it's important to dream

I think it's important to preface this post by saying that – no, no LLM was used to generate or modify any part of this text – yes, despite the very intentional em dashes. It happens to be one of my favourite punctuation marks in my writing (which I haven't done in a while) apart from semicolons. But with the advent of LLMs, I feel it might as well be dead.

That said, this post isn't about AI doomposting, and I suspect claims that the latest GPT model will take over your job or become AGI are deeply exaggerated. At the very least, until my agent can tell me what I want to have for dinner, I'm not too worried. I do think there is a certain level of concentration risk with the majority of the developments coming from primarily two for-profit corporations, both of which are primarily situated in the United States. But ultimately, there is a benefit to being early, and there is a benefit to being late. A lot of people think or believe in the hypothetical that Chinese AI labs will never catch up, a theory that has certainly been refuted more than once. It's also more interesting that there's almost a full belief amongst those labs that commoditizing the model itself is key; we're in the era of multi-trillion parameter models being available for worldwide personal and commercial usage.

Today, however, I just wanted to talk a little bit about dreaming – but starting with taste.

taste

One of the first things I heard from someone was that AI can teach you things, you can teach AI things, but taste is something you need to acquire wholly by yourself. In fact, in the era of Claude Design, you probably do not need, or will never need, designers, but what will really distinguish your über-cool special personalized design from one built by an Accenture employee for a hundred clients – is probably just taste. Credit where credit is due, this was ideated by a designer; and I definitely agree.

dream

One of the most impactful shows I watched this year was Orb. I think the idea that a person should have a dream (not an ambition, mind you) is overstated. I see and meet too many people whose life goal is to be the CEO of a multi-million-dollar corporation. There is nothing wrong with such a goal; it just cannot be a dream. The best founders are the ones with grit, sure, but the best founders are the ones who are able to envision a world that doesn't exist. I will add the note that arguably the actual "best" founders are the ones who are lucky – we don't tend to remember the rest – but the goal is not to be etched in history; the goal is to build the history.

The reason I liked the show is that the idea of it is quite simple; it's simply an idea that the Earth is not at the center of the universe – a mundane claim, surely, but one that is quite sacrilegious in the time period the show is set in. From the perspective of someone in the 1500s, however, it's a reality that is impossible to envision. How can Earth – the land of men – not be the centre of the universe? To think otherwise is to be labelled a madman. And thus, I would argue that the best founders are madmen because can you really bring forth a reality if you cannot envision it?

To dream is to know that the reality you envision existing may be something that never comes into existence. To dream is to know that the fruits of your efforts will be enjoyed by people who will not know your name. To dream is to be comfortable with the fact that your life is only a small cog in the human quest for knowledge.

closing

I write this post because I am afraid that I am a human who has lost the art of writing. In fact, I've probably been writing things since I was 10 or 11, and I was never really any good at it. And I was also right when I thought I wouldn't be able to write, since I lost my friend, and that just happened to be the last thing I wrote. Those internal concerns were probably deeply overthought, but I feel that's what it is to be a human.

There is no takeaway to this article, really – you're a human, so you can just do human things. You can read, you can learn, you can write, and you can dream – just by yourself.