Take A Breath, Paul

Ethan Mollick, on LinkedIn, has a "sense we are getting to the final days of sites like this being a viable way for humans to communicate." The conclusion he reaches: "the public-facing discussion forums are not really viable, at least in the format in which they used to operate." For him, the core issue is LLMs leaking across everything in a way that's obvious.

I think he's right. We don't need this. I'm pretty sure LLMs don't get anything out of it either. I sort of hate posting on LinkedIn. Every time I write something, I think "is this just another shitty post in a sea of shitty posts?" When I say something on social media, I mean it - but I almost never like saying it there.

Why does this fit in a newsletter about enterprise software? I guess it's more the "enterprise" than the "software". A professional career involving large organizations carries with it a little "I don't actually care about some things, but we all acknowledge that we pretend to care more than we do", so it can be pretty awesome to go somewhere to see where old friends and colleagues update what they're doing. Real human connection that breaks the surface of meaningless stuff! But Ethan is right: LLMs have pushed LinkedIn to a breaking point. It's time for something else. PM