What era are we in?

Most people had never used a mobile phone in 1984. And most of them wouldn't have wanted to.

Mobiles of that era had huge battery packs that you had to lug around, and were prohibitively expensive for the majority of consumers - pretty much strictly 'business only'. Basically they were for car-bound, high-powered executives and sales people, for whom being in constant contact made the expense and inconvenience a price worth paying.

If you'd stopped people in the street and asked if they wanted, needed, or were planning to get one - you can imagine the likely response.

Fast forward to 2024. Now generative AI is in the same place as those early mobiles.

A whole bunch of people have probably asked an LLM a couple of questions - using a free version - and walked away unimpressed. "What's all the fuss about?" And others have heard these comments and thought "It's not for me."

It's fair to say that you can only base your assessments on what you can experience yourself, right now. And 1984, no-one could even have conceived of the Nokia 8210, Motorola RAZR, let alone smartphones. They would have seemed like science fiction.

But today, in 2024, we're already living amongst science fiction. Intelligent talking humanoid robots (Figure), AI that codes (Devin), and a new emerging OS paradigm (Rabbit).

Maybe in mobile phone terms, we're more likely at the equivalent of the Nokia 2110 (the first with SMS and 2-way scrolling, which launched in 1994 and went on to sell 20m units, paving the way for mass adoption).

The difference is that this time it took less than 1 year to go from the launch of Chat GPT to something life-changing that costs only a little bit more than your monthly Netflix subscription.

So for everyone who hasn't really tried it, please spend 22 euros for a one month subscription to ChatGPT Plus. It will probably be the best 22 euros you've spent on anything in your life so far. There's so much online inspiration for how to get the most out of it, if you put in a few solid hours, you can't help but be blown away.

And since 1 year in AI is worth 10 years in mobile, I don't think we're going to have long to wait for the equivalent of the RAZR and iPhone.