“Topics come and go. And come back again.” - Richard Seidl
We are being bombarded from all sides. AI here, agents there, and superintelligence just around the corner. Promises and doomsday warnings … the gentle background noise of our more or less social media has turned into constant fire that is hard to escape.
But escape we must, or we’ll go crazy. To get out of this madness of information and disinformation, we need strategies. One would be to leave the bubble entirely. No more social media, throw away the smartphone. Radical. You can do that, but it’s difficult if you work in tech. I’m not a fan of total refusal. Blocking all of it out doesn’t make my world any better, and it feels somehow backward-looking. I believe we have to learn to live and deal with what’s there. Whether we like it or not.
And then there’s the question: where do we draw the line? Is WhatsApp still okay? Telegram? Mastodon, still fine or not anymore? I also know a few people who have CONSISTENTLY banned the TV. That devil’s tool has to leave the living room, it makes us all stupid and the kids too. Pure freedom …
… and then they watch Netflix and YouTube on their laptops. More or less secretly. Even worse: instead of the family gathering for a movie night, everyone sits in their own room with a smartphone, tablet or laptop, consuming. Well, that somehow doesn’t work.
Learning to live with the topics
Another way is to engage with things, to try to understand them, to have an opinion and defend it. To look at our feeds, question the information critically, and neither parrot along mindlessly nor oppose everything simply on principle.
The mean thing about this path: it is laborious, exhausting and not easy. Which doesn’t fit our everyday life at all, where we would rather have simple AI answers than a real debate. Saving energy and time just to get through the day.
The art of small steps
The trick for me is to take small steps instead of trying to turn the big wheel. Of course I can be frustrated that nothing moves in my company. But I can start at my own desk. Set up an Outlook rule that sorts my mails away. Unsubscribe from newsletters. Get into the habit of closing all tabs at the end of the day to start fresh the next morning.
The meta perspective
Another strategy is to zoom out. To be less attached to the topics happening around us. One of the most relaxing tools I know for this is the Gartner Hype Cycle. It has become an anchor for me: a hype arrives, gets inflated properly … then comes the trough of disillusionment, and something productive remains in reality.
Take 3D printing: there was a time when the media predicted the complete collapse of retail. We would all just download blueprints and print products ourselves … nobody would ever need a hardware store again (hype).
At my workshops and keynotes, I like to ask how many people in the room own a 3D printer. Even among hardcore IT folks, usually only two or three hands go up. Yet 3D printing has established itself in industry and, for example, in dental technology (plateau of productivity).
We saw the same thing with the metaverse, and it’s what awaits us with AI. As I write this, “AI agents” sat right at the top of the hype cycle. Shortly before disillusionment sets in.
I find that very reassuring. Topics are topics … marketing inflates them … then comes the collapse, and whatever is productive remains. So breathe and carry on.
In the end, everyone has to find their own strategy to deal with this crazy, wonderful world and to hold their ground in it. Whining and hesitating won’t help. That’s what we earthlings are here for. So this is my call: look at your strategies, become aware of them, and if they don’t work … change them!