building in public & asking the right questions

there are a few moments in tech that have redefined our entire society in my lifetime. the internet was one of them. the iphone was the other. moments like this which introduce a new technology are often easy to see in hindsight but immensely difficult for some people to grasp when we're in the middle of it. these moments aren't just improvements on new gadgets or subtle iterations. they are a complete paradigm shift on what is possible with tech.

asking the right questions about new tech can be either extremely difficult or insanely easy. when 3G cell tech first arose, people who's job it was to ask these questions were asking the wrong ones. "what is the benefit of having 3G cell tech in phones?" well turns out having the internet in your pocket changes a lot of things.

LLMs and agentic models are the next moment like this that we are currently living through. how many wrong questions are we asking about Ai? its a cycle that goes back to all eras. the internet is a fad it won't last... actual beliefs that some people had about the most important technology mankind has harnessed. and its happening now with Ai and all the implications that come with it.

lots of silly barriers of entry that just like in past paradigm shifts always rear their head. politics often. i don't believe in Ai because its making us lose our human aspect... i don't use Ai because its not green... i'm not using Ai because one day it's going to destroy us all. Ai is going to take so many jobsss. we're all going to lose our jobs to the robots.. ahhhh.. doom and gloom and on and on and on.

if you can get past those bugaboos.. then perhaps you can start to see implications that Ai - more so where Ai and agentic models are heading - will have on our lives. sure now its silly videos, Ai images, the chatbots but on the backend where the rubber really meets the road where all the tech bros live, where the billions of dollars are flowing to.. they know that these models mean.

a very big subset of this which i'm fascinated with and have been participating in is agentic coding. the ability for an agentic model to take natural language (aka just words that you can type or say into a mic ) and create software in an effective manner. an ability that up until these last few years was not possible at the speed and ability at which these models are capable of.

i'm a nerd right and i've dabbled in a few languages before.. rust, java, python but I did not go to school for computer science and don't claim to be fluent in any of these programming language. knowing that, what i've been able to do with these models is amazing. digital ideas can be brought to life because of the tunnel that these models are providing with a little work to go from plain english to actual usable and efficient pieces of software - i'm talking websites, full stack applications, games, programs. NEVER before possible in our lifetimes.

we're seeing the fruits of this paradigm shift in "normal" peoples ability to create meaningful products that help people and change their life in the process.

take CalAi - a calorie tracking app that gives you info on your food from taking a picture using Ai. 18 year old kid vibe codes the app using these agentic tools. launches it, markets it using brain rot TikTok vibes and is making something insane like $3Million MRR (that's 3 million dollars a month in nerd talk) for a calorie tracking app at 18 years old. wtf am i doing with my life mannn.. lmao

anyone with even a little bit of computer/techy/coding experience can now create an application, website, tool and even people who have no experience but have time to learn a little are within striking distance of creating a meaningful product

again, NEVER before possible in our lifetimes. and sure not everyone wants to or needs to start an app or build something in the digital world but it begs the question once again of what are the wrong questions we are asking about Ai. what are the correct ones to ask?

as this year starts i'm leaning into building in public (more on that soon) because as Sam Altman said it "we are in the era of the idea guy". learning how to use these models, how they work, the possibilities, even just being within proximity of this technology i think will give me an edge in asking the right questions about this tech.

i take pride in being in the first 1% of ChatGPT users when it was first available to the public and it has changed how I use the internet.. how I search for information. so many other models that can all cater to your needs. some examples of models i use:

Claude - Claude Code

Google Gemini

Perplexity

i'll leave you with this: spend 1 full hour of time exploring the capabilities of these models and just talk to them. brainstorm, ask questions, ask it to ask you questions. find a way in which these models can improve even the tiniest aspect of your life. i guarantee you will be surprised at the capability of this tech.

-chemistoncampus