Directionless Velocity

These "AI times" have a long tail. Artificial Intelligence has been with us for most of our lives, at least if we are under ~80 years old. Think about it: today we talk about "the new Turing test", but the original Turing test was proposed in a 1950 paper. More than 70 years ago, we were already asking if machines could deceive us. We already had the goosebumps. The difference is an unprecedented and hard to metabolize velocity.

From the first days of chatGPT to today's moltbook, stories moved fast, Hype moved faster. And fake experts became the fastest of them all. Suddenly, you no longer need to be a computer scientist or an engineer to create software and put it on the internet available for everyone. It was "easy" to think that now everyone could write books at unprecedented speed and with decent writing skills. It was "not that easy" to imagine that now everyone could write code at unprecedented speed and with good coding skills. It was "almost impossible" to imagine that we'd soon be reading blog posts written by agents, for agents, mastering language for their own AI-kind. How did we get here? Well, I think the answer is simple: directionlessness.

From a technical engineering perspective, all of this looks incrementally exponential — what we optimistically call progress. From a social engineering perspective, it's much harder to use that word. While some people feel super optimistic, euphoric, empowered and their lives seem to be getting better, the majority feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and even dumb. Many of us have fallen into an adoption rabbit hole: chatGPT, GPT3, GPT4, gemini, claude, deepseek, this one, that one, all of them, none of them, "ok they are all just tools", "oh no they're now agents", "everyone has its molt except me", "now there's a creepy story about molts", "maybe it was good to be behind", "shall I move faster?", "no?", "Am I ok… or am I unemployed next week?"...

An unhealthy nervous system reaction. An overwhelming, never-ending chase story to adopt the next AI tool in order to remain competitive, remain smart, deserve a seat at the table, or simply keep up in conversation. But here's the thing: we're all in this feeling to some degree. You are not alone. You're just another human being, perfectly illustrating Bartlett's point. If I had to update his 1969 quote for today, I'd say:

"Humans are incapable of adopting exponentially. They are capable of adapting meaningfully."

We tried to adopt AI at exponential speed. The result was not mastery, it was actually fake mastery — impressive directionless velocity, leading many of us straight into anxiety, worry, and fear.

The truth is, we are living fascinating times hidden behind constant signals of "you should be doing more," social pressure framed as inevitability, and billions of tools presented without purpose. Add the recent "agent-army" narratives, and it's easy to slip into loss of agency, replaceability anxiety, dehumanization — even Skynet metaphors. And for the embodied, relational, holistic people, this hits especially hard. For those whose work is presence, coherence, and meaning, this framing is almost violent. But here's the uncomfortable truth:

Most people talking about AI right now don't know where they're going either. They're just running faster.

The key insight is simple: if you don't know where to go, accelerating will only drive you to madness — not destination. I'm not inviting you to slow progress. I'm inviting you to restore orientation. Breathe. You're not behind. You're being invited to imagine — limitlessly. That thing inside you that feels beautiful, that you've always wanted to create but never had time for? Well, the time is coming. Instead of chasing the next AI tool, look inward. What is that you've always wanted to create? What is your purpose? Introduce that purpose to your tools. Then — and only then — you can start 10x-ing.

AI does not create clarity. It amplifies what is already clear. If you don't know what to amplify, AI just multiplies confusion.

As an entrepreneur, I think about this through a Product-Market-Fit (PMF) lens. You don't spend decades building a product to then see if someone wants it. You usually follow a process to discover something that genuinely helps people, that they understand, return to, and recommend — without you pushing. And don't get me wrong here, I'm using "product" and "market" as metaphors here. You don't need to design a product before using AI. What I'm trying to tell you is that what matters is discovering that thing you have that genuinely serves others and feels right inside you. Once you find it, then you can use AI to amplify and multiply its impact. Make yourself go at full velocity. Now you have direction. Now you're free to accelerate. Limitlessly. Fascinating.

AI is being shown as "create courses", "write faster", "code faster", "scale content", "automate clients", "clone yourself", "make a billion dollars with infinite agents". All of that only works after clarity. Otherwise the feeling is: "I'm supposed to multiply… but what exactly?" And that confusion is a very sane reaction. The correct order matters for a healthy nervous system reaction:

Clarity (PMF): Who do I help best? What do they get specifically from me? Why me?

Container (Offer): It could be a talk, workshop, journey, blog, service, product, SaaS, or app — whatever you can imagine, literally.

AI: The amplifier that will turn a talk into a structured program, reducing admin, extending reach, doing the sales and numbers for you, increasing leverage without draining you.

AI should feel like "Oh… this makes my work lighter." Not heavier.

Everyone is talking about AI's velocity — tools, agents, armies, automation. But very few are talking about direction. If you don't know where you're going, speed doesn't help. It just gets you lost faster. If you feel stressed, scattered, or behind, that's not a personal failure. That's what happens when velocity is decoupled from purpose.