After playing 498 days in a row, my score today in Bongo was the second-highest in the world:
There’s a difference between casual online games that have a right answer, and those that are open-ended.
In crossword puzzles and most of the games from the Times (like Wordle and Connections) you’re trying to guess what the puzzle constructor had in mind. This can lead to frustration, because the idiosyncratic nature of inventing clues and answers means that you might not be in sync with the person at the other end. They’re inherently closed systems.
Bongo, on the other hand, is generative and combinatorial. There are bazillions of possible right answers, and your goal is to find a right answer that’s worth more points than anyone else’s. It doesn’t matter that I invented the game, I have no advantage over everyone else, because we all begin with the same tiles.
For me, open-ended games are time well spent. Have fun.
It’s not slop because it was created by an AI. It’s slop because it’s slop.
I just read the first two pages of a sci-fi novel on my Kindle. The author proudly proclaims that the 400-page book was created without any AI whatsoever. Alas, the book is slop. The writing is overwrought and the dialogue is banal. If a page isn’t worth writing, it’s unlikely a chapter is.
Slop happens when a marketer who should know better stops trying. It’s when we prioritize volume over impact. If we measure the cost of what we create instead of its value, it’s likely we’ll end up with slop.
AI makes this easier, no doubt. But it pays to focus on avoiding slop, not in worrying how the slop is made.
The question is now, “Who approved this?” not “who made this?”
There are two feet of snow blocking your car from the road. This is a problem.
Except it’s not a problem if you don’t need to leave the house for a few days—the snow will melt on its own.
And it’s not a problem if you had decided to move to the island of Saba a few years ago. It never snows there.
Traffic on the way to an important meeting is only a problem because we didn’t leave twenty minutes earlier. The rent that’s hard to cover after a vacation—same thing.
The real world feels like the source of our problems. But our decisions over time might be the actual culprits, hiding in the corner.
Instead of treating time as a given and the real world as an impediment, what happens if we accept the real world and make different decisions about time?
It reveals low status. People with power don’t need to use sarcasm to make a point. If you want to lead with status, using sarcasm undermines that goal.
It adds emotion where it’s not always needed. The emotion is an amplifier, but it often causes division and defensiveness.
If you have confidence in your standing and your idea, then sarcasm is simply getting in the way, because it undermines both.
Millions of folks are about to get snowed in. Stay safe.
Here’s a code for last year’s Thriving with AI course on Udemy. It’s free for the first 1,000 people. Sorry, we hit Udemy’s limit. That was quick. Here’s an unlimited 50% off for the Strategy course.
A freelancer, a brand, a musician–they’re here to serve. If people come to the restaurant for your famous marinara sauce, if new clients hire you to architect your signature style home or they want to dance to your top 40 hit, that’s what you’re here for.
Brands shouldn’t change their logo or their offerings when they get bored. They should do it when their accountant gets bored.
Unless…
Unless you’re an artist who doesn’t want to become a cover band of their former self.
Unless you use the frontier as fuel for creating more value in the long run.
Unless you’re no longer proud of what you used to do.
That hit is a gift from your former self. Like all gifts, you don’t have to accept it.
In addition to sunk costs, there are sunk benefits. Just because an asset belongs to you doesn’t mean you have to use it.
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