1. A Person Walks Into A Forest...

Can you imagine what happens next?

Yes, you can. I’m sure you have a lot of ideas. Maybe you’ve walked into a forest, and something exciting or meaningful happened. That you want to share with the world. 

But those ideas and facts are stuck in your head. You don’t know how to express those. How to tell your story so that it pulls others in, lets them enjoy your imagination, or lets them experience what you went through. The wonders and the horrors, the rollercoaster of emotions.

Introduction

“For me, the cinema is not a slice of life but a piece of cake.” – Alfred Hitchcock.

For Hitchcock, movies were a form of entertainment and art rather than a representation of reality. He saw a movie as something to be enjoyed and savored, like a piece of cake, rather than something that realistically depicted everyday life. He saw movies as a way to escape from the mundane aspects of life and enter a world of imagination and creativity. 

“For me, the cinema is not a slice of life but a piece of cake.” 

I thought Hitchcock meant that moviemaking was a piece of cake for him, that it was easy. That’s not what he meant, and it wasn’t easy for him – one of the best filmmakers. But it should be easy for everyone to tell their story, to tell a story.

A slice of life or a piece of cake? For you, it could be either or both. You should tell us about a slice of your life or a piece of cake you enjoyed. Or a slice of your life that was a piece of cake (easy). Or a slice of your life that was hard. Or something that has nothing to do with your or anybody’s life.

Arc of the internet so far: explosion in creation, lockstep explosion in consumption.

What we need next: more powerful and meaningful creation and more tailored consumption.

Explosion in creation

Websites, articles, blogs, vlogs, memes – most WhatsApp content creation and consumption consist of memes. There is a hunger for invention and expression.

Explosion in consumption

When I’m in a discussion with my son, he immediately quotes the first search result on Google to prove his point. When I’m in a conversation with my mom, she quotes information from a forward on WhatsApp. My wife is hooked on a video blog of a couple in my hometown just going about their daily life. A lot of information and consumption, but is it meaningful? Not that it must be in all cases. Sometimes it’s ok to just be entertaining!

More powerful and meaningful creation

In billions of WhatsApp groups, people try to engage others by forwarding articles, jokes, and memes. They are expressing themselves and their opinions via forwards. Let them express themselves by creating and telling their own stories. Create their own poems, songs, jokes, memes, articles, and videos. This is where Generative AI comes in – it further opens up the power of storytelling, just like smartphones and social media did. And it will be another step function increase in the ability to tell stories and in the power of people. Because storytelling is powerful.

More tailored consumption

You don’t have to create something just for others to consume. You can create something better to consume yourself. You have been eating salt, sugar, flour, oil, milk, tomatoes, and basil. That’s what Google Search results are – just a bunch of ingredients. Now it’s time to make and eat your own pizza, just how you like it, and most importantly - without much effort. It’s time to create something for yourself and others like you, iterate faster and share it with the world. 

Conclusion

Generative AI is about expansion and contraction, divergence and convergence.

It will lead to much more creation (expansion, divergence) but also digest and mold all the information out there to give you precisely what you want (contraction, convergence, personalization). Some business models will monetize the expansion, and others will monetize the contraction.