For the last month I’ve been reading The Innovators, a book that discusses the history of everything: early computers, programming, microchips, the personal computer, and the internet.
I primarily chose to read it because I want to observe the patterns from a higher level; it’s true that with current advancements in generative AI we are bound to witness a new technological era, only third to the two significant big events that changed humanity forever: 1. The dot-com bubble in 2000 and 2. The introduction of the iPhone in 2007
But people back then didn’t have what they could lose to new technologies as much as we have today. Powerful AI has only been publicly commercialized for a few months and we’re noticing a change in the way people are used to operate, plan, and invest.
And I’d frankly like to discuss things from my POV because I no longer know what’s credible on my news feed anymore. Apart from the fact that AI can now realistically generate all forms of media, I’m rather talking about the state of work! My older mental models about startups are changing very quickly. One year ago I knew that with the rise of low-code/no-code, the older models of building & scaling businesses from few years ago are now outdated, and that people in their early 20s are building successful companies from their home offices, BUT this is different – Success stories shifted from hacking together a set of tools → to hacking together a set of prompts!
So the problem for me became that the line between the older & newer models, which used to be so clear, is fading away very quickly. I can no longer identify whether most opinions I read on my timeline are helping or not. Because it seems like even the world’s thought leaders in the space are confused, and it shows!
Two days ago I was hanging with some friends when someone showed us a video of a Google Engineer claiming on a TV interview 9 months ago that Google is hardcoding their AI to technically make it dumber for the masses such that it can’t be known that computers could soon be “conscious”! Not only that but also AI models released to the masses are in nature much much dumber than the ones they develop internally.
Now back to “The Innovators”, one pattern I noticed while reading about tech advancements through 1940s-1960s is: While there was always public awareness about where the world is heading in terms of developing new computing machines, innovations which survived to be breakthroughs are often very few. So it could be that multiple groups at different parts of the world are working towards the same goal, but only one –or less– proceeds to come up with something that would be the basis for the next groupthink.
And it seems like for a large number of niches, that is the exact case today, people at different parts of the world are capitalizing on generative AI by building products that they hope to be their niche standard very soon. Multiply that effect intensity by a hundred-fold and you get a huge FOMO cloud that seem to affect each & everyone in the industry.
I’m a firm believer AI will only replace those who think it will, but at the same time, learning about what AI can do to your work is no longer a nice-to-have, but rather a non-negotiable. Because while it will not replace your job, it can make it 10x more efficient, and if someone is working your job and making use of it with the right prompts, they’re in theory running much faster than you are.