Does more always have to be the goal?
On our insatiable desire to always level up, and how temptation is about to get way, way worse with AI.
I ran a self-funded media business for 13 years. Of course, we could always have made more money and been paid more for our hard work. We could have taken on investors. But instead, we stayed afloat, grew slowly, enjoyed our work, and made a (tiny) difference. We had fun. There was money in the bank.
At some point, my ambition got the best of me and I wanted it to grow into something bigger and more impactful, but I didn’t have the energy. I also needed a break, which is hard to do when you are the sole decision maker. So, I sold it.
I don’t have any regrets, but I do wonder… does more always have to be the goal?
This isn’t about getting something or going somewhere that’s better. It’s not a desire for improvement in quality of content, product, or experience. It’s about our desire for more-ness and signaling and ego and pride and legacy—and money, of course. Is this human nature or is this internalized capitalism?
Last month, I had a conversation with a friend about the insatiable need for more. More money. A bigger company. More users. Growth. A promotion.
We laughed and joked about our inability to just BE. To be enough. For our job to be enough. For money to be enough. Cars, houses, fashion, tech, STUFF. It’s the cycle of making new things to buy, the need for more money to buy them, and then our drive to earn more money to afford them. At each “level up” we enter a new playing field and see there are still so many more levels we can achieve. We see others with new things, and then we desire those things. “If I just had X, I’d be happy”—this thinking is what devolves us into bottomless pits of consumption.
For some, this ambition can become a parasite that will eat you alive. It will delight and allure you with romance, but at some point it will turn on you. It will suck up every ounce of energy you have. It will begin to lie to you. It will manufacture happiness measured through busy-ness and grinding and hustling.
Whether our drive stems from a need for security, a dissatisfied ego, a subconscious drive to please our parents, societal pressure, false desires, a search for happiness, or capitalism, society—specifically American society—lights this fire under us that we didn’t really need to be lit, and now we’re taking off at warp speed, exhausting ourselves, for no reason whatsoever. To achieve someone else’s goals. To achieve the goals we think we are supposed to want. To buy that thing the celebrity has. To create a Reel like that popular influencer did. Will it then be enough?
I find it fascinating that we are unable to be OK with “enough.”1 Our society makes it very difficult—we are endlessly exposed to marketing trickery that sells us on happiness, but feeds on our sadness, our insecurities, and our “not enough-ness”. We have to accept that this is the world in which we inhabit, but we don’t need to fall for its tricks.
Life-interrupting/changing incidents will force you to step back from this hustle: getting laid off, selling a company and taking time away, having a baby, getting ill, exploring therapy and/or other self-improvement tools, major lifestyle change, a big move, or maybe you just watched Succession.
From limited to the trap of limitless
There was a time when content was curated, limited to a handful of media outlets, TV channels, movie studios, and record labels. Then, as the Internet grew, we gained access to more choices—it was exciting!
But now, we have 15+ streaming services that serve up an endless amount of “you might like this” content once you’re done consuming your next binge-watch. We have the infinite scroll and pull-to-refresh updating on every social media app, of which you probably check at least two on a regular basis and never seem to get to the end of your feed. When is the last time you scrolled to the bottom of something that didn’t refresh?
There is never enough consumption from the perspective of the tech and streaming companies. They will not place limits because that means you will log off—and they cannot take the chance that you might have had “enough.” Your continued consumption of videos, music, podcasts, tv shows, movies, are what they need to survive, to grow. You are feeding a machine that is always hungry.
But how often do you consume something on one of these services and stop to say, “wow, that made me think”, or “it really changed my perspective”, or “…my life”. I’d guess probably infrequently, or just enough to keep you searching for that experience again. Most of it this content is designed to either pass the time, or not be too great but also not too bad… C+ quality content. Emily in Paris, for example. Beige… nobody hates it but nobody really LOVES it, either. It’s tolerable and it fills the time. It’s better than being bored… or is it?
You can even scroll Instagram while you’re “watching” Netflix in the background because it’s not at a quality level that engages your brain enough to deserve your full attention.
It’s neutral enough to be accepted, digested, tolerated but never good enough.
And because it isn’t good enough, you will keep scrolling until you find something that is enough. This is the gambler’s dilemma: the next one could be that big win, that dopamine payoff that makes you close your phone or turn off your TV and say, I’m fully satisfied. Except that doesn’t ever really happen. Instead, you scroll until it’s time to do something else or go to sleep.
