Karthick Gopal

If you follow this blog you might get a healthy dose of parenting tips and tricks I have learned because I am invested in the future. But that future involves someone that depends on me for survival. And we live in a future that’s so uncertain so I am documenting my observations here.

We were born to analog parents. We are raising digital kids.

I read that line and it really struck me. I grew up at a time when there was no internet. Screens weren’t ubiquitous like they are now. I am raising a child that is subjected to digital immersion right from the operating table. Screens are everywhere. What do you do? How do you bring them up when you have no playbook.

This is the first time in humanity we don’t have a playbook we can largely base ourselves of because we live in rapidly accelerated technological advancements. Good or bad is reserved for another post.

But when I grew up, we had tvs that one channel which we gathered around for. We had radio and digital tapes! We had floppies (save icon inspired actual objects).We played in parks till late at night. We spent a lot of time visiting friends and their houses. We didn’t have social media.

We also didn’t have 2 economic recessions. A worldwide pandemic. 2 ongoing wars. Digital penetration everywhere and a constant identity crisis with little to no help. and now AI that’ll replace what we considered jobs.

How do you raise your kids for that? When not just the playing field but the game itself changes? I try to spend time talking to parents and asking them what works. This is the same for your career too. No one knows and no one can predict accurately. They’ll get some of it right. But it’s a figure it out while you go.

I once asked Boz, the CTO of Meta, in his AMAs how do they figure out new tech and keep innovating when you have no playbooks to build the things they build?

He told me that they look at what exists, imagine what would be cool, reverse engineer the tech to get it, ship a prototype, look at feedback and innovate. All the while looking at innovations in technology and hardware that’s happening around them.

Still, I find it useful to think of product development as more akin to archaeology or cartography than chemistry or math. 

I think the same can apply. Look at what is, what can work, apply delta changes or ideas and then keep innovating and sharing.

At the core we want to do good and share with humanity. That hasn’t changed since our spawning. But once the robots come in. What does consciousness mean? How do we define humanity? What happens when we no longer need to move to meet people? Do we become Star Trek and boldly go where no human has gone before?do we become human powered cells for machines?

We live in unprecedented times.