Prioritization, news consumption, and how to use generative AI.
I wrote an article on the role of prioritization in product strategy. Plus some thoughts on news consumption and how we should use LLMs.
This newsletter has been on hiatus longer than I planned, but as always, I’ve got a bunch of stuff to share.
First, I wrote an article on the role of prioritization in product strategy. Give it a read and let me know what you think.
Over the last few months, I’ve been reading about two major topics.
How are we consuming news, and what does that mean?
People consuming news on social media isn’t new, but it feels like we’re at an inflection point. Breaking news is no longer coming predominantly from mainstream media voices.
The announcement that Joe Biden wouldn’t run for re-election came via a tweet. The assassination attempt on Donald Trump became a circus of memes, shitposting, and armchair ballistics analysis. And the Democratic National Convention invited content creators, which "ruffled a lot of feathers in traditional media, whose reporters struggled with limited access to the more crowded areas of the event, and whose business as a whole has been gutted in recent years"
I’ve also noticed a trend where traditional media outlets, like The New York Times and Washington Post, are blurring the lines between news and opinion. Just looking at their front pages, it’s becoming harder to tell the difference.
I see two things happening here: social media is bringing a range of voices into the news— for better or worse— and news consumption is becoming more about entertainment than information. The New Yorker describes this shift as "info-determinism: the belief that the ways that information flows through the world are actually a kind of web in which we’re ensnared". How we consume news is changing, and so is the role of mainstream media. I haven’t fully formed an opinion on what that means yet.
I’ve also been enjoying the Mixed Signals podcast from Semafor Media. It’s a great breakdown of modern media with the thesis that people think the media is a big conspiracy, but it’s really just a conspiracy to make money. If you’re interested in media analysis, I highly recommend subscribing.
How should we personally use generative AI?
I’ve been using ChatGPT surprisingly often. It helps me edit my writing, create Excel formulas, and write some basic JavaScript. Just last week, Anthropic made Artifacts widely available—an incredibly powerful tool for generating prototypes with a clever UI solution. If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s worth checking out. I’ve been blown away by it. So, I’ve been thinking about how we should be using this technology on a personal level.
On one hand, as a tool to help shortcut tasks that take time or that I don’t fully know how to do, it’s great. But where will that lead? Lenny’s Newsletter has a great deep dive: How close is AI to replacing product managers? It includes some eye-opening insights, like: “70% to 80% of people guessed which answer was AI, but many still preferred it.”
On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve been looking at how people use chatbots as companions. I wrote about this in my last newsletter. I still find the idea foreign. Solving loneliness with a bot instead of a human feels like a bad solution on the surface. From a recent episode of Decoder interviews Replika founder, Eugenia Kuyda
Eugenia Kuyda: I’m pretty sure that by 2025, we’ll see experiences that are very close to what we saw in the movie Her or Blade Runner or whatever sci-fi movie people like.
Nilay Patel: Those sci-fi movies are always cautionary tales.
It shocks me that people want to recreate Her. That movie didn’t end well for the humans.
More broadly, using LLMs to produce content at scale I worry has more harms than good. The ease of being able to create AI slop just to get views, or worse, create disinformation is alarming. But, using it personally, generative AI feels like a shift comparable to when computers became widespread in the workforce. But using it as a virtual companion feels different; like sci-fi turned into a real product. What these changes mean for how we work and interact with others is what I’m most curious to see.
Lastly, I was recently recommended The Rewatchables podcast and I've been furiously listening to it. I'm mad I didn't discover it earlier. If, like me, you love movies you'll love listening.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you've got any recommendations for things I should read, watch, or listen to go deeper on these topics, let me know.
💩 Cool shit
As always, here's a bunch of fun links to check out that don't require any reading*.
Analyzing my text messages with my ex-boyfriend – *Ok this one does require a little bit of reading. But it's a fascinating insight into a relationship over time.
Search The Market – I love seeing windows into other people's digital lives. This one is a peek into what people are Googling.
Dump Site – It's a virtual landfill. A sampling of files people have uploaded from their recycling bin.
Click the Red Button – Hit the button. Get a random site.
The Communal Plot – Answer a daily question and see where you fit on a 2x2 matrix.
Shade Map – Find your home on the map and see how much shade it gets.
Prompt Airlines – A fun LLM game. Try and hack the chatbot to give you free airline tickets.
ARECACEAE – I'm not quite sure what this is but it's got a truly unique UI pattern.
Stuck In The Scroll – This site tracks if its creator, a guy named Ben, is currently scrolling TikTok. I need this for me.
Working Class History Map – I find history through the lens of laypeople fascinating. This one maps some of those stories.
Prosperity Quest – A game made by Intuit to teach financial literacy. I haven't made it all the way through but it's a pretty neat concept.
Queueing – *This one you will actually have to read. But it's a really informative and interactive explanation of queueing in the context of HTTP requests.
Version Museum – This site tracks how popular websites and software have evolved over time. It's a great step through our digital history.
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