WORK IN PROGRESS
Currently still writing. “Build in public they said lol”. Still need to write a
Background:
Humanity has long sought personalisation — in nutrition, medicine, education and beyond. Why? Personalisation helps us get the most out of a medium. Everyone in the world is unique, with distinct traits and perceptions of shared experiences. We (historically) tend to create a blanket technology and apply it to everyone, even though it’s less effective for some (source, source, source- Theme 7). Personalisation is an attempt to enable more people to get value out of the same technology.
Historically, personalisation has been largely technically infeasible, but that’s changing. Precision medicine is revolutionising cancer treatment. Khan Academy provides every school child with a Socratic personal tutor. HelloFresh delivers food to your door, customised to your nutritional requirements and schedule. This essay explores a future shaped by personalised media.
What is Media?
First, let’s define media as the umbrella term for “mediums of information, expression and entertainment”. This (admittedly broad) definition encapsulates different “form-factors”, including books, radio shows, video games, YouTube videos and many more. New form-factors consistently emerge from technological progress. For example, books were popularised with the invention of the Gutenberg Press, while have recently podcasts flourished due to cheaper production costs and increasing demand for audio content.
What Media is Next?
Once you’ve realised that new forms of media arrive with technological progress, it’s natural to ask what’s the next form-factor? An exact one is hard to predict. Jawed Karim could never have predicted streamer Kai Cenat (or let’s-player Joseph Garett, beauty vlogger James Charles, podcaster Joe Rogan, or free educator Grant Anderson). But the macro-trend (and consequent success) of publishing user-generated videos online was obvious (to them). But YouTube was only made possible due to adoption of high-speed internet, widespread availability of cheaper digital cameras, the introduction of Web 2.0 and the societal acceptance of user-generating social medias.
In a similar vein, we can look at the technological progress today and predict a new class of media that will be made possible. Two technologies stand out: virtual reality and generative AI. While there will inevitably be new form-factors that emerge at the intersection of them, I will focus on where Generative AI intersects with traditional consumption mediums.
What’s Fundamentally New With Generative AI?
Generative AI enables the rapid generation of novel content, based entirely on customisable criteria. NotebookLM creates (surprisingly engaging) podcasts based on content you feed it. Spotify DJ creates a (terrible) DJ experience based on your music listening habits. But these are both examples of previously existing mediums becoming highly-personalised with modern technologies. While there’s certainly value in these, the greatest value will be created by a fundamentally new medium.
Want to build the next medium?
I’ve made projects trying to maximise the value in existing mediums using modern technology. But I’m always on the lookout for the new mediums. If you think that’s interesting, reach out!
What does a personalised world actually look like?
TODO:
- Everyone will experience a shared reality, but it’s slightly different for everyone.
- Andrej Karpathy mentioned this in a tweet somewhere??
- There’s still be some art forms we don’t want to personalise - that’s not how art works?
- Also, everything about ui/ux?