“Something Big is Coming” – Controversy after one of the most viral texts in the world these days: “Spend an hour a day experimenting with AI”. What will be the effect
Entrepreneur Matt Shumer, co-founder and CEO of OutsideAI, published an essay that sparked not only the interest of more than 60 million people, but also reactions from personalities active in the field of Artificial Intelligence.
“I tried the AI and it wasn't that good.” I hear this all the time, Matt Shumer wrote in his Feb. 9 essay. The essay is titled “Something Big is Coming.” A title that needs no translation.
Shumer says she understands the ironic and distrustful reaction to AI. “Because it used to be true. If you tried ChatGPT in 2023 or early 2024 and said 'make stuff up' or 'not that impressive', you were right.”
ChatGPT hallucinates. Now that has reduced
“Early versions were really limited. They were hallucinating. They confidently asserted nonsense. That was two years ago. In the age of AI, that's ancient history. The models available today are unrecognizable from what existed even six months ago,” explains the author.
“Anyone still using that argument either hasn't used the current models, or has a vested interest in downplaying what's going on, or is judging based on an experience from 2024 that is no longer relevant. I'm not saying this to be dismissive. I'm saying it because the gap between public perception and current reality is now enormous, and that gap is dangerous … because it prevents people from preparing,” Matt Shumer believes.
What does the preparation consist of?
“Here's a simple commitment that will put you ahead of almost everyone else: Spend an hour a day experimenting with AI. Not passively reading about it. Using it.”
“I'm not writing this to make you feel powerless. I'm writing this because I think the biggest advantage you can have right now is simply to be early. Early to understand. Early to use. Early to adapt.”
Anyone who will use AI constantly, for an hour a day, Matt Shumer believes “in the next six months, will understand what's coming next better than 99% of the people around you. It's not an exaggeration. Hardly anyone is doing that right now.”
It's not an authority, it's a help
I read the essay “Something Big is Coming” and at first it irritated me. Little said. It annoyed me, actually.
Because I see in AI, beyond the indisputable advantages, a threat through the relationship it establishes with people. Specifically, we relate to “what ChatGPT says” as in front of a universal, ubiquitously skilled and unquestionable expert.
AI is becoming a new form of authority. People ask GPT Chat if governance measures are good. If their diet or even drug treatment is effective. If what we feel for a person is appropriate or not. An extra-constitutional authority is born, and the consequence is impossible to foresee. And it is an increasingly sophisticated apparent authority.
As Shumer says: “The model released last week (GPT-5.3 Codex) impressed me the most. Not only did it follow my instructions, but it made intelligent decisions. It had something that seemed, for the first time, to be judgmental. Like taste. That inexplicable feeling of knowing what the right decision is that people said AI would never have. This model has it, or something close enough that the difference starts to matter.”
In reality, I got angry for nothing, in the concrete and immediate case. Using Artificial Intelligence does not mean obedience, but knowing the tool that will shape our lives.
The water and the bucket
Other people reacted critically to Shumer's essay. McLees, the founder of HumanSkills.AI, wrote on X that Shumer isn't wrong, but likened Shumer's advice to “telling someone the waters are rising and giving them a better bucket.”
Tougher is Gary Marcus, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at NYU, who called Shumer's blog post “a weaponized exaggeration full of vivid narratives and marketing pitches.”
“Shumer's presentation is completely one-sided, omitting many concerns that have been widely expressed here and elsewhere,” Marcus believes.
In less than 4 years
Is Shumer Neglecting AI Threats? Yes. But he is very good when he shows us the speed of things, in front of which it will cost us if we are careless:
“In 2022, AI couldn't reliably perform basic arithmetic. It would confidently tell you that 7 × 8 = 54.
By 2023, he could pass the bar exam.
By 2024, he could write working software and explain university-level scientific concepts.
By the end of 2025, some of the world's best engineers have said they have handed over most of their programming work to AI.
On February 5, 2026, new patterns emerged that made everything that had existed before seem to belong to another era.”
Article photo: Alexandersikov | Dreamstime.com
