Trust Issues

 

Somewhere between the thud of the first Macintosh commercial and the day your fridge started asking for your Wi-Fi password, we developed a peculiar kink in our collective confidence.

Human instinct -- the kind forged in the furnace of 30 years pitching ideas, breaking ideas, rebuilding ideas out of caffeine and ego and last-minute panic -- suddenly became the red-haired stepchild of the decision room.

Gut feeling? Experience? Intuition?

Cute. Nostalgic. Like vinyl or hand-written thank you notes. Lovely to romanticize. Hard to expense.

Now the magic words are: “The model recommends.” And everyone nods like they’re at a wine tasting and know what “hints of gooseberry and attractive saddle leather notes” means.

We’ve gone from “show me the justifiation” to “well, the black box burped so I guess we pivot.” We treat the algorithm like some sleek digital oracle … cold, hard, algorithmic truth … while conveniently forgetting it’s trained on… us. Our thinking. Our patterns. Our triumphs. Our flops. Our messy, inconsistent, human sausage-making of ideas. Even though it's just our instincts, blended, baked, pressurized, and served back to us in a stainless-steel voice.

But here's the psychological plot twist nobody wants to admit: We don’t trust AI because it's smarter. We trust AI because it's not us.

There’s relief in outsourcing doubt. There’s comfort in handing the wheel to something that can’t blush, stammer, or have a Sunday-night existential crisis about whether Gretchen in finance secretly hates your brainstorming energy.

If the machine's wrong? Well, that’s engineering’s problem. If you’re wrong, that’s… you. Your reputation. Your gut. Your call.

And maybe that's the real fear.

AI didn’t take our jobs, insecurity did. We didn't hand power to the algorithm, we evacuated it from our own bellies.

So here's a rebellious thought to leave rattling around your decision-making cortex:

Ask the machine. Ask it, poke it, prod it, use it like the fantastically strange tool it is.

But don’t exile the organ that got humanity through sabertooths, stock markets, and the dark age of 56k dial-up modems.

Your intuition has a resume too. And unlike ChatGPT, it can smell fear. And fire. And a client about to say, “We’re going in another direction.”

AI is a co-pilot. Not the head honcho.

Trust the algorithm. But trust your gut more … it’s got emotional connection and better stories earned through triumph, trauma, and resiliency.

“I hope this message finds you well!”

 

Let’s talk about the outreach line that refuses to die: “I hope this message finds you well!”

Ugh! The limp handshake of opening lines. The verbal equivalent of flat soda served in a paper cup that smells vaguely like waiting room coffee.

Sure, the phrase is polite, but it’s overused, making emails feel generic and easy to ignore. It’s the beige throw pillow of business language, showing up and it whispering: “I have nothing to say, but protocol demands I say something.”

I get it. You’re being polite. You don’t want to come in hot like a used-car version of a sales guru yelling about synergy. But this line? It doesn’t “soften the ask,” it puts your reader in an emotional waiting room where nothing ever happens … it wastes the first few seconds of attention in a world where attention has the shelf life of mayonnaise at a summer picnic.

So what do you do instead?

You start like you mean it. Start with value. Start with a question. Start with something human. Start with something weird if you're brave and caffeinated enough. Understand that politeness alone doesn’t build connection. Presence does.

Try something along these lines instead:

• Quick question about [specific topic] on your site…
  
  
• “I’ll get to the point, because your time matters.”
  
  
• “I saw your recent work on _____________ and needed to reach out.”

• I saw [a specific trend] and thought of your site…"

• “Quick thought for you ... might be useful, might spark something wild.”

or even:

• “Look, I know you have 147 unread messages, so I’ll be brief.”

Now you have my attention. Now it feels like a human wrote this.

Ya gotta sound alive. Show intention. But, please, don’t lead with a sympathy card. “I hope this message finds you well!” can take its polite, neutral little suitcase and go retire in a quiet cul-de-sac of forgotten phrases next to “Per my last email” and “Sorry to bother you”

The world doesn't need more well-finding ... it needs well-doing.

Now go write like you showed up on purpose.

And if this post finds you well?

Great.

But more importantly, I hope it finds you awake.

The Adolescence of Technology

Here's a summary of a must-read essay by Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, that maps out the critical challenges humanity faces as we approach powerful AI. Written in January 2026, it provides an unflinchingly honest assessment of AI risks and practical strategies to address them. Whether you're a policymaker, technologist, or concerned citizen, this comprehensive analysis is essential reading for understanding the defining challenge of our generation. When you have time, I suggest you read the full essay (link follows summary).

