AI and the Lost Sense of Wonder, Curiosity, and Intrigue

Or: Why and how AI might (finally) turn our soulless machines into our software friends.

I grew up idolizing early tech pioneers such as Apple’s co-founder and tech whiz, wunderkind Steve Wozniak, and Electronic Arts founder and madman Trip Hawkins.

I will never forget the first time I saw the Macintosh—first in a print ad in one of my dad’s business magazines a few months before the product was officially introduced in the German market, and then in person during the Germany launch at a large computer retail show. For me, the Macintosh encapsulated Woz’s dream of making computers truly personal—something anybody could use without much learning or expertise. I told my dad, upon seeing the ad, that we needed to buy one. And when we saw it in the proverbial flesh, we immediately placed an order—ours was one of the first 1,000 units sold in Germany.

Years later, I came across a long-forgotten video from Electronic Arts where Trip Hawkins and some of his fellow leadership team discuss his view on computers:

We can evoke in people a sense of, you know, wonder, curiosity, intrigue. Maybe a little smile for a grandson who learned how to do something on a grandfather’s machine.

Trip explains further:

You may become attached to some of the software characters, and you may develop emotional feelings about some of the personalities in the software. That’s why I’ve been mentioning the idea of a software friend. And that sort of should be built into a computer, but it can be built into a program, too.

A software friend, creating a sense of wonder, curiosity, and intrigue… It’s been a while since I felt this—perhaps not since the first time I booted up that original Macintosh from a 3.5” floppy disk. Since those days, computers have largely become utilitarian. They are amazing workhorses, helping us with our endeavors, both boring and creative. But even when I use them to aid my creative side, editing photos, videos, or a piece of music, they still feel, mostly, like a tool. A wrench in a mechanical and mechanistic world.

Over time, as computers became workhorses of utility, that initial sense of wonder faded—until recently. Ever since Large Language Models and Generative AI made their appearance, it (finally) starts to feel different. I know that many business leaders and people look at AI and see it as a way to reduce costs, increase velocity, efficiency, and output. It surely is all of those things. But it is also selling AI short. Using a frontier model like ChatGPT or Claude makes me smile. It creates a sense of wonder and stokes my curiosity. And it’s so easy to do (all it takes is conversing in plain language—you don’t even need to type anymore), that both grandson and grandfather can do it. And AI regularly shows personality—it can become your software friend (if you want it to).

The next time you use your LLM of choice, allow yourself to indulge in some wonder. Maybe this is the time the machines will finally fulfill the promise Wozniak, Hawkins, and many early pioneers saw in them. And maybe, in the process, we can add a big touch of humanity back into tech.

P.S. Here is the (nearly) lost clip: