Don’t Get One-Shotted

The intellectual karaoke that's making us replaceable

Everyone suddenly became an AI expert last year. The same people who couldn’t explain a neural network in 2022 had “AI thought leader” in their LinkedIn bios overnight. Ask them about attention mechanisms or backpropagation, and watch them scramble for the ChatGPT definition they memorized. Glass cannons, one real question from shattering.

The entire tech ecosystem devolved into intellectual karaoke. Everyone performs the same songs. We quote-tweet instead of think. We share podcast clips instead of forming opinions. Smart people choose this deliberately; borrowed authority can’t be wrong. Quote Naval and you’re just the messenger. Share an original thought? That’s your neck on the line.

Watch the mimetic cascade of launch videos on X. One slick product demo hits 10K views, and now everyone pumps out minute-long sizzle reels. Most get 200 views. The format became the product.

I catch myself doing it too. I’ve written about delegating thinking to AI, outsourcing reasoning. It’s TikTok-level addictive, except ChatGPT is analyzing markets for me. Each time, I have to claw myself back. The pull toward intellectual convenience is relentless.

I learned by building from scratch. First Legos without instructions, then computers from parts, eventually entire systems. That frustration of not knowing, then slowly getting it, taught me to think through confusion.

We’ve optimized away that friction. AI learns from one example; we grow weaker with each thousandth copy. Same playbooks, same talking points, same worn paths. We’ve transformed ourselves into non-player characters. AI doesn’t need creativity to replace NPCs.

Try explaining your current project without referencing “Uber for X” or “Cursor for Y.” Watch yourself grasp for borrowed frameworks. You probably can’t.

Your confusion is your competitive advantage. That uncomfortable moment of uncertainty - that’s where original thought lives. Choose friction. Own an idea that’s yours, not Naval’s. Build without checking what everyone else is building first.

We worried so much about AGI taking over, we missed the part where we turned ourselves into bots. Predictable inputs, predictable outputs. The easiest targets to automate.