AI and Miracle Drugs (Ricky Weekly #92)

This is where I share 3 things every week with my friends and anyone else interested.
—
A picture from my life:

I helped marry David and Amanda with the power vested in me!

A thing on my mind:

I think about “feedback loops” all the time. Great products give people what they want, quickly. Bored? Open TikTok and you’ll be instantly entertained. Want an air fryer? Open Amazon and you’ll find the top air fryer within a few seconds, and it’ll arrive at your doorstep tomorrow. You get feedback on your desires so quickly that you’re not even sure you really want the air fryer and there it is already on your doorstep. Positive or negative, that’s kind of the magic of technology. AI promises to shorten that feedback loop even more. I write this newsletter to help me understand my thoughts and connect with my friends. The process of writing one word at a time helps me think, but once I get better at working with ChatGPT, I probably will just have a conversation with the AI and when I’m satisfied, I can ask the AI to share a piece of writing in my style with you all. That’ll probably be easier (and Ricky Weekly can actually come Weekly), but it’d feel very different for me and for you if you knew that’s how I’m doing it. I write for the “experience.” The experience of struggling to understand my thoughts well enough to express them, and the experience of sharing what I find out with you and have you recognize the thoughtfulness, enough to maybe elicit a connection or response. Of course, this is not to say AI-powered products can’t also create this experience for me. In fact, that sounds like an extremely fun project to work on.

I was listening to The Daily episode about Ozempic/Wegovy, and one of the interviewees who lost a ton of weight said something that stuck with me. She said, “It’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever felt normal. I kept saying this must be what skinny people feel like. This must be how normal people’s brains work…this is what a healthy relationship to food actually presents as.” This stuck with me because it’s exactly what people with ADHD say once they get on Vyvanse/Adderall. They’re floored because whatever was “wrong” with their brain gets chemically switched off and the feedback loop is so immediate and clear that it’s almost shocking. As someone who has expended an inordinate amount of energy managing my own weight and even more helping others manage their attention through Flow Club without pharmacological intervention, the prospect of these “miracle drugs” like the GLP-1 compounds represents the holy grail that no software solution can really compete with.

And so just like writing with AI, if you pull forward the future just a little, it comes back to what gets lost if the basic needs and wants become easy to attain. Will we become more discerning about what we truly want? I’m not just trying to produce a document like meeting minutes, I’m writing to enjoy the experience of understanding my thoughts, learning to express myself and making a connection. It’s a bit more complex with managing weight and attention. I want to manage my weight to improve my healthspan, but in addition to shedding the pounds, it’s also about becoming a healthy person and the process helps create that identity. Similarly with managing attention, how much of the desire is about simply acquiring the ability to pay attention to what you want, and how much is the story we want to believe about ourselves as self-sufficient and capable beings.

I don’t know, but the TV show Westworld is making a lot of sense to me now.

A piece of content I recommend:

Loki on Disney+

Marvel’s Phase 4 has been pretty underwhelming so far, except for Loki. Season 2 was especially amazing.

Bonus: The Acquired Podcast

I’ve recommended an episode of the Acquired podcast before, but I think it’s the only podcast other than Heavyweight that I’d drop everything to immediately listen to as soon as it comes out. If you are a business nerd and you don’t know about Acquired, let me put you on it. Start with the Costco episode.

Bonus Bonus: Everything Jung Kook right now.

I wasn’t a BTS fan because they just felt too foreign to me but what JK is doing right now is kind of amazing. An Asian man successfully combining Michael Jackson, The Weeknd, Justin Timberlake and Usher, singing in English with sexy lyrics and dance moves. This is the first truly sexy Asian man I’ve seen breaking through mainstream American culture and I’m here for it. Just watch this friggin’ video.

🤗

—
As always, you can find out what I’m thinking in more real-time on Twitter and my essays are on my website. My primary focus (and where I focus) is on Flow Club.