Merrian-Webster has coined “slop” as the word of the year. They define slop as … “Digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” Fair enough. Bad AI content comes in many varieties. On the content side we speak of the “tsunamic of bullshit.” On the image side,…
Every major technological revolution in American history displaced workers, but none threatened to eliminate entire categories of cognitive and manual labor at the same time. That’s what artificial intelligence threatens to do, and that’s why it’s different than previous tech revolutions. The loom displaced jobs in the textile industry, but it created wealth that made…
Thinking becomes smarter when you step outside yourself — whether through imagined interlocutors, prayer, or deliberate perspective-shifting. My friend Roger Overall started a chat on LinkedIn about talking to yourself. Do you do it? Is it helpful? Roger mentions a ‘Simple Truths’ card deck that provides sentences designed to help you untangle a thorny question…
I don’t typically post videos here, but this one is so on target that I made an exception. This former Google employee is singing my life with his words. Ex-Google Insider WARNS: “You Are Not Prepared For 2027” (Click on the title or image above to see the whole article, which includes the video.)
You can make the fastest, most readable website with the perfect design, elegant search features, and your own custom GPT and it still won’t be more convenient than a generic AI chatbot — because your readers’ workflow has fundamentally changed. Here’s the old workflow. Search, click, scroll, skim, avoid ads, extract the answer from a…
Most people seem to have this vague idea that science advances when a new theory comes along that explains the facts better. The new theory is so compelling, or so we imagine, that people abandon the old orthodoxy and adopt the new one. Following the facts, and all that sciency stuff. According to Thomas Kuhn’s…
There are a lot of liars in the world — but even more common than lies are mistaken assumptions. Not every falsehood is a deliberate deception. Many of the things we get wrong come from ideas we never thought to question. A well-calibrated BS detector doesn’t doesn’t only look for lies — it detects lazy…
Modern digital tools have perfected the art of interruption, but they’ve left untapped a major opportunity: words on paper. In a world where inboxes are a cluttered battlefield, the physical mailbox offers a peaceful, premium refuge. That’s why, a few years ago, I decided to try something old-fashioned: a monthly printed newsletter for my clients…
A post on LinkedIn lamented that “92% of people never act on their ideas.” My immediate reaction was, “that’s probably good because 95% of ideas are dumb.” I admit that I wasn’t participating in the spirit of the post, which was to encourage people to stop dreaming and do something, which is often thought to…
One overlooked aspect of audience engagement is “trust anchors” — the foundations people rely on to interpret information, such as science, authority, community, or lived experience. To get better engagement with your audience, identify and align your trust anchors with the ones used by your audience. Charlie Kirk is either a hero or a villain,…
I’ve been told that this article is genius. That it’s prophetic. I’ve been told that it’s overly dramatic. I’ve also been told that it’s unquestionably true, and that publishing it will ruin my career. Okay. It still needs to be said. AI will create a horrendous unemployment problem by eliminating millions of human jobs. Self-driving…
The following is taken from one of Bo Sacks’ recent emails. The image above is not real — it’s from ChatGPT. BoSacks Speaks Out: Greg Krehbiel is one of those media professionals who always makes you think, whether you agree with him or not. On his LinkedIn page, he describes his work this way: “I…
Summary: Modern technology often delivers real improvements, but the benefits come with hidden costs and new hassles for consumers. What used to be simple and free now lives behind subscriptions, inside special gadgets, with recurring fees that leave us wondering whether “better” is really better. I’m a Redskins fan. My best friend is a Ravens…
Summary: The culture and publishing go through cycles: vitality, excess, decline, collapse, and eventual revival. Renewal is already stirring. There are hopeful signs: a shift away from ad-supported free content, the rise of new media and podcasts, ongoing experimentation similar to early newsletter days, and the potential of AI as a helpful tool. The September…
Back in my day, high schools offered driver’s ed as a class. At my school, we had this hi-tech (for the 70s) training regime where everybody sat in a car simulator and reacted to a movie, which was a driver’s view perspective of a trip through a city, merging onto a highway, etc. We were…