As AI smooths the world, we’ll miss the friction
The convenience of AI is reshaping how we search, choose and create. We risk losing something vital: the friction that once made discovery and taste our own.
Not long ago, finding the right book or album meant getting lost. You’d wander through the library stacks; scanning, sniffing, allowing yourself the slow freedom to find it.
You’d dig through a record store, meticulously flipping through covers, clocking unfamiliar artists, maybe asking a clerk who looked far cooler than you what they were playing that day.
Music wasn’t just something you consumed. It was something you discovered.
We explored. We tried new things. And we made choices. Those choices became your taste. Your identity. You made mixtapes and curated burnt CDs as gifts for lovers, to show a side of yourself — to share something secret about who you were.
That exploration, selection, and curation. That was friction.
Man, do I miss the friction.
In a recent piece on Stratechery from Ben Thompson, he perfectly pinpoints a major shift in how ChatGPT is evolving. OpenAI is no longer just a chatbot, it’s a platform. Or rather, the platform. With the integration of third-party apps inside ChatGPT — from Spotify and Canva to Instacart and Expedia — we’re watching the internet collapse inwards.
