# December 2023: the generative turn (/docs/journey/2023-the-generative-turn)

---
type: Document
title: "December 2023: the generative turn"
description: The week the repositories changed character, from predictive models to generative AI.
status: stable
order: 4
generated: { by: "process:claude-code", at: 2026-08-26T19:45:00Z }
sources:
  - id: github-repos
    title: GitHub API, repositories owned by rrizwan98, read 26 August 2026
    resource: https://api.github.com/search/repositories?q=user:rrizwan98
  - id: journey-note
    title: "From Predictive AI to Forward Deployed Engineer: My 6-Year Journey, Raza Rizwan, July 2026"
    resource: "Raza Rizwan, From Predictive AI to Forward Deployed Engineer: My 6-Year Journey, a July 2026 note kept as FDE-Journey-Raza-Rizwan.md; the text behind the former portfolio journey page"
verified:
  - { by: "human:rrizwan98", at: 2026-08-30T12:30:00Z }
ksor:
  audience: [public]
  approval: { by: "human:rrizwan98", at: 2026-08-30T12:30:00Z }
trust_tier: human-reviewed
build_id: sha256:d9f989bee8fa4c15cf0f7f1572f9e9a18305ef4e2ce0c3cfb6a5a421ead6dc1d
dirty: true
---

For three years every repository was a model, a pipeline or a deployment of
one. In the last two weeks of 2023 that stops.[^journey-note]

## The turn, dated

| Created | Repository | Visibility | What it is |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2023-12-18 | (private) | private | A Gemini experiment |
| 2023-12-24 | Generative-Ai | public | First generative-AI repository |
| 2023-12-26 | flower-classification-app | public | A last classifier, shipped as an app |
| 2023-12-27 | (private) | private | An agriculture solution, end to end |
| 2023-12-31 | learn_GenAI | public | GenAI learning, started on the last day of the year |

Five repositories in thirteen days, three of them generative.[^github-repos]
The last classifier and the first generative repositories sit two days apart.

## Why it matters

Nothing from the earlier eras was thrown away. The MLOps habits, the AWS
deployment work and the API discipline are exactly what the next era needs,
because a language model is only useful when it is wrapped in a service a
business can call. The turn changed what was being built, not how it was
shipped.

Next: [2024: GenAI APIs and microservices](2024-genai-apis.md).

[^github-repos]: GitHub API, repositories owned by rrizwan98, read 26 August 2026: creation dates of the five repositories created between 18 and 31 December 2023.
[^journey-note]: From Predictive AI to Forward Deployed Engineer: My 6-Year Journey, Raza Rizwan, July 2026.