I'm writing to think, learn, and remember in public. I'll be here everyday.
The bucket-list vacation. The move away from here to somewhere you always wanted to be. The new job or new business.
There might be good reasons that now isn’t the time.
But inertia isn’t one of them. Nor is fear of what-if. Nor is comfort.
Why not now?
For almost 200 years, the US has had two great, almost universal community-building institutions.
Schools and workplaces.
Remote school and work through computers and the internet, and now the AI accelerator has and will continue to break down these institutions for community building. Less and less proximity will inevitably lead to less community.
We have tons of other community-building institutions, of course. But there’s just something about these two that tugs at me a bit.
I do wonder — and also hope — if our new reality will provide new community-building opportunities.
When we find them, let’s lean in.
Time passes differently for me than it does for you.
Physics says so.
It also passes differently for you now than it did when you were younger. Time speeds up as we get older. The seasons come quicker. The vacations are shorter. The numbers go up faster.
The future becomes the near future, or even now. What was possibility becomes reality or never gonna happen. What might be either is or never will be.
The time is yours. What will you do with it?
“Wall Street banks are pushing large law firms to cut fees, arguing that the business model that has enriched top lawyers for decades is not sustainable in an era of AI.”
From Marginal Revolution
Even though this makes complete sense, it’s hard to see how this will play out. Big firms are really good at making money and, even more so, protecting that revenue stream.
Yes, AI should knock down the costs. But will it?
Big heads are hard to cut off.
“Don’t build a space shuttle to drive down the street to the grocery store.”
AI does the research. It creates the documents. It writes the code. It tests the code.
You’re the overseer with a million ideas. You think they’re good ideas.
We’ve always had to worry about building something too complex, too featureful, and too hyperbolic for the set of requirements. That’s part of the product and engineering tradeoff. And the friction of building has helped keep this problem in check.
Space shuttles, for all of their awesomeness, are terrible grocery-getters.
Requirements still matter. Even if building it is frictionless.
Remember the annoyance of spam emails? Ah, the good ole days.
Now it’s…
“Hey, remember me? Wanna have dinner again?”
And
“Hello, I’m Jane, your loan officer. You’ve been approved for…”
I’m getting about 15 of these a day in various forms into my text and voicemail. I’m sure you are as well.
Computers made spam almost frictionless and costless, but at least someone had to sit in a chair and do something. AI breaks those chains. A prompt plus a few tokens, and you have an autonomous spamming army.
Thanks, AI.
We’re gonna need some friction.
If you’re stuck and nothing’s coming out.
No big ideas. No curiosity. Nothing you’re working out.
Maybe it’s because nothing interesting is going in.
Keep the inflow interesting and plentiful.
Theoretical means what we expect based on how we think it works. We’ve done analysis and math, and drawn these conclusions through reasoning.
Empirical means what we expect based on what we’ve seen in the real world. We’ve watched and measured, and we’ve drawn these conclusions through observation.
For thousands of years, humans worked in both worlds. Sometimes with tension (like in the Physics world) and friendly one-upmanship about which is more important. Both approaches require creativity and a solid knowledge base about the topic.
Now we can add AI in.
For theory, AI helps because it can find patterns that we can’t or haven’t yet and it’s really good at using tools that we’ve provided for it.
For empiricism, AI helps because it can run bajillions of tests and iterations, and it’s really good with massive data sets.
In both, it can connect the dots across its eidetic, almost infinite memory.
But it can’t create. Not the way we do.
Generative is not the same as creative. AI looks creative, but its still just statistical.
Whether we’re talking about theoretical or empirical, AI helps move everything forward, but we, the humans, are still the secret sauce.
AI is already running a lot of HR departments.
HR departments use AI helpers for the following areas:
Some of the reported benefits:
That’s good, right?
AI helps all of us knowledge workers. You should be using it (correctly).
HR has “human” in its name. Humans work. Humans lead. Humans decide.
Let’s be sure to keep the humans at the center of the HR department.
Whether ChatGPT, Claude, or whatever AI-assistant you maybe using, do you think of it as an actual person in your computer?
I do. Sort of.
Clearly, there is no little man in my machine. I know this both intellectually and emotionally. However, it helps me to think as if there is.
It helps me in two ways:
The guy in my computer is a mental model. Not a real one.
Maybe it’s creepy. Maybe it’s childish. But it certainly helps me.
