Others have talked very well about the concept of self, so I won't. I just wanted to add that we feel like there should be some meaning to our lives, make an impact that will be remembered for a long time. Sure, fine things to pursue but it's good to do so dispassionately keeping in mind that far greater achievers are not generally remembered. From the top of mind, I don't know who invented the safety pin or stickers or tshirts or ruled notebooks.
I take comfort in participating in this huge system of life and death and in knowing that billions have lived ordinary lives and died. I don't dye my hair and don't ignore signs of aging. I'm happy to grow older and retire and reduce my needs and spend more time with friends and family and when I die I'll join the legion of billions of decent, hardworking, perfectly ordinary people. It's a fine group to be part of.
I would say don't let the hype bring you down. A very large general solution can never suit every single use-case that exists out there. In fact, you should think about bringing in an LLM-based solution as well. If you can't beat them, join them.
Show your customers where traditional ML beats LLMs hands down.
People are using LLMs as a hammer for everything. That hype will die down.
At some point you need to stop seeking and start building, and this requires you to set down some axioms to build upon. It requires you to be ok with your “bubble” and run with it. There is nothing inherently wrong with a bubble, it’s just for a different mode of operation.
Find out how to run unit tests in your project and then find interesting unit tests to run. Set break points preferably at some launch points of your code and debug through unit tests. The process will take you through relevant parts of the code, the decisions being made etc.
This method has also worked for me when building features in a large codebase. Write a unit test first and then keep checking where the code breaks and fix those until your test succeeds. This is effectively TDD. Note that you might have to refactor the code for better design but it gets you started towards understanding the flow.
People that do not work in tech do not follow tech news closely. They are happy to use Facebook for the social features it offers. They wouldn't have heard of problems with Cambridge Analytica, hearings in the Senate, tech over-reach etc. I can imagine it is fulfilling to work for Facebook because regular users like Facebook.
If someone cares to fix problems with social media, then it makes sense to do it from inside as well as outside.
* obstinate: same responses/approach even when presented with new information
* persistent: updated responses/approach when presented with new information