You Are Not Late to Artificial Intelligence

To study it, learn to use it, understand it, or build with it

I get this question all the time: Is it too late to start with AI?

The answer is no.

The rest of this short post is my attempt at arguing why that’s the case.

It’s never too late

Kevin Kelly’s essay “You Are Not Late” (the inspiration for this one), is a cautionary tale about confusing the invisibility of the best present opportunities with their non-existence. If you can’t see them it doesn’t mean they’re not there.

Kelly eloquently explains why looking back at the early days of the internet now gives us that feeling we all know so well: “Oh, if only I realized the possibilities we had then!”

Short and cool domains were open, Kelly recalls. But even leaders of their sectors, like McDonalds, didn’t recognize the opportunity. Everything internet-related that we now take for granted was still to be built: browsers, search engines, video platforms, social media, all the apps you use daily, and companies like Google, Facebook, or YouTube.

It was all in the future. A future you could’ve built—if only you realized the possibilities you had then.

Kelly then transports us 30 years into the future and reveals the plot twist: there’s an even bigger future awaiting in front of us. People from 2044 will think the same of us, “Oh, those lucky bastards. They had all the possibilities back then!”

Those lucky bastards is us.

Internet or artificial intelligence, it doesn’t matter

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking this attitude applies only to stuff that already exists. Stuff that’s been already built. If Kelly’s story about the internet feels true it’s only because the internet is special. Will there be another invention that provides comparable opportunities?

That’s the wrong question.

The right question is this: How can I move, rotate, tweak, and reshape my perception so that I learn to see in the things that exist today comparable opportunities to those the internet gave to 1990s entrepreneurs and enthusiasts?

Because there’s always such a thing. Actually, there’s always an entire array of such things. The hard part is not that they exist, but that they stop being invisible to us.

Arguably, the best invention today that’s still drastically underdeveloped and could provide that level of opportunity is, of course, artificial intelligence.

So, AI. But what to do with it? The key is to let passion and joy lead the way. They’re the true forces of opportunity seekers. If you have them, just do whatever you feel like doing.

You don’t need to be an entrepreneur, although they’re doing pretty well. Internet businesses were created by hackers and coders. People who enjoyed playing with the tools at their disposal. You don’t need to build a big company or a startup, but you can. You can also build a one-person business (that’s me, for instance). You can write about it. You can study it and become a developer. You can understand it and sell your knowledge some other way.

Just off the top of my head.

You can do something that I can’t imagine because it’s an option only visible to you and your particular and unrepeatable set of circumstances.

The inevitable arrow of time points at you

The feeling of being late is pervasive. It’s always there.

Time flows and the flowing makes us focus on what’s already gone instead of what’s left to come to us.

But flowing time implies both necessarily exist: some things are gone and are no longer an opportunity—those are the easiest to see because they’ve already been exploited by others.

Watching them go urges us to look backward, in grief at the lost chance.

But other things are coming.

They’re often invisible until you learn to see. That’s what visionaries do. But we should demystify their ability. It’s nothing that special.

What they’re doing is simple: They’re looking forward instead of backward.

And they never, ever think they’re late.