Enter Artificial Intelligence
AI content is being created at a rapid rate, one that can’t even be regulated quickly enough to keep from harming viewers and content creators. The bad actors have found a way to swiftly adopt this technology for nefarious activities. AI influencers are popping up, and pushing out real ones. AI bots are stealing videos and photos from creators online and reposting them, tricking followers and paying subscribers into thinking they’re real, profiting off of someone else’s photos. Influencers are cloning themselves. AI advertisements seem to be everywhere. Companies are being duped with deepfakes. Crap videos are being uploaded to YouTube, some pretending to be appropriate for kids but are instead terrorizing them. Junk books are being uploaded to marketplaces in droves. These companies cannot seem to keep up with moderating the huge amount of disturbing, terrible, and just downright bad quality content that’s getting pushed out online.2
In the next year, I imagine AI content will have disrupted everything even further. We will see this permeate all industries. Bad quality music, shitty movies… it’s not going to stop there. And it’s moving at a speed that we can’t even possibly keep up with on an individual basis. So, what happens when we can’t seek out the mediocre quality content from the junk anymore? We’re pretty much there, and it’s just going to get worse.
The supply increase, as Nilay Patel, Cofounder and EIC of The Verge, told Ezra Klein in an episode of The Ezra Klein Show is going to be a really serious issue. We’ll see who will be able to monetize this, and how, and who will work hard to focus on human-curated content and high quality editorial. In addition, targeting and custom advertising will increase in frequency. This episode, recommended to me by
of , is a fantastic listen. I thought their conversation about quality was interesting: e.g., “Is this AI?” feels like the new metric that essentially means “is this bad?”It’s true—a lot of AI’s creative output is bad. The effect of ubiquitous scammy, low quality, and bot-generated content will have—especially on kids and older generations who aren’t super tech-savvy—will be catastrophic. An explosion of much more believable Nigerian Prince email scams on a massive scale, targeted to you and your specific weaknesses, because the AI has learned you and your habits.
If you’re exhausted by social media already, imagine how bonkers the creator economy will be when everyone can create limitless content and limitless accounts with AI. And how crazy things will get with individually-customized content—videos, emails, algorithms, recommendations for you and only you. If you thought the infinite scroll and streaming was too overwhelming, too addictive, think about what it will be like with 100x more content?
That content will contain recommendations for products that are so specifically targeted to you and your desires, that you will be confronted with unlimited temptation to fill that void with more and more. A custom Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book that has unlimited paths to take. A book that doesn’t ever end.
Our “enough”-ness is about to be challenged on a new level. We have to decide if and how we want to engage. However, if the way we’re engaging now is any indication, we could become completely enslaved to the technology.3
How to figure out your limit
To me, enough is living without need. It’s self-acceptance and self-love, which doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t room for improvement, but a full acceptance—an enough-ness—of what exists right now.
“Enough” in biz is slow growth or a slow business—one that takes care of everyone, is profitable, steady, and practices sustainable growth. Natural and not forced. It isn’t creating unreasonable or unattainable expectations. It is intentional, thoughtful. It flexes easily. It doesn’t chase anyone else’s success.
It’s not realistic to assume there isn’t something in your life that will still need improvement. You will want to learn new skills, get better at baking bread, read more books, discover new music, make new art. But these are active activities, not passive consumption—you are engaging in the process not simply spectating. You are honing your humanity, not someone else’s.
Don’t compromise yourself for meaninglessness. Have conviction. Prioritize and practice quality over quantity with everything you do. Actively and consciously choose to engage and disengage. Become more self aware of your habits and interactions. Imbue your life and work with kindness, compassion, support. Check your sources. Take a regular tech detox / digital sabbatical. Create screen time and app limits or timers. When others seek more, go find less.4
I had an epiphany a few years ago during a dark night of the soul: I fully realized my own internal strength and capabilities. I comforted myself. At my lowest moments, I stop and take a deep breath and remember this. It’s my version of enough.
I wrote this for myself. I hope it helps you, too.
Thanks for reading! Unsquare is a newsletter about the intersection of leadership, creativity, tech, art, design, media, culture, therapy, and work from Design Milk founder and artist Jaime Derringer. ✨ You contain multitudes ✨
A good question: should they?
I am an optimist and I’m excited about AI and technology. However, here, I’m looking at where we are now to anticipate what could happen if we keep going down this road without regulations, rules, or guardrails that could prevent this slippery slope. I am genuinely concerned that we will need to regulate ourselves; No one is coming to save us.