Nothing against AI

but the tools don't work the way the tweets say

I have nothing against AI. Let me start there.

I wish I had a thousand hands and a thousand eyes.
There is just… so much I want to do.

I want to grow Sublime and make books and essays and chase so many rabbit holes. If AI can help me reach more people and do more of the things I love, I would be a huge beneficiary.

I’m not going to voluntarily handicap myself in the name of purity.

But I have been feeling incompetent lately and I finally put a finger on why.

I open X/Twitter and see

"EVERYONE IS GROWING THEIR BUSINESS 10X FASTER WITH THIS AND THAT AI TOOL AND YOU SHOULD TOO."

But then I try the tools and it just doesn’t work the way the tweets say.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

I got a random email yesterday that mentioned Opencord —an auto-reply tool that’s supposed to promote your product by automatically replying to relevant tweets.

It looked sketchy but I had 20mins in between calls and I was feeling open to trying things. Also, Podcast Magic is working brilliantly well and is only bottlenecked by people knowing it exists. If AI can help me get this tool in front of more people, I’d take the win.

STEP 1

I connect my Twitter account. It felt like giving my house keys to a stranger but hey, if they pay the rent, I’m not complaining.

STEP 2

I create my little “agent,” type in keywords, and tell it to go find people talking about podcasts or sharing podcast insights. The idea: promote Podcast Magic in the right places without me having to spend hours replying to relevant tweets.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

It actually starts finding tweets and auto-replying.
And then… oh, fuck.

Here’s what it sends on my behalf:

Imagine lying about being a podcaster… on my own behalf

And more:

Ah yes, my dear friends Dr. Kugelmas and Dr. Flamm. We go way back.

WHO THE FUCK TALKS LIKE THIS?

Knowledge work is 90% reading the room—intuition, context, feel.
I don’t want to spend my days hunting leads.
But this isn’t it.

A few hours later, I’m back in a Slack thread debating the copy on a tooltip.
Still sweating the color scheme of a landing page in Figma.
Still staring at “Grow Podcast Magic” on my to-do list.
(Speaking of, I’m looking for someone to work with me to grow Podcast Magic, creatively and operationally. If you’re a good fit, reply to this email.)

Life is absurd, and sometimes we all need to bathe in the WTF of it all.

Anyways… here’s a moodboard on honesty, absurdity, and AI—enjoy :)