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Nye Warburton
TLDR: The democratization of low code, easily accessible AI, and low cost hardware will spark a new revolution in personal automation computing.
In the 1970s, a group of Silicon Valley enthusiasts gathered to form the Homebrew Computer Club. (1) These were the computer geeks before computers became household items. They'd huddle together, excitedly discussing circuit boards and the basic "if-then" statements of early motherboards. Little did they know they were sowing the seeds of a technological revolution.
From this ragtag group of long-haired Palo Alto dreamers emerged figures who would change the world. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Apple, cut their teeth in these meetings. Future tech titans like Bill Gates and Michael Dell also trace their roots to this era, eventually spearheading the personal computing revolution that would transform our homes and offices.
Fast forward to today, and we're witnessing the birth of a new kind of Homebrew club. If you venture into online forums, chat rooms, and Discord servers, you'll find a decentralized community of home automation enthusiasts. (2) These modern tinkerers aren't just talking about circuit boards; they're discussing how to stream media from home servers, integrate smart devices, and create interconnected home ecosystems.
This playground of innovation isn't just about convenience; it's laying the groundwork for a new technological leap. Just as the original Homebrew club paved the way for personal computers, today's home automation community is setting the stage for the next big thing:
the integration of artificial intelligence into our daily lives.
The home automation landscape is about to experience a seismic shift, thanks to the advent of large language models (LLMs) and other AI technologies. Until now, home automation has primarily relied on simple "if-then" statements:
if someone approaches your house, turn on the lights;
if it's 7 PM, stream your favorite show.
But with LLMs, we're entering a realm of much more sophisticated decision-making. (3)
Imagine a home system that doesn't just react to predefined triggers but can understand context, learn from patterns, and make nuanced decisions. This kind of automation extends far beyond home serving.
Small businesses can use these “agentic workflows” to determine if an email from a prospective client is close to sale. It could manage marketing streams, interface with customers, process payments, and engage in casually spoken conversations with you and anyone else.
As Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, boldly predicts, within the next decade, there could be more automated components in our world than there are iPhones today. "Everything that moves will one day be autonomous" Nvidia claims, and given the rapid advancements in AI, this vision seems increasingly plausible. (4)
What's truly revolutionary is how this technology is being democratized. AI is no longer the exclusive domain of Ph.D. researchers. Thanks to user-friendly tools and platforms, the average small business owner or home enthusiast can now harness the power of AI.
Low-code and no-code software solutions allow users to string together advanced processes without deep coding knowledge. For a modest monthly fee, you can now record and transcribe phone calls, automate meeting scheduling, and perform tasks that once required a team of Stanford graduates.(5)
This democratization is further fueled by the open-source movement. Platforms like Hugging Face and GitHub are making cutting-edge AI models freely available. When tech giants like Meta release their multi-billion parameter models to the public, it opens up a world of possibilities for innovation at the grassroots level.(6)
As AI tools become more accessible, we're entering an era where being an "everyday roboticist" is not just possible but potentially necessary. The barriers to entry are falling rapidly. You no longer need to be a Python guru or have a deep understanding of machine learning algorithms. With the right tools and a bit of curiosity, you can start building your own sophisticated automated systems.
This democratization is happening on multiple fronts:
Hardware: I ordered an intel powered miniPC for less than 200 dollars on Amazon. (7) Instead of buying a single super powered game computer, I can buy 5 smaller computers and network them for the same price.
Software: Low-code platforms are abstracting away the complexity of AI integration. Make, N8N, WeWeb are just a handful of the software platforms proliferating in the space. You can now create advanced workflows that incorporate powerful LLMs without writing code.
Knowledge: The open-source community is sharing knowledge at an unprecedented rate. Whether you're looking to set up a home media server or build a conversational AI, there's likely a youtube tutorial, medium article, or forum thread to guide you. Often there are pre-existing templates.
Cloud Services: For those who prefer not to host everything locally, cloud-based AI services offer powerful capabilities at affordable prices. Transcription, natural language processing, and infinite number of computer vision libraries are now available as on-demand services.(8)
This convergence is creating a perfect storm of innovation. Just as the personal computer revolution turned us into amateur programmers, the AI revolution may turn us into amateur roboticists.
But this isn't just about hobbyist tinkering.
As AI becomes more pervasive, understanding how to work with these technologies may become an essential skill. Whether it's to enhance your business, protect your privacy, or simply stay competitive in a rapidly changing job market, having a grasp on AI and automation could be crucial.
Moreover, this grassroots movement in AI and robotics could act as a safeguard against the potential dangers of centralized AI control. By democratizing these technologies, we create a more diverse, resilient, and (hopefully) ethically conscious ecosystem of AI applications.
The future of automation may not be just about big tech companies rolling out products. My hope is it’s about individuals and communities shaping the technology to fit their needs and values to create an automated future that benefits everyone.
Nye Warburton is a creative technologist and educator. He lives in Savannah, GA. This essay was written and augmented with Perplexity, Anthropic Claude, and a variety of open source AI tools downloaded from Hugging Face. You can find out more about him at https://nyewaburton.com.
1. Homebrew Computer Club
On March 3, 1975, the Homebrew Computer Club, a hobbyist group that will spark the personal computing revolution, boots up in Menlo Park.
2. Home Server Computing
3. “…much more sophisticated decision making” - Agentic Workflows
4. "Everything that moves will one day be autonomous"
AI robots can adapt, learn, and perform complex tasks with precision. This is made possible by advancements in AI, accelerated computing, physically based simulation, and a vast ecosystem of sensors and actuators.
5. A proliferation of Low/No Code Tools
Low code platforms are on the rise in 2025. Discover the best low code platforms for Startups, SME, Enterprise & Developers.
6. “Meta releases their multi-billion parameter models to the public…”
The open-source AI models you can fine-tune, distill and deploy anywhere. Choose from our collection of models: Llama 3.1, Llama 3.2, Llama 3.3.
7. Beelink Mini PC
8. Cloud Based Services
Build production-grade applications with a Postgres database, Authentication, instant APIs, Realtime, Functions, Storage and Vector embeddings. Start for free.
