Jon ChanThe world is changing rapidly. Before COVID, third spaces - free, public places besides home and work - were in decline. Now, with the rise of remote work, second spaces and office culture have disappeared too. Our built-in IRL communities have suddenly gone away and we’re stuck at home. We wake up to a screen, we work on a screen, and we unwind after on a screen…sometimes without having a real conversation with a real person all day, sometimes even several days. Social media doesn’t cut it: we don’t get deep, meaningful connection through them. These apps are designed to keep us entertained, to keep us buying stuff, to make us feel we are not enough, and we rarely see our friends on these platforms anymore anyways. No number of likes, tweets, posts, or stories beats real face time with real people you care about. We crave real connection more than we ever have before.
But getting together is hard. We now live in a world where it’s up to each of us to figure out how to stay connected and to explore the world around us, but we aren’t set up to succeed. Some of us are lucky enough to have those few friends willing to put the work in. Maybe you’re one of those people. You send the first text, you ask people about when and where to meet, you make the reservation or buy the tickets, and you keep things moving for as long as you can. But it’s a lot of work, oftentimes thankless work, and I know it can burn you out. I know, because I’m one of those people, and now those around us need us more than ever before. But no matter how hard the work is and how much it takes to put ourselves out there, we do it because we still crave that connection - we still hunger for more time together, phones down.
What if didn’t need to be so hard?
The world is also changing in different way: a new alien intelligence is emerging, one that promises to bring a wave of technological disruption that will touch every aspect of our lives. The arrival of artificial intelligence can be scary. It’s an awesome power that risks making us even more addicted to our screens and entrenching us even further in our isolation. But what if didn’t have to be this way? What if we could build an artificial intelligence that actually helped us get together, outside, in the real world that surrounds us? What if we didn’t need to do all the work of getting together ourselves anymore, and we had a trusted companion in our pocket to make it easier for us instead? What would the world look like if every person on the planet spent less time on their screens, had more time with the people they love, and felt more connected to their local communities around them?
This is the future vision of the world that I have. This is the kind of artificial intelligence I want to build. For the last ten years, my work at Stack Overflow has been about building technology to bring millions of people together into communities online. I’m proud to say I’ve had some hand in how technology has fundamentally shaped our world. Now I want to create an artificial intelligence to help billions of people build communities offline, to reinvent the way that we get together, and to solve our epidemic of loneliness.
Since I left Stack Overflow, I’ve been doing a deep exploration of what artificial intelligence is uniquely capable of, talking to community builders and superconnectors, and building prototype after prototype trying to learn more about this problem. Now, after months of research and building, I’m ready to share my first experimental product with the public. I do not expect it to be the last, and I suspect it will take a few tries to get it right with your feedback. I’ll be updating here and on our Discord for early adopters. If this vision of the world resonates with you, if you still believe technology can connect us rather than isolate us, I want your help building this new future with me. I need you with me.
Stop scrolling. Get connected. Rage.