3. The New Producers: AI's Remix on Business & Creativity
Diving into the Technological Currents Reshaping Tomorrow's Business World.
Hey there, I'm Max! For the past decade, I've been utterly fascinated by the world of data, analytics, AI, and all the incredible things we can do with it. It's not just a day job for me; it's my evening passion too, diving deep into reading and writing about these topics. Now, I'm super excited to share my ideas through a 10-part blog series (this is 3/10). We'll explore the dynamic intersection of AI, technology, business, and our shared humanity—and how these forces are set to transform our lives and the way we conduct business. Sounds interesting? Hit subscribe, drop a like, and let's chat in the comments. Remember, the best way to predict the future is to help create it. Let's do this together!
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We often get caught up in the immediacy of daily updates, missing the larger narrative of technological evolution. Ray Dalio highlights that by studying our history, we can identify recurring patterns and trends, providing clues to predict future developments. Kevin Kelly, the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and a respected predictor of technological trends, asserts that certain overarching technological forces continue to influence our lives regardless of their specific manifestations. Let's explore the technological forces influencing the future, guiding us to anticipate the business models of tomorrow.
Key Technological Forces Reshaping Business:
1. From Customers to Producers: The digital revolution has transformed passive consumers into active creators, birthing the 'Sharing Economy.' The greatest surprise was how much of our digital world would be manufactured by users sharing and creating content (e.g., content creators) rather than large organizations. Three of the largest creators of commercial wealth—Google, Facebook, and X— have thrived by tapping into this wealth of user-generated content. Google's first algorithm used links on the web and determined that linked pages to your site were “votes of confidence” that your site was relevant and high quality. Google was the first to extract value from the shared search results that customers clicked on. Other companies like Meta, X, Instagram, and TikTok encouraged us to share ourselves through video, text, and images, and they made a lot of money by making it easy to share a version of ourselves with others. As we stand on the precipice of the AI revolution, the next quantum leap will be AI's ability to harness this user-generated content, not only to understand and serve human needs better but also to empower consumers to become even more influential producers.
2. Making Things Smarter: Advancements in computing power, data availability, and algorithms fuel the explosion of AI applications. However, AI will only be as valuable as the data it ingests, so future services will still require humans to interact with AI and feed it high-quality data to analyze, optimize, and recommend. As we trust these machines with more of our data and personal preferences, the true value will come from the systems that (a) collect the most relevant/valuable data and (b) are best at analyzing the exabytes (e.g., billions of gigabytes) of data and providing actionable insights that can be personalized.
3. From Solid Products to Flowing Services: The 'as-a-service' model, epitomized by offerings like Microsoft 365, signals a shift from static products to dynamic, continually improving services. Your vehicle evolves with the latest enhancements without setting foot in a dealership. Our smartphones no longer need to be physically replaced to improve; they receive new capabilities and security features via software updates. This 'flow' of constant improvement meets our deep-seated desire for novelty and personalization. In this perpetual state of improvement and change, adaptability becomes a critical skill. Lifelong learning evolves from a concept to a necessity, as staying up-to-date with the latest advancements is no longer a choice but a prerequisite to navigating the ever-evolving technological ecosystem.
4. What Cannot Be Copied Will Be Valuable: As digital replication becomes effortless, value increasingly resides in the non-replicable. Success in this landscape depends on recognizing and cultivating value that extends beyond the mere functionalities of products and services. It is the intangible qualities—trust, immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity, accessibility—that become the new currency of worth. As technology matures, its tendency to become more affordable, even free, invariably renders the products it generates less valuable over time. Yet, paradoxically, as digital goods become ubiquitous and commoditized, our appreciation for experiences—those moments and interactions that are unique and cannot be duplicated—grows stronger. In the future, businesses that understand how to blend the digital with the experiential, offering something that cannot be copied or pirated, will find themselves with a competitive advantage. They will lead the way in a market where authenticity and personal connection are prized above all else.
5. In a World of Abundance, You Must Filter: With the deluge of information and content from creators, we need to create more tools for filtering. Herbert Simon famously said, "In a world of abundance, the only scarcity is human attention". Our brains have not evolved to deal with such a large amount of information, so therefore we must rely on machines to interface with it. Recommender engines are widely used by Netflix, Amazon, and others to create value in a digital world of instant duplication. Still, we need a real-time system of filters to parse through the explosion of options we have created. If attention is the last scarcity, money will always follow attention. We must be careful to not rely too heavily on these filters to guide us blindly.
6. Access Over Ownership. There is a famous quote from TechCrunch that "Uber, the world's largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world's most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the world's most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world's largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. " Today's society is looking to own less and access more. Ownership may become an antiquated construct in the future, where you own nothing but have unlimited access to anything, anytime, instantly.
7. Remix & Rewind: The digital age amplifies the power of innovation through recombination, where new creations emerge not from thin air but from novel arrangements of existing elements. The digitization of content—from books to music to visual arts—transforms these works into malleable forms that can be edited, remixed, and repurposed with ease. Recent advances in generative AI models epitomize this concept on a grand scale. Trained on the vast expanse of human knowledge, these models, when prompted, can synthesize historical data into novel creations. They function like a factory for the collective intellectual heritage, melting down centuries of thought to forge new insights. This digital alchemy transforms the raw material of past wisdom into the gold of current innovation. Yet, as we progress, the ease of manipulation and recombination also presents complex challenges, particularly in the realm of intellectual property. The ability to remix and revise digital artifacts at will means we must navigate the thin line between innovation and infringement.
8. Computers x Humans Collab: The relationship between technology and employment is not one only of displacement but also of transformation. History teaches us that technological advancements lead to new, more fulfilling job opportunities, emphasizing the collaborative potential between humans and machines. Computers excel at tasks beyond human capability, such as instantaneously searching vast digital landscapes or analyzing enormous data sets. However, the aim isn't to replace human jobs but to delegate tasks that machines do best, freeing up humans to focus on areas where they excel: creativity, empathy, strategy, and innovation. This transition is not a battle against technology; it's a collaboration that enhances human capacities. As history shows, job displacement often leads to job creation in emerging fields. I believe we're not relinquishing our roles to machines; instead, we're enabling a partnership where technology takes on monotonous or superhuman tasks, allowing us to redefine and enrich our personal and professional lives.
These trends not only help us understand the evolving marketplace but also guide our predictions for the future of computing, AI, and business opportunities. The next post will delve into the historical journey of computing and AI, offering a lens through which we can view potential business models of the future. Stay tuned as we continue to decode the trajectory of innovation, informed by the lessons of the past and inspired by the possibilities that lie ahead.