At the height of the late 90s dot-com boom, I worked at a small startup aimed at the K-12 market. A colleague regularly reported on funding trends and it was remarkable how many absurdly stupid ideas got funded. Pets.com has always stuck with me -- rich people somehow thought you could make money on the margins of overnight delivery of 50-pound bags of dog food.
Fast forward to the late 2010s -- I worked in health care research and had to put up with the wealthy tech blowhard whose startup planned to commercialize on some of our ideas. He screamed at me that PBS would be out of business in three years because all education would move to YouTube.
Sadly, so many people think that wealth equals intelligence, especially if it has been achieved in the tech or financial sectors, and that Musk and his ilk are worth believing. Products like the Juicero and Mark hilariously demonstrate why they're not. Great column, John.
Without going into any spoilers, watching Severance has been quite a thing in this "AI moment." The premise of a company that potentially is enlisting its technological powers to allow people to separate themselves from the "difficult" parts of living is striking to consider when in our current moment it feels like so many AI companies are trying to get us to outsource our thinking.
At some point, if you outsource everything, what's left?
(Maybe just watching TV shows like Severance, I guess?)
Like the Electric Monk, in Douglas Adams’s “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”, which believed things for you so you could be freed from belief, too.
It's ironic that sv funded a tech product in a market where the tam sam som (a requirement of every startup pitch deck) is essentially negative growth (Americans are reading less and a growing proportion of that reading is consumed digitally).
This is like bus101 bad idea... (Looks in the mirror... Sees echos of 'strava for writing'... sh*t).
At first I thought you were joking about the book mark. I'm happy to grab a tissue if I can't find another book mark. Even if it's been a while, I can usually remember what a book is about and I never ever care what other people say about it unless it's someone I know. Last week I took part in a study as part of the control group. I spent an hour answering questions about my mental and physical health. But in doing so I knew that a computer will analyze my answers and won't take into account that my sorrow and depression are caused by what's happening in Washington. Come to think of it, there are a lot of dumb people in this country. They voted for him. So maybe there is a market for a machine to do your thinking for you.
I’m so sorry to miss you at the White House in Barrington! That is right down the road from me, but I will be out of town,
Nope nope nope. They think people who are “tired of pixel screen bullsh*t” (copy on their website) want this?
For a while I thought the Mark thing was fake. It’s real?! My god. How stupid.
At the height of the late 90s dot-com boom, I worked at a small startup aimed at the K-12 market. A colleague regularly reported on funding trends and it was remarkable how many absurdly stupid ideas got funded. Pets.com has always stuck with me -- rich people somehow thought you could make money on the margins of overnight delivery of 50-pound bags of dog food.
Fast forward to the late 2010s -- I worked in health care research and had to put up with the wealthy tech blowhard whose startup planned to commercialize on some of our ideas. He screamed at me that PBS would be out of business in three years because all education would move to YouTube.
Sadly, so many people think that wealth equals intelligence, especially if it has been achieved in the tech or financial sectors, and that Musk and his ilk are worth believing. Products like the Juicero and Mark hilariously demonstrate why they're not. Great column, John.
Without going into any spoilers, watching Severance has been quite a thing in this "AI moment." The premise of a company that potentially is enlisting its technological powers to allow people to separate themselves from the "difficult" parts of living is striking to consider when in our current moment it feels like so many AI companies are trying to get us to outsource our thinking.
At some point, if you outsource everything, what's left?
(Maybe just watching TV shows like Severance, I guess?)
Like the Electric Monk, in Douglas Adams’s “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”, which believed things for you so you could be freed from belief, too.
It's ironic that sv funded a tech product in a market where the tam sam som (a requirement of every startup pitch deck) is essentially negative growth (Americans are reading less and a growing proportion of that reading is consumed digitally).
This is like bus101 bad idea... (Looks in the mirror... Sees echos of 'strava for writing'... sh*t).
Your comments on AI, its risks and benefits, are exactly what I've been thinking lately. Thank you for validating my concerns!
Thank you, John, for mentioning Coolest American Stories - a truly eclectic anthology!
Totally agree wrt THE MANY LIVES OF ANNE FRANK: https://substack.com/@erikadreifus/note/c-97400114.
At first I thought you were joking about the book mark. I'm happy to grab a tissue if I can't find another book mark. Even if it's been a while, I can usually remember what a book is about and I never ever care what other people say about it unless it's someone I know. Last week I took part in a study as part of the control group. I spent an hour answering questions about my mental and physical health. But in doing so I knew that a computer will analyze my answers and won't take into account that my sorrow and depression are caused by what's happening in Washington. Come to think of it, there are a lot of dumb people in this country. They voted for him. So maybe there is a market for a machine to do your thinking for you.
Anyone who would consider this product useful probably doesn’t even read books made out of paper.