I think the most surprising thing about spending 3 years in a frustrating dance with LLMs, trying to get it to do a thing it can do many times, but not all the time, is this:
I am even more optimistic about technology and AI today than ever.
When I told a friend this, she said she was surprised. Because of all of the news - either AI is going to solve everything and you’re missing out if you’re not Claude coding/custom GPTing/ agenting every day. Or on the other side: AI is the worst thing - devouring our environment, our kids’ brains, our relationships, our our art.
But I suppose my vantage point is different.
From where I stand, deep on the inside, I see the truth in both of those viewpoints. But I also see this glorious middle too - where there is quieter, softer technology that operates beautifully but without requiring the spotlight. That is solid and delightful. That seeks to do a job and do it well and then to recede back so that I may return to the real protagonist of this story - me or my kids or my friends.
So yeah, I’m optimistic.
But my optimism doesn’t come from a shiny happy hopeful place, but rather from a weary, battle-tested, knowing place.
Everyday I woke up to build Milo I wasn’t thinking about some theoretical design or headline. No. There was only this soccer schedule. Or that horribly formatted flyer or this ambiguous request. There was only - did we make that parent’s life easier today. Or not.
So my optimism is rooted in the depth of the details. Of the solidness of concrete choices. In knowing exactly how close and yet how far we are from reliable rescue.
As a builder, I also know that technology is not inherently good or bad. It does not have values.
But I do. As do the builders behind every product - hundreds of design decisions and trade-offs that imbue a product and experience with very real values and priorities.
What gets built reflects who does the building. Facebook looks a lot different if a mom built it. Uber has a different safety approach if a woman built it. Milo was weird in ways that really only others who ran point for their families understood. Because I lived it as I built it.
Now, as I take a bit of a break from actively building, I want to tackle something different - our imagination problem.
Imagining technology that gets us excited again. That serves us the way we want.
It starts with noticing. Then going to the edge with questions. Seeing the gaps and exploring the possibilities.
I think this exploration is done better in conversation so I’m going to reach out to some of my fav other thinkers and builders.
Some of the questions we need to ask: who is this built for? how does it make money? how is it designed to fail?
But for today, I wanted to start with something simpler:
What does great technology look like?
What makes it great? What does it make us feel?
I share just a couple of my favs - from my Freewrite to the iPod shuffle to Forest to Dex.camera.
If we’re going to design and build a different relationship and reality with technology, then we need to imagine it first.
