I often hear people say generative AI is useful for prototyping because it speeds up prototype creation. I strongly disagree with this, although I acknowledge that the speed gains from generative AI.

Protoypes should not be created in isolation. Talking to potential users will help guide what you prototype should do. AI lacks the ability to consider subjective user preferences that are described. While a AI prototype will be functional, it will do a poor job considering user preferences. AI also lacks the ability to convey the meaning of a prototype’s developer.

Quickly creating a prototype with generative AI can give a false impression about the state of a product. The prototype will need to be rewritten as AI is incapable of developing and maintaining user-facing software on it’s own. However, people will judge how quickly a final product can be delivered by the visual state of the prototype and how quickly it was made.

For example, for my website dmvboardgames.com, I made a logo using meeples to draw letters. and I use meeples elsewhere on the site. Meeples are used in many popular modern board games such as Carcassone. People typically think of games such as Monopoly when they hear about board games. I wanted a way to convey that my site was focused on events for modern board games, and didn’t want to use a more traditional board game symbol such as dice.

I also created a hexagonal background with light versions of colors similar to the ones used on the Catan board. Catan is a classic well-known example of a modern board game.

I had talked to enough people who played modern board games to know they were familiar with what a meeple looked like. I also realized that many people who didn’t play board games were somewhat familiar with Catan. Generative AI cannot talk to board game players or come up with a relevant design for a background. Users have also found that the hexagons and meeples looked interesting, even when they didn’t recognize what the represented.


I found a blog post that gives a great detailed overview on the problems with generative AI prototyping: https://www.frank.computer/blog/2026/03/prototyping-bottleneck.html

I think AI has a variety of great use cases. It has demonstrated consistent utility in tasks-specific applications such as email spam filtering and weather forecasting.

On the other hand, I think LLM AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude are scams. While some people are seeing practical use from LLMs, it is because of artificially low costs. LLMs are currently being subsided by billions of dollars in corporate investment and exploited labor.

I see LLMs in a manner similar to playing blackjack at a casino that gives you $10 every time you win, regardless of how much you bet. Following certain strategies will allow you to win more often, but you will still lose sometimes. Also, casinos are trying to make a profit, and aren’t going to hand people large sums of free money forever.

Using an LLM for the possibility of gaining a temporary productivity boost seems like a big risk for me. I don’t want to be dependent on a tool that doesn’t have clear bounds on where it is used and could become more expensive. Also, I see considering one”s audience as a critical part of high quality work, and LLMs lack the ability to understand humans.

I went through a period of overusing AI in the early 2010s because I overestimated the potential of AI. For example, I was under the impression that I could evolve intelligent AI for a real time strategy game through a genetic algorithm that simulated evolution. I was proven wrong when hitting a wall early in the process with automated formula generation.

Being in the right environments at the time helped me gain a more reasonable view of AI. Most of my computer science classes were about topics not related to AI, and my classmates rarely talked about AI. Also, AI was not a major focus at any of the jobs I had between graduating college in 2014 and ChatGPT’s release in late 2022. As a result, I was able to move away from AI overuse.

On the other hand, if I was in a college program or job where AI use was a major focus, I would’ve had a hard time moving away from AI overuse. I think it is important to consider that many people are currently in environments where using LLMs is a requirement.

In order to reduce AI overuse, I think it is important to help create environments where people can chose to not use LLMs.

This page has more details about my thoughts on AI. https://www.bponnaluri.com/ai/

The quality of Facebook has declined significantly in the past 15 years. Back in 2011, it was a great place to keep in touch with friends, share photos, and organize events. Now Facebook feeds are full of advertisements and content from random strangers people decided not to follow, and the site is designed to keep people online.

Building a people-centric social media website that helps people keep in touch and organize events isn’t simply a matter of building a better Facebook. Many people have built social media websites that are better than Facebook, but they have either failed to be Facebook replacements, or they have been turned into sites designed to keep people online.

My experiences trying to build a better Facebook

I created a website to advertise local board game events at dmvboardgames.com. I want people to use the site to find board game events where they can meet people and make friends. While it is functionally useful as a specialized alternative to Facebook, that is not enough. Many people are used to finding events on Facebook, and they have no way of knowing that dmvboardgames.com exists. I’ve spent time actively reaching out to people who play board games to let them know about dmvboardgames.com, and I will need to continue in order to make sure people know about the site.

People are also rightfully concerned about dmvboardgames.com using their data, and many are under the impression that the site is following the Silicon Valley model of get customers first, and then monetize. All code for the site is open source, and I will be running the site indefinitely as a non-commercial website that does not make a profit. It takes time for me to demonstrate that the website is different from a Silicon Valley startup.

