Author: alearningaday

There’s a lot of talk about AI hype. I don’t know enough about the financial bubble aspect of this (though I thought Azeem’s framework was helpful). But, as far as its impact on the products we use go, it is understandable to see it dismissed as hype because it feels just like a technology wave we’ve seen in the past two decades – like mobile or cloud.

But I think there’s a difference. Mobile and cloud changed what was built. They didn’t fundamentally change how software was built.

The internet, on the other hand, changed both what was built and how it was built. Software built for the web was fundamentally different than software built for Desktop applications.

The AI wave, to me, feels closer to the internet wave. We’ll see new kinds of products and new ways of building.

When you combine those shifts and remember that the scale of this wave builds on the scale of the mobile internet, it becomes easy to imagine just how much disruption lies ahead.

It’ll take a while to play out. But play out, it will.

I was speaking with a professional fighter the other day, and we drew a parallel between making it to the highest levels of professional fighting and building something new.

The stats are brutal – the odds of success are impossibly low. If you believed only the stats, you’d never step into the ring, or start building at all.

At the same time, the stats are useful. They help set realistic expectations, so you don’t hold yourself to an impossibly high bar or confuse difficulty with failure.

But stats are only one piece of the story. The rest of the story is written by those willing to take the shot.

Richard Feynman once said: “You must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”

We don’t set out to fool ourselves. But we do it all the time by telling stories that explain where we are and why. Over time, with enough repetition, we start believing those stories, whether or not they’re true.

Maybe the biggest lesson here is to periodically audit the stories we tell ourselves. Are they rooted in truth, or just in comfort?

One of my favorite uses of Generative AI has been transcribing audio.

All of my posts used to be typed. Now, a significant chunk are simply me talking to ChatGPT, which then turns the speech into text reliably.

For years, voice never felt worth it. The editing overhead was higher than just typing. But now the equation has shifted – friction is dramatically lower as the quality is so high. That reduction in friction has changed the workflows.

That’s the interesting thing about AI. We hear grand predictions about human replacement, but the real story (for now at any rate) is that the technology helps make a collection of previously painful things much easier.

Each of these small but high-pain improvements, stitched together, can create real value. And taken as a whole, they hint at the scale of change ahead.

It’s a fascinating time to build technology products.

The more junk I have in the pantry, the more junk I end up eating.

Often, improving the odds of making better choices isn’t about more willpower – it’s about removing bad options in the first place.

Environment shapes behavior.

Design your environment so the better choice becomes the easier choice.

There was a recent fascinating experiment with a group of undergraduate students who are part of the digital/social media generation.

In the first half of the study, they experienced a collection of stimuli (a spanish guitar riff, an exposure to a cockroach, an electric shock, the sound of knife scraping) and were asked to share how much they’d pay to avoid the bad stimuli. Most folks said they’d pay $1.5 to $2 to avoid an electric shock.

They were then asked to entertain themselves with their thoughts for 15 minutes in an empty room. They were told that they could choose to experience one “randomly selected” stimulus during this period.

In reality, all participants were given the “electric shock” option. A computer recorded whether and how many times the participant chose to administer an electric shock.

25% of the women and ~70% of the men found it preferable to shock themselves rather than sit with their own thoughts (study summary).

Mindblowing.

When I reflect on the biggest global changes we’ve seen in the past 20 years, I think of politics powered by social media and virality.

This graph beautifully shows the representation of extreme views in all traditional media vs. cable TV vs. social media.

As extreme views increasingly become commonplace, so does its place in politics.

When I talk to new parents, I give just one piece of advice: Keep extremely low expectations – and let life exceed them.

I don’t share tactical advice because every parent figures out the tactics over time. That’s not the hard part. The real challenge is managing your mindset – living through the inevitable ups and downs, and sitting with the discomfort of losing the control you once had.

It’s tempting to over-optimize: the nap schedule, the sleep routine, every regression or phase. But the truth is, babies are doing a tremendous amount just by growing and making sense of the world.

Routines will come with time. Consistency definitely helps and can be a high probability strategy for many kids. But outcomes won’t always match the plan.

And that’s okay.

No eight-year-old struggles forever with sleep or with getting to the bathroom to take a poop. These things work out in time.

The reason I love lowering expectations is because it reminds us to let go a little, stay consistent where it helps, and – most of all – calm down.

There’s an eatery on the slopes of Blackcomb Mountain at Whistler-Blackcomb in Canada called Crystal Hut. It’s on the far side of the mountain and takes effort to get to.

But once you get off the chair, you are drawn in by the smell of waffles and maple syrup.

When I got there, I was reminded of Scooby Doo following the smell of food. The smell was that memorable.

You then get to a small log cabin – that gets very crowded during lunch time – where friendly staff serve the tastiest waffles with exquisite maple syrup, berries and such. It’s been over more than a year since we went to Crystal Hut and I still think of the place every time I see a waffle.

I’ve eaten waffles many times over the years. They were all events that I had, for the most part, forgotten.

Not at Crystal Hut though.

It wasn’t an event, it was an experience.

It made me realize how the most memorable experiences have a way of engaging many of our senses. In this case, the combination of the view, the taste, and the smell combined to transform something seemingly ordinary to an unforgettable memory.

Sometimes the sternest test of our character isn’t in how we hustle when the chips are down.

It’s in how we behave when we have to wait.