Speed vs. Autonomy: Finding balance when everything accelerates
Notes on velocity and balance.
The Elevator: Curated inputs to elevate your awareness for business and life.
Hey All,
The faster things move, the more I realize I need parts of my life that move at human speed. This is the balance I’m now seeking: working with these autonomous systems while creating buffers for slowness, getting better at discerning what deserves my human attention versus what benefits from machine speed.
Some days I lean too far into automation and feel untethered. Other days I resist the tools and then feel left out of the loop of the culture.
The practice is finding the middle where augmentation or efficiency serves my own purpose rather than falling into a type of hedonic trap of playing someone else’s game.
Here’s what I’m seeing: we’re entering a world defined by two competing forces. Everything around us is accelerating AI systems, information flows, financial markets, the pace of work itself. And at the same time, our need for personal autonomy, for agency over our own lives and attention, has never been more critical.
Claude Code vs. Chat based LLM’s
It’s the first time I’ve ever used the terminal in my life. I spent some time this week getting both Claude Code and Clawdbot up and running. Lucky for us non-coders, the LLM’s can walk you through everything step by step. Pretty cool. Very soon they will simply talk to each other without me or anyone else in the middle.
Claude Code / Clawdbot are showing me the next step-function change in LLM’s. You truly feel the system is “autonomous” now. As in, it’s a step ahead of you, where a typical LLM is waiting on your prompting.
Friends ask,
“So what’s the big deal, are you really getting that much from it yet?”
While I’m not finding ultra-leverage just yet in repeatable ways vs. just the current LLM’s, I can see more clearly where this is all headed and that means there is another massive boost to productivity coming.
One of the engineers on Claude Code said,
“I have shipped 200 PR’s this month and I have not written a single line of code myself.”
That is an immediate shift to what it means to be a programmer.
This speed changes how we work.
We’re all multi-taskers and managers now.
When systems can think and act ahead of you, your role shifts from operator to guide. You’re no longer controlling every step, you’re setting direction and using taste and judgement. This is about knowing what matters.
It’s about knowing what you want:
The text box is the new interface
Your interface to the world is now through chat. This is a profound change. Or maybea return to something more natural?
Anywhere you are now has an AI assistant.
AI chat, in every app, and through any app. Because AI is so great at pulling out context from data, you will be less lost, have more support, and have connectivity between apps you’re using.
Email is now connected to your financial apps which are connected to iMessage. It’s Zapier on steroids because you don’t need to manually set up the zaps you just allow the AI to use your computer in hyperspeed.
This should feel empowering. And in many ways it is. As everything consolidates through a single interface, we’re outsourcing not just tasks but understanding.
We describe what we want, not how to get there. The system handles the connections, the logic, the execution.
Does this give us more autonomy or less? Both. More, because we can accomplish things we never could before. Less, because we’re increasingly dependent on systems we don’t fully understand. The speed at which these tools work makes it almost impossible to see what they’re actually doing.
Here’s one thing I’m hoping to build: I am hoping to build an X feed monitor that shows me posts without me having to log-in myself. That would be my own algorithm…This is my most desired personal app. And I think an example of taking back autonomy using the tools vs. being used by them.
Blockchains make more sense than ever
Decentralized data feeds are going to be a bedrock on the bottom and we’ll build flexible, infinite, permissionless UI layers on top. This makes all the sense in the world for privacy, scaling networks, and also of course money.
I feel we have to be very, very close to having these personal LLM’s sync with wallets like MetaMask or Phantom [LINK]. Suddenly your custom app, which you can chat with, can buy and sell on your behalf.
So now finance is moving into two worlds: Tokenized on Chain and Legacy Rails.
I’m concerned about the trading activities of super-enhanced humans with incredible intelligence through AI. The speed of trading, pricing, exploits will be unbelievable. I’m not sure what this means for human edge. Maybe you have to invest in things that are slow trends. I am sure this means more volatility in the short term. When your AI agent can execute financial decisions at speeds you can’t process, are you more or less in control?
How much does intelligence matter now?
Intelligence is now about guiding, piecing together, patching ideas, synthesis, question asking. Generalists will do well in this world because you can be the salesperson, coder, marketer, all in one.
But I also think that IRL skillsets and time spent is a better investment. This means increasing your travel budget (ironically in a world of Zoom) and increasing your personal development budget for how you show up as a human.
The mundane tasks will continue to be minimized to a simple autonomous fix in your browser in the background. No more menial paperwork type tasks. The smart thing to do, either long or short run, is to give up the work you used to do before for better work tomorrow.
I’m Worried about Velocity
I’m worried about the news, and its velocity. Om had a great post on this
Velocity Is the New Authority:
“Authority used to be the organizing principle of information, and thus the media. You earned attention by being right, by being first in discovery, or by being big enough to be the default. That world is gone. The new and current organizing principle of information is velocity. What matters now is how fast something moves through the network: how quickly it is clicked, shared, quoted, replied to, remixed, and replaced. In a system tuned for speed, authority is ornamental. The network rewards motion first and judgment later, if ever.”
With things moving faster and faster it’s harder for us to adapt. The news cycle is here today gone tomorrow. This fractures our attention further. Think about the sheer number of different content threads you see on any given day.
So once again… The faster information moves, the less time you have to exercise judgment about what deserves your attention. Algorithms optimize for engagement, for velocity. But your autonomy and your wellbeing requires something different.
This requires you to slow down and filter what reaches you when.
What I’m Doing About It
I personally am doubling down on healthy routines and habits + community + non-tech related parts of my life.
I’m playing guitar again.
I am making it a point to volunteer and see friends more. Physical presence has become more valuable, not less
I am conscious of my mindset and health and use many apps to buffer me from direct feeds themselves. I’m building systems that give me autonomy over what reaches me, rather than letting velocity dictate my attention.
It’s funny because I think “productivity hacks” will totally turn on their head and become slowness hacks now. AI is about more productivity. Being human is about finding ways to disconnect and do less.
Have a great Friday,
xx David Sherry