Joe Van Brussel

The key: Clear intentions and solid best practices let us harness their benefits without becoming trapped by their downsides.

Technology and money can both lure us into compulsive behaviors: checking stocks obsessively, mindless social media scrolling.

But they can also free us to pursue meaning. Technology automates tedious tasks. Money reduces financial stress and enables more rewarding work.

Couldn't agree more!

AI will never replace writers, because writing isn't just about stringing words together.

It's about transmitting consciousness - taking specific thoughts, experiences, and insights from one mind and placing them into another.

AI can't replace our desire to be understood and to understand others

It's a good point, and I agree.

But we can also think about it like any other tool -- it makes the task easier, or enhances our own ability.

If it recommends gifts we didn't even know existed, for example, that's not giving up our personal decision-making, that's simply giving us more options.

I actually used Claude to help with a gift for my nephew's birthday a few days ago. It was surprisingly helpful.

And I agree with another comment that we should be careful not to "outsource" our very human responsibilities.

But in my experience, it didn't replace my job, it just made it easier

Has anyone else found surprisingly helpful uses for AI in their daily life (outside of coding/business)? Did it change your perspective on where we're headed?

The whole experience has convinced me that we need to keep in mind the various levels at which AI is working and try to get a feel for each, to form a more well-rounded understanding of its potential impacts on our lives.

It helped me find eyecare providers in NYC for my specific issue, along with a potential treatment framework with exercises.

The gift ideas overlapped with things we had already brainstormed, along with a few things we didn't know existed -- showing conceptual understanding and fresh thought.

I'm not a luddite.
I'm not a starry-eyed advocate.

I just finally decided to play with the technology I'd been theorizing and commenting about.

And so far the effects haven't been subtle.

None of my experiences changed my thoughts on the big questions around AI ethics and regulation.

But I realized that while I and everyone else sort through those high-level issues, I’d like to see how AI might affect my daily life.

But a few weeks ago, I started asking Claude about:

My recurring eye problems
How to find a good nanny
Fixing my knee issue
Gift ideas for my nephew’s birthday

And it was remarkably helpful.

In my defense, I didn’t think I had a good use case for AI.

I don’t have troves of data I need to pull insights from.
I don’t have complex processes to optimize.
I don’t have big presentations to polish.

I’m just a humble writer whose daily life doesn’t often touch highly technical fields.

AI is endlessly interesting. There’s philosophy and ethics and science fiction and power all tied up into one big movement.

But I realized that I hadn’t really touched the thing I was writing about.

I've spent months writing and thinking about AI. I’m fascinated by it.

But until two weeks ago, I hadn’t actually used it.

I was like a sports commentator who’d never played the game.

So I finally got my hands dirty: 🧵

This sounds 100x more interesting than the conversations I'm routinely subjected to on public transportation.

Does that make me a finance nerd or just unlucky?

Relative Value is aligned with Psychology – it’s related to feelings and emotions.

Financial Value is aligned with Math – it's all about dollars and cents moving up and down over time.

I like to think of Value in two distinct ways:

Relative Value
Financial Value

Relative Value = how a certain use of money affects you personally and subjectively.

Financial Value = how a certain use of money affects your money. How does Spending / Saving / Investing impact your finances?

Technology and Money are powerful tools.

They can raise our standard of living. They can provide opportunity and flexibility. They can empower us.

Or they can trap us. We can end up serving them instead of the other way around.

How does space exploration tangibly improve the human condition?

Awful.

But at least they're not USA v Uruguay in the Copa America

There are some absolutely wild philosophies surfacing in the tech world these days, from transhumanism to designer babies and beyond.

What’s even more wild is the lack of substantive, mainstream debate about the central ideas.

These movements will massively influence our lives in the near future.

In the next 5-10 years, a new philosophy of work will replace the outdated notion of retirement.

The new way of thinking about work, finance, and lifestyle will coalesce around a much more balanced blend of:

W2 vs. LLC
Meaning vs. Means
Short-term vs. Long-term thinking

AI is stumbling between the two.

Some applications are exciting, others are a distraction.

Regulation is woefully behind, but people are working on it.

The true value of a technology lies in both its implementation and its regulation.

AR is a great example of a powerful technology that hasn’t found its optimal application yet.

Flying cars (eVTOL) are a great example of a powerful technology that hasn’t found its proper regulatory framework yet.

Our purchasing power is determined by a combination of math and psychology.

A relatively poor person who doesn’t obsess over their numbers, who buys things that bring joy or improves their quality of life, who prioritizes experience over frugality, has much higher purchasing power.

Think of personal finance in terms of purchasing power – what are the products or experiences available to you?

A relatively wealthy person who never wants to see their numbers go down, who never feels they have enough, who over-analyzes every purchase, has very low purchasing power.

The more powerful our technologies become, the more important our philosophies