#24 - The "Auto-Complete Generation"

Have you heard of Cursor?

It’s the best thing to come out of this first wave of Generative AI tools. But Cursor (and tools like it) may end up being the worst thing to happen to future generations.

If you don’t know, Cursor is a Code Editor (like Microsoft Word but for code).

Cursor brands itself as an “AI Code Editor”. And look, every Code Editor nowadays has some AI features integrated into it, but Cursor’s the best one by a mile.

It’s got a ton of nifty features you can look into yourself if interested, but by far the best and worst feature is this:

auto-complete.

After you’ve written half a line of code, Cursor more-or-less knows what you’re trying to do and offers you a suggestion that you can accept by pressing the tab button.

I’m pressing tab every 3 seconds, I swear.

That’s a wonderful thing when you’re in a coding flow for a few hours. But things get spooky when I switch screens to write an email.

I type a couple of words, then I sit in agony for a couple of seconds, waiting, BEGGING Gmail to provide me with an auto-complete suggestion for the remainder of the email.

I have the same desire for sophisticated auto-complete when texting friends and writing this newsletter. And hell, even when typing in a prompt for ChatGPT, I want the AI to auto-complete the question I’m about to ask it.

And in the capitalist world we live in, every consumer wish comes true — even those that shouldn’t.

We’re going to get auto-complete everywhere. All we’ll need to do is provide the seed of an intention through our texts, thoughts, or actions before an AI system steps in to fulfill that intention.

Our brains are wired to avoid loss, and mine can’t help but fixate our kids will lose in a world where auto-complete is embedded into everything.

Will this “auto-complete generation” learn how to think for themselves when every seed of an idea is auto-completed for them?

Will they know how to have real conversations with one another when their AR lenses are constantly suggesting the next thing they should say?

Will they develop true grit when every task they do requires so little activation energy to start and finish?

My true view is more optimistic. Humans want to be useful. We want to be challenged. We want to grow. So when the challenges of today become trivial tomorrow, we will seek new challenges.

There will always be work to do. There will always be shiny objects slightly out of reach with our current tools. It’s in that space that the “auto-complete generation” will learn to think creatively, cooperate with one another, and work hard.

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See you next week — Rayhan