This is an excellent piece Harry. You generously helped me with my long form thinking on the impact on teams a couple of weeks ago - and I think that is a critical part of all this. The unit of delivery is the team, and 100x the individual is all well and good but without the mess and joy of collaboration it has lost something fundamental
This is a brilliant read. It also really encapsulates that feeling I have often had that something is hollow without true, hands-on skilled grappling with it. I agree that hard work shouldn't be lazily romantised, but there is some element of hard work - occasional, rewarding truly challenging hard work, whether digging a garden or thinking really hard about how to edit a paragraph - that is exhilarating and conductive to happiness. And that if that's largely absent from life it leads to unhappiness. I think it's very unlikely that carefully designing human touchpoints with AI use will take this aspect of human flourishing into account - why would it?
This is an excellent piece Harry. You generously helped me with my long form thinking on the impact on teams a couple of weeks ago - and I think that is a critical part of all this. The unit of delivery is the team, and 100x the individual is all well and good but without the mess and joy of collaboration it has lost something fundamental
This is a brilliant read. It also really encapsulates that feeling I have often had that something is hollow without true, hands-on skilled grappling with it. I agree that hard work shouldn't be lazily romantised, but there is some element of hard work - occasional, rewarding truly challenging hard work, whether digging a garden or thinking really hard about how to edit a paragraph - that is exhilarating and conductive to happiness. And that if that's largely absent from life it leads to unhappiness. I think it's very unlikely that carefully designing human touchpoints with AI use will take this aspect of human flourishing into account - why would it?
Great read - you might want to check out this excellent piece by Daniel Thorson on similar themes https://intimatemirror.substack.com/p/the-human-alignment-problem
That is a very interesting read, thanks, and a perfect complement. That “third stage” is right on the money!
AI gives you output fast… and steals the felt part of making. You become a reviewer, not a craftsperson 😅