Dmvboardgames.com also doesn’t follow many of the typical practices of a Silicon Valley tech company. For example, dmvboardgames.com does not have an official social media presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, or other similar websites. Also, all code written for dmvboardgames.com was written without the help of generative AI, and the use of generative AI for future contributions is banned. While I believe it’s best to keep following these practices, it does make it harder to reach out to people, since they aren’t used to the practices dmvboardgames.com follows.

Why building a better Facebook isn’t enough

There are many reasons why simply building a functioning alternative to Facebook isn’t enough. I think the biggest reason is cultural norms that have developed around the tech industry. They incentivize a focus on trying to monetize users as much as possible, while manipulating them into tolerating declining quality.

Network effects are a factor in keeping Facebook around, since many people find Facebook as a convenient way to keep in touch with friends and family. However, network effects aren’t enough due to the current quality of Facebook and the fact that many people including myself have already stopped using Facebook.

Many people are aware of the user-hostile cultural norms. This leads them to mistrust new alternatives, From their perspective, a new alternative to Facebook is going to become just as bad. People will chose to use Facebook because it is familiar, and there are known workarounds to problems such as seeing unwanted suggestions. On the other hand, if a new alternative to Facebook becomes just as bad, it will take time for people to find workarounds to problems that arise.

Cultural norms end up affecting the people working at tech companies. They are pushed to ignore their sense of ethics and prioritize corporate tech profit. Tech companies are also reliant on venture capital(VC) funding to get started. A VC firm ends up gaining partial ownership of the company. Through this partial ownership, VC firms will push a tech company towards additional monetization to gain investment returns.

Founders of tech companies are not immune from this cultural push to monetize. I believe that most tech company founders, including billionaires Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman are fundamentally decent people. However, they have an ongoing history of greed and manipulation and that is rewarded by their environment. It is practically impossible to successfully run a major tech company using Silicon Valley norms and maintain a sense of ethics.

What else needs to be done

Future for-profit tech companies should avoid Silicon Valley and find an alternative to venture capital funding. Also, I think more tech projects should be created by nonprofits.

However, this isn’t going to be enough. These companies need leadership not influenced by Silicon Valley tech norms, and they need support from a more people-centric environment. The toxic norms of the tech industry that came from Silicon Valley have spread across the US. They have widespread influence among regular people outside of the tech industry.

In summary, convincing Americans to adopt a less pro Silicon Valley mindset is an essential part of making sure we end up with a better Facebook.

Yesterday, I hosted a successful Friday board game night at City-State Public House in DC and realized I need to change the way I advertise events.

The event was advertised on Meetup and City-State’s website. I was concerned about attendance at the event because there were no RSVPs on Meetup besides mine. After arriving at City State, I sat down with my games, and thought I would go home after a while if nobody else showed up. At the time, I thought one other person showing up would be a success.

To my pleasant surprise, 10 other people showed up. One person said they found out about the event through City State’s website. Two of their friends also came, which suggested word of mouth helped advertise the event. Other people either saw the event on Meetup and didn’t RSVP or heard about the event somewhere else.

I also spoke with 2 people who were part of the Meetup group I hosted the event through, and they were not aware of the game night I was hosting.

Despite the success of the event, attendance did not reflect the level of interest people had in playing board games. A group that used to host Friday game nights at City-State had more than 20 people show up. I also used to host Friday game nights at another location for around 50 people.

Attendance and people’s awareness of the event showed me evidence of the following patterns.

• People often find out about events through word of mouth
• Meetup has become far less useful for promoting events compared to 4 years ago.

Here are lessons I learned about promoting events I host in the future.

• There is a lot of information on the Internet, which makes information about an event hard to notice. If an event is noticeable, that also means it is more likely to attract unwanted bot traffic
• It is useful to advertise events on a website for a specific location, because there is less extraneous information. Also, some people want to go to an event because of the location due to some combination of convenience, the overall vibe, and the possibility of seeing people they know.
• Although advertising events online is useful , offline advertising is better. Online event advertising can come across as impersonal, assuming there are no distractions from other information. Focusing on impersonal promotion goes against the way I want my events to be run. For example, if I hosted a board game night for 60 people where everyone played games in silence and said absolutely nothing during the event, I would see that event as unsuccessful. While board games are the main focus of my events, I don’t want people seeing my events purely as board game optimization opportunities. I want people to make casual conversation.