I’ve been working on a game system for a few years now. At last check, it has over 27,000 words of dialogue. That’s roughly a novella’s worth of content that I’ve written in my spare time between building game systems, fixing bugs, and trying to remember what sleep feels like. This is a community project—everyone’s a volunteer, including me.

Every week, another vendor slides into your DMs with promises of “revolutionary agentic AI solutions” that will “transform your entire business.” The marketing drumbeat is deafening: Gartner names agentic AI as the top strategic technology trend for 2025, IBM declares 2025 “the year of the agent”, and McKinsey positions agents as “the next frontier” of AI innovation.

We’ve all seen it—-companies rushing to slap “AI-powered” on their marketing materials while implementing little more than basic automation or, worse, glorified if/then statements. The current marketplace is brimming with products that tout AI capabilities but deliver minimal value beyond the initial novelty.

The era of “move fast and break things” is giving way to a more thoughtful approach to technology development—particularly when it comes to artificial intelligence. As AI systems become integrated into the critical aspects of our lives, the ethical implications of these technologies can no longer be treated as an afterthought or relegated to a long-forgotten compliance checklist.