The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
But what happens when the bottom-up version hits back? When digital frictionlessness collides with physical decay? That's where we find ourselves today, straddling worlds that operate by entirely different rules.
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
Physical spaces are not designed for us to inhabit them physically, they’re there to be optimized digitally. i.e. instagram aesthetic cafes and Coachella
But there are questions like: if AI can do the work for you, what exactly are we measuring? What do you do with the free time... scroll TikTok (that answer seems to be yes)
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
If AI streamlines busy tasks, what do we get to do with that new found free time? Spend more time on social media, tech companies would argue. Spend more money doing less.
There are startups now, like one called Cluely that promise real-time assistance for everything: campus tests, dating, even thinking. Their slogan is: “So you never have to think alone again.” Their plan is eventually to develop a chip for your brain.
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
those glasses that help you “cheat” during meetings or interviews
As Samantha Rose Hill wrote, “AI mirrors you. You're being sold back to yourself. It will only increase hyper-individualism and isolation.”
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
my AI mirroring my personality
We're living through an epidemic of loneliness (as many have discussed), but the solution being engineered isn't more human connection. It's simulated companionship that's both profitable and... frictionless.
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
Real friendships are messy
All you have to do is take out your phone to disappear into the frictionless universe of technology. And companies definitely want you to! AI is the newest terrain in a decades-long race to eliminate all forms of cognitive resistance - to build the most complete, most seamless, most profitable mind-melder that follows you across platforms, logs you... See more
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
Wealth has always helped smooth over bumps - but when the physical world is such a mess and the digital world is so easy, it’s simple to curate the digital into the physical if you have money.
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
You don’t go to business school to learn you go to network. The physical world is built to optimize the digital, which doesn’t necessarily work. Take Coachella for example
This is the economy now. Not a distribution of opportunity. A redistribution of friction. But friction isn’t the enemy!!!! It’s information. It tells us where things are straining and where care is needed and where attention should go.
And it's not all bad news. Because friction is also where new systems can emerge . Every broken interface, every ov... See more
And it's not all bad news. Because friction is also where new systems can emerge . Every broken interface, every ov... See more
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
- The digital world has almost no friction.
- The physical world is full of it.