I'm the same. Half the time I feel inspired and excited, the other half I feel cynical and tired.

FWIW from my point-of-view as someone in one of those companies working on products (and who hasn't read the paywalled article) I see a few things playing out that are not new, mostly it's the same newer, bigger hammer syndrome:

1. Trying to solve the same old inconsequential problems but with new tech

This happens all the time. Eventually you realise that the problem is actually relatively benign. You want the hammer to hit home every time but realise that even if it did there is no real value gained.

2. Trying to solve a problem that's already been solved with existing more established tech

Open calls for ideas in company innovation labs or platforms are full of noise. Some of that noise is always around the same automation problems, usually some kind of extraction or some kind of categorisation in a workflow. Most of the time products exist but people are just unaware. In large companies the capability might already exist in house but there's a "must invent here" bias

3. Trying to solve hard problems without the right domain or technical expertise

There are legitimate problems that appear innovative and novel, maybe ones that have been waiting for this level of capability to come along so they can execute, however, adequate knowledge of the technical domain (fine-tuning, prompt engineering, zero-shot, context) or the problem domain (how to read a cat-scan) limits their ability to make a cobbled together PoC reliable, repeatable, scalable, trusted.

Think of it as some generalist buying a stock rally car to build a new racing team, but doing it all themselves instead of hiring a mechanic to tune it properly, or a driver to give you the mechanic feedback... or the mechanic to tell the driver what they can and can't do at the extremes... or the driver to tell the mechanic to FO and "fix" it. Dialogue.

4. Problem is too niche and hard to communicate effectively

If a project succeeds in an organisation and there's no one around to hear it, did it really succeed?

5. Lack of existing innovation culture, strategy, or clear direction hamstrings any serious attempt

A non-starter. A lot of organisations still can't embed or operationalise their good ideas properly. If they can't do that already, it's unlikely to change here.

6. LLM successfully implemented into existing product but no body notices or cares.

The whole "put a clock in it" from product design or "get it to send email" of software.

7. Hard problems even with the right attitude and team still take time solve effectively with relatively new technology

Ignoring the legitimate institutional roadblocks of assuring privacy, security, safety, ethics etc. It's still early days. Cost of O&M long-term is still kind of uncertain, as are some of the basic parameters like the context window. Increasing the size of it could fundamentally change your approach. Anyone who was building a system before plugins were announced probably needed to re-think a number of things and go back to the drawing board. Sure there are some who will just continue as planned and iterate later, but some will be cautious before locking in.

Lastly, I know personally for me, LLMs have become a large part of enhancing my daily workflow. They have increased both the quantity and quality of my output but the 2 fundamental problems for me are:

1. Remember it's there and to use it. (Can what I'm doing could be done with LLM assistance)

or

2. How to formulate a question or request. (This is a fundamental problem of all "work" and "management" how do you define and communicate effectively?)