mister automate

Even if Outlook went down for a long time.

Occasionally I'll come across someone asking "If we took AI away would you still be able to do your job"

Now, as an AI Solutions Engineer, that's mildly an existential crisis. 😂

But seriously, it's kind of a dumb question.

Work is so different now.

Before the printing presses, mailing out thousands of pamphlets wasn't a thing.

Before AI, reading terms and conditions wasn't a thing either. (oops, did I just admit to falsely selecting that check box)

Let's say someone asked you to depart ORD airport via horse and buggy. What a joke.

We build our lives around the latest tech, and occasionally get to enjoy the peace and quiet (or expensive frustration) of a major outage.

Statistics show a high chance of survival. It will be okay.

If you are not familiar, Compass is my task management app, which I use all the time, but hardly use (yes both are true).

My agents manage it for me.

In my mind, task management is ripe for a complete redesign. I hope and expect ChatGPT and Claude to simply eat it up.

These big companies are clearly pushing hard to master the perfect memory harness, and, given a bit more structure they should definitely be able to master the management of "What should my Homo sapien be applying their attention to at this moment?"

And then project management software. Asana, Monday and ClickUp probably aren't scared, and somehow may very well thrive.

But deep down I have this efficiency thirst that would love to see project management software become completely irrelevant.

AI should just handle all of that. End to end.

And the UI which we see should yes, be AI, but not the text we are familiar with today.

A morphing dashboard of sorts that keeps a live view of what is most important.

Is it crazy to hope and work towards making irrelevant my skills and all that I've worked to build? Maybe. But mostly it's just that I can hardly wait for the future.

Bring it on!

You don't have to try every food.

If you are familiar with the ingredients, your brain can crank through the numbers to give you a hint about whether you will enjoy a different mix.

Peanut butter burgers, salted watermelon, Oreos & salsa... Whatever you want.

The prediction won't be perfect, but your taste and level of gustatory pleasure isn't an exact science either.

What intrigues me about flavor math is (well first of all I've never heard anyone discuss it, and secondly) it's a mix of science (particles + cooking strategy) and humanity. Taste.

I'm seeing a similarity in trying to predict the future of everything post AI.

For example, CGP Grey predicted in 2014 that as soon as driverless cars got better than humans, society would quickly swap over.

As it plays out, when hard facts and data meet humanity, forecasting isn't so simple.

What will life be like when having a personal AI team is a societal expectation as much as owning a smartphone is today?

Where will SaaS land when AI builds and uses its own free version?

Will parents really tell their kids to become plumbers?

We've had the human side for a while now, but AI has introduced a whole new flavor which will get mixed with everything.

So if you want to predict, you'd better be good at flavor math.

What if vendors never stated prices, and customers decided how much to pay after the work was done?

Vendors would choose who to serve and when, based on reviews left by other vendors. Pay well, and you'd earn a reputation that made others eager to prioritize your requests.

If someone's driveway was covered with leaves, you might clear it without asking. Worst case, you don't get paid. More often, someone would request the work.

In a way, this is what the tipping economy implies. We're not getting paid enough, so pay whatever you want. But when everyone asks for tips, it gets annoying.

Reverse Economy changes the incentive. Instead of vendors asking customers for more money, customers have a reason to be more generous.

Imagine getting refused service at a restaurant because of your bad reviews from vendors.

It's interesting to think of the customer as the service provider.

What kind of customer are you? How well do you pay? How quickly? How easy are you to work with?

It's a side of the economy we rarely think about.

Even with prices, what if we focused less on getting the best deal and more on being the customer everyone wanted to serve?

Partially inspired by this interesting article from Seth Godin: Hospitality in the Mirror.