Intelligence is too cheap to meter

Intelligence too cheap to meter. AI is a highly abstract notion for everybody. Where will it have the greatest effects? How does it change the lives of humans? The future will change from the present and finding out in advance what it will look like is intensely difficult. But one thing is the declining cost of intelligence. It is getting cheaper to have brains. Open source models like the new OpenAI oss models are now free to use. Which means that the only costs associated with using the models is opportunity cost if you don't use them and the cost of electricity to use them. Otherwise they are free for commercial use (don't skimp on the importance of this). Essentially you have access to unlimited mind power for the cost of electricity. Fathom how insane that is. Now start to think about how you can use this.

Yet you are already used to there being cheap intelligence all around you. Just a few years with AI and you think it is a given. It is the results of hard computer science and engineering work to make the bits talk. Let us make the most of this time in history, because this is truly the time in history to be alive.

Building with infinite minds

Applying the new open models to your life can happen in multifaceted ways. But there are currently two applications that pique my curiosity and where I will build tools that will shape lives.

Building a team of builders and researchers is easy. I can easily setup a few instances of AI inside a codebase in progress. Then I can wake up everyday to read through their work, suggestions and continue to guide their work throughout the day. They do not sleep. It is almost exhausting to keep up with them and I can feel that the speed of my ideas becoming solidified is accelerating fast. I keep a few Claude Code instances run on the code projects while I eat, sleep, prompt and repeat. Considering the cost of AIs vs human software engineers, I can save enough funds to build a new house on Mars.

Whatever job you are doing with your mind can be enhanced with AIs. But there are three things people get wrong, or conventions. 1) AI is not creative. 2) AI is not as good as me at the job. 3) AI makes text that is generic. I think all of these points are skill-issues, and you can solve them by using AI and becoming one with it. It is not too different from a human. Therefore you will have to use your social intelligence and build up an intuition on where it will need your hand. Just like any good employee AIs are not afraid to fail, and as their boss it is your responsibility to let them know the right way.

Every child, a private tutor

The greatest insight in education and the most obvious one is that every student will perform greatly once they have a tutor that gives them attention one-on-one in a focused manner. Then teachers move from being bosses to being peers and mentors for every learner. Relationships are hard to build in groups, but easier to build when in a close conversation. Both humans have more risk. They can not hide from each other when they are alone in a room. Stack: responsibility, mentorship, and close feedback loops, and you have a great recipe for great learning.

Add AI. You can activate responsibility, mentorship and close feedback loops all with an AI model. What you miss is the physical, but consider the option of students not wanting to be with a classical teacher, maybe a superior model is focused learning with an AI and then getting outside to play with their friends. Stark is the fact that every child on earth can soon have a private, closed, access to a free AI model on their device which they can have entirely private conversations, do one-on-one learning tutoring style, and accelerate their learning dramatically once the model switch from traditional to AI.

One of the challenging biases of humans is that we collectively struggle to make changes once new and obviously better things come around. Stuck in our ways it becomes easier to add gaffers-tape to the current solution and make it sound better. But what is required always is to think from first principles and up. Then a purer alternative without historical bloat can be born. I believe that within the next decade humans can create a dramatically superior modus operandi for education for children. Intelligence is now as cheap as electricity. Meaning, giving every child on earth an intelligent, private tutor is technically already here. The solution that breaks through is what is missing.