I was laying in bed trying to sleep when I had a thought. “I bet that Mike White (creator of the popular “The White Lotus” series), wrote the movie ‘School of Rock’”. Stay with me while I walk through a series of events, I promise it’s going somewhere…

I googled it. And yes

Mike White did write School of Rock in addition to playing “Ned Schneebly”, the submissive best friend of the main character.

The thought of turning such a cool and fun story from an idea to that movie made me think about how I’d like to write a screenplay one day.

This led me to realize that I didn’t know the difference between a screenplay and a story so I asked ChatGPT, and it responded with School of Rock posters and other ads.

I Looked up ChatGPT’s ad monetization policy and found out that these weren’t paid ads.

This knowledge triggered an “Aha” moment so compelling to me that I spent the next several hours thinking about it; several hours that culminated in the decision to start this blog.

These technologies are rewriting the way we experience the world so radically that it’s hard to even conceptualize. The current methods for selling things through internet search is just one example… I asked ChatGPT if there was an AI version of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) already coined. Turns out there are three:

• GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): Optimizing content for AI-generated responses.

• AISEO (Artificial Intelligence Search Engine Optimization): Tailoring content for AI-driven search experiences.

• LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization): Crafting content to align with how large language models process information.

I felt like this realization gave me one tiny peek into the future. We won’t Google things in the future; we’ll explore them. We’ll be able to load data into our brains not so dissimilarly from the way Neo learns Kung Fu. We will effectively live in the Matrix. I haven’t heard anyone posit a possible future state similar to the Matrix yet, but I think it may be a better metaphor for what our relationship with AI will be like in the coming years.

The way that AI will teach us about the world, how we will learn and access information, how it will help us communicate with each other, and how we will perceive reality are all so mind-bogglingly different from what the first wave of the internet has brought so far.

This is my first journal entry using AI, and it’s not as scary (yet) using it for something so personal as I thought it would be.

Why does any of this matter to you?

In School of Rock, Ned’s Rocker best friend impersonates Ned who is a substitute teacher. At one point he is talking to the gym teacher and delivers one of the most quote-worthy lines of the movie: “Anyway, I just decided to give up and become a teacher, because those that can’t do, teach. And those that can’t teach, teach gym. Am I right?”

While comical, it conveniently for me, highlights a societal norm that I think AI will drastically change.

The “doers” of the world sometimes show disdain for those who don’t do. Steve Jobs once said of business consultants (a common example of those who don’t “do”):

A similar critique has been made of other professions of “non-doers” such as influencers. I myself have always been an avowed “doer”. But this experience leads to the conclusion that in the future, much more than we are today, “non-doing” professions like influencing (or blogging on Medium) will become a more common way to earn a living. This is one of the biggest paradigm shifts we should be prepared for.

Why?

Because people will be able to “download” much more into their brain much more quickly. We will increasingly find value in people who have figured out how to let AI “take the steering wheel” of another aspect of their lives without losing their sense of value as a human. Trailblazers will be everywhere and indeed this should prove to be a good thing.

So the goal with this blog is to be a case study in letting AI “take the wheel” over something that I’ve always held so dear… writing.

A couple of questions that I plan to dive into in subsequent entries:

• How will humans teach, if they teach at all in the future?

• How will we view our relative importance in the universe?

• Will we still engage in competition, but basically in a Special Olympics of sorts where we know that the AI are really in charge and we just strive to be a less able clone of them? Where we look to them as a pattern of true optimization and we mimic their economies, their athletic achievements, their behavior and dealings with each other? Or will we instead maintain our current location at the center of each of our respective universes, and AI just becomes an incredibly useful tool in our achievements and in heretofore-thought-impossible levels of convenience?

All that from wanting to know who wrote School of Rock.