The Floor
AI fails are everywhere. People make fun of hallucinations and mistakes when a text model screws up badly, and AI image mistakes have long been a source of amusement and entertainment.
Look no further than
’s AI Fail of the Week in each Sunday Rundown, or even to the piece we worked on together a couple of years ago (like three decades in AI time):Can AI Be Funny?
In the midst of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike (I wrote about this here), there's a topic that's becoming impossible to ignore: the role of AI in creative fields, specifically comedy writing. Amid a landscape defined by labor disputes, residuals from streaming media, and a push for fairness in employment terms, an unexpected player has entered the ring: artificial intelligence.
It’s frustrating if you’re in a hurry to get something done, and AI could really help—but it screws up instead, creating even more work. If you’re not doing any serious work with the aid of AI today, you might think there’s nothing but bathwater to be thrown out, but amid all that soap scum and dead skin flakes is the most beautiful metaphorical baby we’ve ever conceived.
What I have to say isn’t going to stop you from pulling at your hair in frustration, but it might stop you from pulling your hair all the way out. That’s because this—today, right now as you are reading this—this is the floor.
There are image and video generators now, along with plenty of conversational AI chatbots that can help you search and find information, remember things, and even make appointments. For every single thing AI can do—as
of One Useful Thing will frequently say—this is the worst it will ever be. Ethan is a professor at Wharton who focuses on entrepreneurship and building businesses; I will often look to Ethan for help in making sense of the rapid change we’re all experiencing.
I get it. You’re rolling your eyes at the six fingered hands or AI’s inability to reason, but both of those problems are kinda 2024 problems now, and you can bet that many of 2025’s most frustrating issues won’t be 2026’s issues at all.
For every single tool you use, today is the very worst it’s ever going to be. Maybe there will be a better version that comes out in a month or two, but at today’s pace, it’s more like a week or even days.
Amplifying all this, the paradigms are getting shorter each time. The adhocracy we’ve created over time isn’t equipped to deal with this sort of rapid change, and we humans aren’t either.
Not only are these tools going to improve, but they’re going to get better faster than almost anyone is ready for.
When cars were first a thing they were significantly more of a PITA than a horse, and often less capable. And now look at us.
Alvin Toffler wrote about such a thing happening long ago in “Future Shock” stating that change will happen at an increasing rate.