My challenge to you is why hasn't this happened already? After all, we've had PowerPoint for a long time. Why haven't experiments like Circa and Axios gone mainstream? You write: "In a world of ever-increasing information, we’ll turn more and more to systems that can process all that writing (and video, and audio) for us." I think in such a world, we'll want the opposite: narrative, discursive formats. Cf the success of Netflix documentaries and hour-long podcasts. Reading your piece sent my mind off on a few tangents and made me think. An AI-ready, two-paragraph version would have done none of that.
Thanks for keeping this great blog going, and Kung Hei Fat Choi from your former colleague Vincent B.
I think we'll have both, per the 'archipelagos of trust' and AI-intermediated information. Yes, there are some things that I want to savor in an unedited, unintermediated form, and those can be everything from a great podcast (so I can hear the voices and the chemistry) to a lovely 4,000-word narrative or 600-page book where I want to enjoy the writing as much as the information. And then there's a ton of stuff I just want to core information and/or want the information without all the information I already know. And that's where I think AI systems come in.
I think we have selection bias when we think of the great work we enjoy and forget about the quick and dirty facts we also need and consume. There are many great one-hour podcasts, and I don't have time to listen to them all.
As for Circa, but alas without the tech to support it. And Axios isn't really intermediated information as much as it is one-size-fits-all, but a smaller size; it solves for time and attention but not personalization.
My challenge to you is why hasn't this happened already? After all, we've had PowerPoint for a long time. Why haven't experiments like Circa and Axios gone mainstream? You write: "In a world of ever-increasing information, we’ll turn more and more to systems that can process all that writing (and video, and audio) for us." I think in such a world, we'll want the opposite: narrative, discursive formats. Cf the success of Netflix documentaries and hour-long podcasts. Reading your piece sent my mind off on a few tangents and made me think. An AI-ready, two-paragraph version would have done none of that.
Thanks for keeping this great blog going, and Kung Hei Fat Choi from your former colleague Vincent B.
I think we'll have both, per the 'archipelagos of trust' and AI-intermediated information. Yes, there are some things that I want to savor in an unedited, unintermediated form, and those can be everything from a great podcast (so I can hear the voices and the chemistry) to a lovely 4,000-word narrative or 600-page book where I want to enjoy the writing as much as the information. And then there's a ton of stuff I just want to core information and/or want the information without all the information I already know. And that's where I think AI systems come in.
I think we have selection bias when we think of the great work we enjoy and forget about the quick and dirty facts we also need and consume. There are many great one-hour podcasts, and I don't have time to listen to them all.
As for Circa, but alas without the tech to support it. And Axios isn't really intermediated information as much as it is one-size-fits-all, but a smaller size; it solves for time and attention but not personalization.
Found it. Glad I did!