“I think people are trying to over-optimize out of just having conversations with people. I've already seen that happen in my generation. If I'm ordering takeout, it feels weird to call a place. … There's just going to be more of these things where basic human interaction gets more and more optimized out of actually occurring. And call me old school, but I think that humans being able to talk to each other is probably a net positive for society.”
sputnikintelligence.com
Amanda was explaining her piece on AI executives who pitch products badly, with examples like an AI that dates on your behalf or coordinates with your spouse's AI. She ties those pitches to a broader habit of avoiding direct contact with other people.
…they kind of feel there, you know, there's a tremendous financial incentive for them to make the case that you should use this technology in every aspect of your lives. But when you make that case, it actually paints not always a very appealing picture. In some cases, it's downright dystopian.
…relate to like everyone else out there in the world. And so it can just seem so incredibly disconnected when you see these quotes for everyone else. So it just, to me, it always comes back to like, who are they speaking to? Yeah. Are there people out there who can relate? Maybe, maybe there are.
Yeah. And I think that a lot of the time, other use cases we've seen people mention are like the bumble CEO Whitney Wolf Heard has made comments about, well, what if we had like AI concierges and when you're dating, like your AI dates the other person's AI. And then if the AIs have a good date together, then they introduce the people. Or in the New York Times article, Marissa Mayer mentioned like, well, what if my AI could coordinate with my husband's AI and stuff like that? And I think that it feels like people are trying to over-optimize out of just having conversations with people. And I feel like I've already seen that happen in my generation where I do notice in myself that if I'm ordering takeout, it feels weird to call a place. Like I'm just so used to like, well, obviously you can do it online and you don't have to talk to anyone. And I feel like there's just going to be more of these things where basic human interaction gets more and more optimized out of actually occurring. And call me old school, but I think that humans being able to talk to each other is probably a net positive for society.
Yeah, but what's the ROI, Amanda? You know, how much, how much revenue can you generate off of a conversation that somebody's having in meeting?
That is the thing, though, is that it's like dating is really inefficient. Like it sucks that you have to go on a bunch of gates with different people. You might waste an evening and be like, well, that was a bust. And so you can see why people are like, well, what if you didn't have to go on…
So one thing that I think is like worth sort of going back to, and I sort of hinted about this earlier, which is like, who are they talking to? Who is their, who is their audience? Like for all these like optimizations, you know, in your view, Amanda, it's, it sounds like I might know the answer to…