Reliable Signals of Honest Intent 🐘

This is a great phrase — “Reliable Signals of Honest Intent”, one that you should be reminding yourself every time you are making something for “others” to see/consume/approve/buy/appreciate.

In the current atmosphere, where everyone is drowning in an attempt to keep up with rapid, exponential changes in AI.

Why are we all doing that? Is it just to have fun? Is it to signal that we are current? If so, to whom? and whatever you are doing - doing side projects, writing LinkedIn listicles, doing yet another MOOC, getting another certificate, prowling grad school websites to see if you should get another MS or an MBA, or start a side hustle that might get acqui-hired.. The list of things we conjure to signal are endless, and they all take a lot of energy.

I think it is important to stop, pause and consider — who are we signaling to? what is the signal we are sending? and more importantly — *is what I am doing A Reliable Signal of Honest Intent?

Time is finite, things to learn/do are, well, infinite. An ounce of clarity, an hour of planning, a spoon of taste, an earful of listening carefully to what people(users/buyers/investors/what-have-you) are saying might help calm the nerves, make targeted bets, that have higher odds of working out.

More than all that, a reliable signal is something that takes something from you. It is not cost-free. If you haven’t put your skin in the game, sweat in the brow, and metaphorical blood in the soil, your effort may be hardly better than someone else’s AI generated slop at worst, or someone’s couple hours of noodling.

The bar has definitely jumped a couple of stories high. It is disorienting to have to adjust to the new expectations. But, this is how it has been for many professions.

Going back to the original subject of Sutherland’s  “Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense” — largely about marketing and consumer psychology, it is a dark art for people who are not in that profession. But, almost everything that is made, sold, and consumed in the capitalistic system is made possible through what he calls the “Alchemy” of synthesizing ideas that appeal to humans.

We, the technologists, have among our midst, many such mavens that understood human psychology very well (e.g: Steve Jobs). But, it is no longer sufficient that one in 10,000 is good that stuff. Perhaps, we all have to get 10x better at persuasion, and it is hard to do that without producing signals that are very hard to ignore.

Produce more reliable signals of honest intent.