The naive view of information

Has AI Blown Your Mind Lately?

If it’s been a while, you’ve got to give this a listen.

I created this ten-minute conversation in just three minutes by uploading some of my writing to Google’s Notebook LM. It’s surreal—AI-generated voices discussing an AI-generated script about how AI is fundamentally changing the way we create and consume information.

The ease of creating a podcast this way also highlights a major concern we’ve been focused on at Rootcause: Information Overload.

If creating content is this effortless, what’s stopping us from drowning in it?

This is why Nick Scott has been leading our experiment in using AI to create personalized information digests. We’re excited about the initial results, and we’ll be sharing more in the next newsletter. But for now, let me ask you this:

Do you really understand information, or is your view of the information environment still naive?

In his latest book, Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari writes: “Novel technology often leads to historical disasters, not because the technology is inherently bad but because it takes time for humans to learn to use it wisely.”

This is the exact dilemma we face with AI today.

If you’re curious about my takeaways—and why many of us might still hold naive views about information—you can read them here.

Without giving too much away, one aspect of naive thinking is the assumption that simply producing more or ‘better’ information—like supporting independent media without adopting new journalism models—can solve democratic challenges like disinformation.

But the world doesn’t work that way. If you want to dive deeper into these ideas, including the democratic challenges of AI and the urgent need for new journalism models, check out a podcast I recently recorded with Alix Dunn over at Computer Says Maybe.

Until next time!

Jonathan