A watched pot will boil.
As it heats up, there’s no way to predict where the cavitation will start and which bubble will arrive first. But with enough time and enough heat, it’s going to boil.
That tree down the street is going to lose its leaves this winter. We don’t know which leaf will go last, but we can be pretty sure they’ll go sooner or later.
Complex systems can be predictable even when any individual node in the system seems unknowable.
One of the traps that marketing measurement presents is our unwillingness to consider populations instead of individuals.
“There, it’s done.”
This is the production mindset and the rule of school. Pencils down. Hand it in.
The alternative is, “Sign me up for a commitment to better.”
Ship an update every day. Learn from what works, relentlessly improve what doesn’t.
The hard part about this path is persisting. Never done projects pile up pretty quickly.
That’s precisely why they’re a competitive advantage.
Often aren’t.
In fact, they might be the safest way forward.
The first generation was built on large models, demonstrating what could be done and powering many tools.
The second generation is focused on reducing costs and saving time. Replacing workers or making them more efficient.
But you can’t shrink your way to greatness.
The third generation will be built on a simple premise, one that the internet has proven again and again:
Create value by connecting people.
We haven’t seen this yet, but once it gains traction, it’ll seem obvious and we’ll wonder how we missed it.
Create tools that work better when your peers and colleagues use them too. And tools that solve problems that people with resources are willing to pay for.
Problems are everywhere, yet we often ignore them.
And communities (existing and those that need to exist) are just waiting to have their problems solved.
[Here’s a list of network-based tech companies you may have heard of: Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Discourse, Airbnb, Etsy, Stack Overflow, Pinterest, Twitch, eBay, Squidoo, Snapchat, GitHub… You can’t use them alone, and they work better when others use them too.]
So far, most AI projects ignore the very network effects that built the internet. That’s almost certain to change.
For those with paraskevidekatriaphobia, consider this your opportunity to build something worth building instead of just waiting for the negative consequences of this change to arrive…
There is plenty of unintentional harm in our world. We’ve all been bruised or derailed by someone who had no ill intent.
We often respond with intentional harm, to make a point and to teach a lesson.
The alternative is clarity. Shared understanding instead of intentional pain.
Tap is going to keep coming. It’s the tip that’s up to us.
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