As I’ve noted previously, this essay from Slack founder Stewart Butterfield is a banger. You should read the whole thing if you haven’t—or re-read it if you have—and care about building great products. In my new role exploring the crazy, sometimes scary world of AI-first creativity tools, I find myself meditating on this line:
Who Do We Want Our Customers to Become?… We want them to become relaxed, productive workers… masters of their own information… who communicate purposively.
I want customers to be fearless explorers—to F Around & Find Out, in the spirit of Walt Whitman:
Yes, this is way outside Adobe’s comfort zone—but I didn’t come back here to be comfortable. Game on.
But most of the things I’ve seen are ways to make fake people, or to have real people act and speak as someone else wants.
Very interesting technology without question, but considering the present climate, what’s with all the making of products and methods to “fake” humanity into appearing to be what they aren’t?