Precipice

Thinking about the future has always been an anxiety driven expedition. It doesnt help that there is a much larger portion of attention that feeds/reads/consumes on white noise.

In my mentorship sessions inside and outside my workplace - I have been asked repeatedly - what does the future look like?

And its not because I am any kind of expert, but I assume that we want to hear - it will be ok. The assurance that the future is ok. And I will always say that - it will be ok. It will be better. Because I truly believe that as long as we keep building things for each other, with a positive philosophy. We will always be better than before (Eddie Vedder said it best)

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Søren Kierkegaard

I remember in late 2000s the lock icon on your browser tab where the URL goes was a critical feature - to rely on the site that you are on. The threat was "Is this site a scam?" In a flood of websites - that was one of the indicators for trust. It became even more important in the era of frauds and then it was the default. Similarly - passwords which are now almost being replaced by physical security, OTPs and Authenticators etc. In 2026, the threat is "Is this entity a person?"

The reason I was retrospecting about it because in the swarm of Agents and AIs - How do we build trust with end user so they can differentiate between what is human, human generated or human operated. I dont have an answer for that - but this seems like an emerging hard problem to solve towards - in OS, Web, Video platforms, Social Platforms, or even in cable TVs. Verifying biological origin of a thought or a video will have its own value.

I often think about my own viewing experiences as well - how that has shifted from well defined movies to vlogs - why did my values change from seeking perfection in cinema to raw experience and imperfection in vlogging. The emotional connection switched gears for me - what I called imperfection was closest I got to authenticity. And that mattered.

Does that mean that if AI generates everything, which might be great for entertainment, people will still crave for authenticity - and thats where stories, physical products and art generated by humans will have more value - almost as a reaction against this AI industrial revolution? I dont have an answer for that either - but that seems like another hard problem to solve towards. A good observation will be a handcrafted artisanal one of a kind imperfect table vs your commercial one. Both are needed, but both have very different value and emotional outlook.

The agentic world seems to make that coach/player line a lot more blurry (or erased). If I am managing 10+ different agentic flows, where execution is cheap - strategic intent and shared outcomes matter most. If cloud computing cost keeps increasing, local agentic systems will take over. How much will we be bound by global regulations, ethics and cultural shifts?

Imagine thousands and millions of local agents - and they connect with cloud periodically - does that create the biggest fragmented personal experience ever? Is the answer more around evolving operating systems to work locally and less globally while still maintaining autonomy to the end user. Does that create more “Personal Reality Bubbles”? I dont have an answer for that either - and this hasnt even become a hard problem.. yet :)

So, how do we prepare for this type of future?

I was going through a video essay about Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety. He argues that anxiety is the "dizziness of freedom." Because we must live forwards, we step into the unknown without knowing how it will play out.

Standing on that precipice and holding that freedom causes anxiety, but it is also a genuine way to live.