Ask HN: How do I get excited about technology again?

I feel like 2013-2020 was a golden age of tech excitement. I loved learning, and every week there was a new exciting product or technology that was going to change the world for the better. When you worked in tech, people thought it was kinda cool and respectable.

Cut to the LLM age and… It seems like most new developments just increase the size of the Dead Internet. Tech influencers are gleefully espousing mass layoffs and the biggest ladder pull in history.

Socially, I’ve noticed a big dropoff in consumer excitement and admiration for technology. I feel like developers are back to being perceived as sociopathic nerds after the brief rockstar era, since developers are the heralds of the “AI will take your job and that’s a good thing i promise” era. LLMs are supposed to make labor cheaper, but goods and services aren’t any less expensive.

Tech innovation today seems to be all about making API calls to ChatGPT and eliminating those pesky white collar jobs. The whole field seems like it’s been flattened overnight.

Can you direct me to something that’s fun to learn and explore that isn’t just begging the stochastic genie to format my JSON?