies pumped trillions of dollars investing into the little blue grammar check squiggles in Word. They all want to tell us that it will change everything. What they aren’t telling us is that "AI" is polluting the Internet with non-stop slop. The next generation of AI will be trained on the slop written by the last one. And so it will gradually get worse, and worse, until it becomes completely useless.
That is, unless the world’s economy doesn’t crash before that happens, thanks to the ridiculous bubble all this hype has generated.
Well, I wish you the best of luck with your new startup. I hope it does just as well as the electric planes, the moon probe, the aluminum foil hard drives, the Mineserver, and the F-104-launched satellites.
Jeremy Reimer<br>May 21, 2026 at 12:32 pm - Reply
Wait a minute here. You wrote that since 2022, you’ve been busy "founding with two partners a company called 2Brains". But a quick Google (using the non-AI part that actually works thanks to udm14) took me to 2Brains’ actual website. It’s a huge pile of buzzwords, but it does have an About page.
It says 2Brains was founded in 2014. They pivoted to AI in 2025. Then they were acquired by Acid Labs in 2026.
So… are you just making this all up? Again?
Rick Church<br>May 21, 2026 at 1:55 pm - Reply
Welcome back!!
Lappan<br>May 21, 2026 at 2:26 pm - Reply
@jeremy – how time flies, that it’s already 2.5 years since the last day of commenting. Thanks for that list of previous wheezes – have to say they were mostly rather more memorable than I fear the AI will be, unless it’s amusing grandiose
Andrew Price<br>May 21, 2026 at 3:19 pm - Reply
This is like encountering an old friend unexpectedly. Welcome back indeed!
Doug Johnson<br>May 21, 2026 at 3:36 pm - Reply
Been with you since InfoWorld broadsheet days. I appreciate what you share, let the naysayers bark like the dogs they can be
mexsudo<br>May 21, 2026 at 3:43 pm - Reply
welcome back
Jeremy Reimer<br>May 21, 2026 at 4:19 pm - Reply
@Doug Johnson do you appreciate Bob sharing things that are provably wrong with a single Google search?
Bob says he co-founded 2Brains in 2022. The 2Brains website says it was founded in 2014.
Gosh, who do we believe?
Jeremy Reimer<br>May 21, 2026 at 4:50 pm - Reply
Also, "I haven’t written a column since 2022" is wrong. You wrote three columns in 2023! They are on the front page of this site!
Also, also, threaded replies are broken again.
Champs<br>May 21, 2026 at 9:09 pm - Reply
…and that’s the power of RSS, for better or for worse.
Tim<br>May 21, 2026 at 11:56 pm - Reply
Oh, wow, welcome back. I have probably opened this page a few dozen times, hoping for an update. And thank you for writing Accidental Empires ages ago, which inspired me, a kid from Germany, to pursue a career in joining failing...