Hi,

AI annoys me every single day.

Well, not really AI itself. That's just a neutral thing. Like the Internet. Or email. Or a sloth.

It just exists, minding its own business. All good.

But it's the AI fanboys that drive me insane.

The people absolutely and utterly convinced that AI is going to take over the entire Earth. Any day now it's going to be all over and we might as well give up because the machines are sooooo smart...

Happens every time a new piece of tech enters the market.

I am so old that I remember when Internet was rapidly gaining in popularity and becoming more usable. Around 2006 I was in real estate. And I considered getting my real estate appraiser license so I could add appraisals as a service to me being an agent.

It made sense to me. Lots of appraisers were making good money, I had great contacts in the industry, seemed like a perfect fit.

So I asked around to do some preliminary research.

And EVERY SINGLE GUY IN THE INDUSTRY told me the same thing:

"Nah, don't do it. Makes no sense. Real estate appraisals are dying out man. In a couple of years, maybe months, it's all computer generated. Internet is rendering appraisers extinct. Not worth your time"

So I did the dumbest thing possible.

I listened.

I listened to the majority because I didn't yet understand that the majority is ALWAYS wrong.

That happened about 20 years ago. And guess what?

Appraisers are still in business. Still doing fine.

I missed out on millions of dollars of turnover because I listened to the new tech fanboys.

Same bullshit cycle happened to:

• The Metaverse

• Crypto

• Virtual Reality

There's way more, but let's stick to these somewhat recent tEcHnOlOgIcAl bReAkThRoUgHs.

The Metaverse is close to dying. Zuckerberg pumped something like 80 billion into it and then he shut it down.

I use crypto regularly. And it's still not even close to being usable by the average Jane or Joe.

Virtual reality is completely irrelevant. No one uses it, no one cares about it, it's dead.

But at peak hype ALL of these were 100% surely guaranteed to change the world forever and ever.

And if you listened to the new tech fanboys they would have probably convinced you of it as well. Because they sincerely believe it.

Humans overestimate the importance of someone being sincere in their delivery.

Because you can be sincerely wrong.

Moral of the story is that new tech takes decades to be assimilated into society.

New tech fanboys are borderline delusional and their timelines are wayyyyyyy off every single time.

Talk soon,

Arno

P.S. We use AI in Prof Results. We also optimize for AI SEO for clients as well. I'm not against the tech. I'm just trying to inject some reality into the conversation.

P.P.S. As usual, ZERO percent of this newsletter was written using AI. It's just you and me talking.

I like using AI for robot stuff. Getting things done at scale. But when it comes to communicating? It's all me.

When we end up working together you'll see that the way I write in here is exactly the way I speak in real life as well.