DevRel in the Age of AI Is A Search for Meaning

When I was in college, I read an essay called "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" by a German literary critic named Walter Benjamin.

Written in 1936, Benjamin's essay talks about how new media like photography or film removes an artwork's traditional "aura," by which he meant its unique presence in a particular time and place.

About 20 years later, I became famous (infamous?) by printing out hundreds of thousands of copies of a book I wrote, called "Principles of Building AI Agents," and handing it out at every developer and AI event.

One reason this works: AI drives the cost of content creation to zero. In an age of LinkedIn slop, people react well to words written by a human and printed out on dead trees.

This is also why cinematographic videos, color grading and all, are having a renaissance. Countersignaling works.

So DevRel in the age of AI is about aura-maxxing. Creating art so specific to this time, this place, and this medium that a reader needs no annotation. They know it's for them.

It's this weird barbell world, part Zara, part Tiffany. AI increases the rate of tech change dramatically (at least three to four times by my estimation), so media decays incredibly fast. So, luxury in-person experiences (hackathons, events, meetups) become more valuable than ever.

Why? Well, here's an analogy Benjamin would have appreciated: During periods of high inflation, everyone tries to get their hands on metals like gold or silver that don't depreciate.

A premier live event is hard currency. It only happened once, and you were in the room.

The other thing that's more valuable now than ever is what I'd call informed trend pieces.

In my past life in the React web ecosystem, @swyx always had a reputation for giving the most think-y conference talks. He didn't talk about how to use RSC or how RSC worked under the hood. He talked about what RSC meant about the future of client-server interactions.

And with an increase in the rate of change comes an increase in our human need for meaning.

So here you are: at the premier in-person AI event, listening to talks created for this moment in time, trying to figure out what's going on, and what it all means.

Sam Bhagwat is the founder/CEO of Mastra, author of “Principles of Building AI Agents,” and previously the cofounder of Gatsby. He spoke on Tuesday at 4pm: “Every Harness Will Become A Claw”. Say hi if you see him!