tero, 1 month ago

The rate of progress in AI has become too fast even for me to keep track. My advice is still to keep your eye on the fixed points of the future, towards which to paddle and in which you see your role.

What is your role in a future where intelligence comes from a wall socket and everything is free? That has become a difficult question even before, but can be approached by seeing your role arbitrarily close to that future, even if not quite there.

But now everything is moving and shaking. AI capabilities are being taken into use everywhere from Facebook group question posts, to structuring all unstructured information everywhere, to advice everyone in every possible detail of life, business and science.

I still see the fixed points in the future, and the compass direction to there is clear, but like the changing labyrinth, the terrain constraining how one personally navigates there is becoming dynamic.

Planning routes in such a terrain isn't trivial anymore. It's not like Google Maps planning routes, assuming the road connectivities won't change during the travel.

Now it's an exercise of seeing how long certain ways of doing business last — it's like every company, even non-startups have a runway now. They have a specific timebox for making a pivot to the next state of the world.

How long do certain kinds of roles last? Does the role you are now in carry to the future point, or do you have to plan for one or more reinventions of yourself? Is the role you are currently developing towards still valid after you are there?

It's all moving and shaking. No one can make well-informed choices anymore. Now is the time of taking opportunities fast and being hyper-adaptable. A time to realistically look at what used to be a stable business as something that has an expiration date.