The Age of Imagineering

What have you been saving for later because you didn't think you could make it real?

"We choose to go to the Moon."

John F. Kennedy said those words at Rice University in 1962. It's easy to hear them now and picture a finished story. We know where it goes.

The people listening that day couldn't fast-forward to find out how it would turn out. There was a destination, an enormous amount of work ahead, and a decision to begin.

I keep thinking about that last part.

Because most of us have something we've never quite given ourselves permission to begin.

This is The Age of Imagineering. I'm Justin Thompson.

I wanted to start here because there's a feeling behind this show that I've been trying to put into words.

I spend a lot of time building with AI. And lately, I've been having trouble putting the work down and going to bed. An idea gets hold of me, I start building, and I want to see how far I can take it.

I'll work through something with AI, and I can have a working prototype sitting in front of me. I can use it. I can find the parts that don't make sense yet and start changing them.

I know what it would have taken me to attempt some of these things on my own. That's part of why I find it so hard to explain the excitement to somebody who hasn't experienced it.

But there's something else happening in that moment.

I start letting the next idea get a little further before I dismiss it.

Something I would have filed away as too complicated, too expensive, or beyond what I know how to do starts looking worth a try. I can still be surprised by what I might be able to make.

I find that ridiculously exciting.

And I want more people to get to feel it.

You probably have an idea like that somewhere. It might be in a note on your phone. It might be something you bring up every few months, usually starting with, "You know what somebody should do?"

Maybe it's something small that would make your day easier. Maybe it's something you've wanted to learn. Maybe you've been living with a problem long enough that you can see a better way, even if you've never had the means to build it.

Then you start doing the math. What would it cost? Who would help? When would you have time?

Those are real questions. You still have to pay the bills. The rest of your life doesn't pause because you've had an interesting thought.

So you put it aside.

Later, when work calms down. Later, when there's more money. Later, when you know enough to make a serious attempt.

I wonder how much of what people have to offer gets left in that word. Later.

And how much of it we stop remembering was there.

That's part of why this matters to me. I'm watching some of the reasons for postponing an idea become less fixed than they used to be.

I can explore something while I'm still curious about it. I can try an approach, see why it fails, and try again without every experiment becoming a major commitment.

The first attempt doesn't have to carry the weight of the whole dream anymore.

It can just teach me something.

That changes how willing I am to start. It gives an idea a chance to become more than a conversation I keep having with myself.

That's what I mean by the Age of Imagineering.

Imagination gives you somewhere to go. Engineering is the work of making something real enough to use. Bringing them together means being able to follow an idea further, until you can see what it actually amounts to.

There is still work involved. A convincing demonstration can fall apart when you try to depend on it. I have to test things, understand what I'm building, and admit when an approach isn't working.

Sometimes the system gets it wrong. Sometimes I discover I haven't been clear about what I want.

But now I can work with that. I can learn from something in front of me and make a better decision about the next step.

I'm getting more chances to find out.

Think about somebody who runs a small service business.

They've spent the day taking calls, moving appointments around, keeping customers informed. Job details are scattered across messages and notes. The team has sent photos from the field. Something changed, and somebody didn't get the update.

Now they're home, going back through it all so tomorrow doesn't start with the same confusion.

Picture them sitting with a laptop while the rest of the house gets on with the evening.

That's a very ordinary scene. It is also somebody's life.

They probably have a good sense of what would help. They've spent enough evenings doing this to know where things go wrong. But knowing the problem and having the resources to fix it have been two different things.

Suppose AI helps them work through a better approach. They make a small version, try it with sample jobs, discover what's missing, and get the help they need to make it dependable.

If it works, the result might be fewer messages to chase and less time piecing the day back together.

And then, one evening, the laptop closes a little earlier.

There's time to sit with somebody. To go for a walk. To do something that didn't need doing for the business.

That's a result I care about.

I want technology to make more room in a person's life. I want the person who understands the problem to have more ability to do something about it.

There's a word I use for that: agency.

Having some real ability to make a choice and act on it.

We spend a lot of time living inside systems somebody else designed. You learn the workarounds. You learn which parts are frustrating. Eventually, you stop expecting them to change.

When you gain even a little ability to shape those systems, something shifts. You start paying attention to possibilities you used to ignore.

You ask whether a process could be simpler. You wonder what would happen if you tried a different approach. You begin to trust that your experience of a problem might be useful to someone.

I think there's a lot of human capability waiting for that opportunity.

The knowledge you get from doing something every day matters. So does noticing who gets frustrated, what people avoid, and where a supposedly efficient process makes their lives harder.

I want more of that understanding involved in what gets built.

When I talk about human-directed intelligence, that's what I have in mind. A person brings their experience and their sense of what needs to change, and has more help turning that into something useful.

For me, it's changing the questions I spend time with. What should this accomplish? Who is it for? How will I know whether it actually helped?

Those questions deserve some attention. We can produce a lot of things that look impressive without improving anybody's day.

I'd like us to keep noticing the person at the other end.

I also know that hearing somebody get excited about AI doesn't make everybody feel hopeful.

If you're worried about your work, or you've watched technology become another way to demand more from you, you have reasons to be skeptical.

I'm describing a possibility I want us to work toward. People will make choices about whether these systems give us more freedom or simply fill the day with more demands.

If we save somebody an hour, I'd like us to consider letting them have some of that hour.

We don't get an unlimited number of them.

That thought sits underneath a lot of my excitement. The work matters. Building things matters. So does having enough of yourself left at the end of the day to enjoy being here.

I want people to have energy for their families and friends. For an interest that never turns into a business. For learning something because it makes them curious.

An afternoon can be worthwhile without producing anything you can invoice for.

I think we forget that sometimes.

And yes, there is a lot to work out. Making something useful, reliable, and available to the people who need it takes more than having access to a capable model.

We'll follow those questions as this series moves forward.

But I wanted to begin with the feeling that makes me want to work on them.

Because when I sit down to build something now, I'm getting more chances to follow a thought and see where it leads. I can still run into a wall. I can still discover that the idea wasn't very good. At least I get to find out.

There is something generous about having room to try.

I'd like that room to be available to more people.

So think about that idea again. The one you put aside.

You don't have to turn it into a company. You don't have to announce it to anybody. It can start with a quiet hour spent finding out what you would need to learn.

Pick one part you could explore. Make a rough version. Ask a better question.

Give yourself something real to respond to.

You might discover a reason to keep going. You might learn enough to decide it isn't what you want after all. Either way, you're making a choice with more than an old assumption about what you could never do.

That's where I want this show to begin.

With the possibility that some of the limits we've arranged our lives around are starting to move. And with a little curiosity about what we might choose if we looked at them again.

That feeling is keeping me up at night.

I hope it gives you a reason to begin something.

What have you been saving for later that you could give a little of your life to now?

If this gave you an idea to explore, follow The Age of Imagineering so you can join me for the next episode.

And if you'd like the essays behind the show, subscribe at age of imagineering dot com.

I'll see you next time.