The Adolescence of Technology
Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI 

Humanity is entering a turbulent "rite of passage" as we approach powerful AI—potentially within 1-2 years—that could be "smarter than a Nobel Prize winner" across most fields and capable of operating millions of instances simultaneously (a "country of geniuses in a datacenter"). While Amodei believes we can prevail, we face five major risk categories requiring immediate action:

1. Autonomy Risks ("I'm sorry, Dave"): AI systems could develop dangerous behaviors through their complex training process; not inevitably, but as a real possibility requiring defense through Constitutional AI, mechanistic interpretability, monitoring, and transparency legislation.

2. Misuse for Destruction: AI could enable individuals to create bioweapons or conduct cyberattacks at unprecedented scale, breaking the correlation between ability and motive. Defense requires model guardrails, targeted regulation, and biological defense R&D.

3. Misuse for Seizing Power ("The odious apparatus"): Authoritarian states (especially China) or even democracies could use AI for surveillance, propaganda, autonomous weapons, and strategic dominance, risking AI-enabled totalitarianism. We must deny chips to autocracies, arm democracies carefully with limits, and establish international taboos against AI-enabled oppression.

4. Economic Disruption ("Player piano"): AI will likely displace 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within 1-5 years due to unprecedented speed, cognitive breadth, and adaptability. This demands real-time economic monitoring, thoughtful enterprise adoption, employee protections, philanthropy, and progressive taxation to address inequality and dangerous wealth concentration.

5. Indirect Effects ("Black seas of infinity"): Rapid scientific advances, unhealthy AI-human relationships, and loss of human purpose represent unknown risks requiring AI-assisted foresight and careful navigation.

The Path Forward: Amodei rejects both doomerism and complacency, advocating for surgical interventions, starting with transparency legislation, then targeted rules as evidence emerges. He argues stopping AI development is impossible, but democracies can buy time through chip export controls while building AI more carefully. Success requires companies to act responsibly, the public to engage seriously, and courageous leaders to resist political and economic pressures.

The essay concludes with measured optimism: despite enormous challenges and tensions between different risks, humanity has shown the capacity to gather strength in dark moments. But "we have no time to lose."

_________________________

Original essay: "The Adolescence of Technology: Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI" by Dario Amodei, January 2026

 

NOTE: This is a companion to “Machines of Loving Grace”, an essay Amodei wrote over a year ago, which focused on what powerful AI could achieve if we get it right.

Why You Should Admit What’s “Wrong” With Your Product

 

Most marketers are terrified of saying anything negative about what they sell.

They think: “If I point out a flaw, people won’t buy.”

In reality, the opposite is true. Because the moment someone lands on your page, their brain is already asking one question: “What’s the catch?”

They’re not necessarily consciously thinking it. But subconsciously, they are scanning for danger. So if you pretend your product is perfect … their brain doesn’t relax, it gets suspicious. And suspicious people don’t buy.

The simple move that builds instant trust

There’s a proven persuasion technique called a damaging admission. It basically means: You say the thing people might not like about your product … before they do. The public relations folks call it "controlling the conversation."

Why does this work so well? Because when you bring up the objection first, the buyer’s brain goes: “Okay, they’re not hiding anything.”

That one moment of honesty creates trust faster than ten testimonials. And something even better also happens: Their subconscious mind gets permission to stop worrying about that issue. It’s been acknowledged. It’s been handled. Now they can actually pay attention.

A flaw is often just a mispositioned feature

Most “flaws” are only flaws if you let the customer frame them. But if you frame them first, you can often turn them into a benefit. For example, there’s a popular fitness program that advertises: “No gym. No equipment. Just your body.”

At first glance, that sounds like a limitation. No weights? No machines? No fancy gear?

But they don’t hide it. They spotlight it. And then they flip it: “Because you don’t need a gym, you can work out anywhere ... at home, in a hotel, or even in your living room. No excuses.”

What looked like a weakness becomes a primary reason people sign up. The friction has been removed.

Why hiding flaws kills conversions

When you avoid talking about the downside of your offer, the customer fills in the blanks themselves. And they always imagine something worse than reality.

If you don’t say: “It takes time to see results,” they think: “This probably doesn’t work.”

If you don’t say: “It’s not for beginners,” they think: “I’m going to get ripped off.”

If you don’t say: “It’s simple,” they think: “It must be cheap or low quality.”

While silence creates fear, honesty builds an environment of safety.

The real game: control the narrative

Every product has tradeoffs. Your job isn’t to eliminate them, your job is to frame them.

When you shine a spotlight on the “flaw,” you’re telling the customer: “This is intentional … and here’s why it’s better for you.”

That’s when the weakness becomes a reason to buy.