Attie

I just signed up for access to Attie, a new AI-based app from Bluesky, which allows you to shape your feed on the social network using plain language. To be honest, I wasn’t that excited about the app when it was first announced. It can be hard these days to sift through the AI hype to locate the value in some of these propositions.

Then I came across an old quote I had saved about blogging. Henrik Karlsson wrote in 2022 that a blog post “is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox.” Karlsson was sparked to this realization after writing an essay about Ivan Illich and systems thinking, and being introduced to it by many who wanted to discuss the topic.

The conclusion Karlsson eventually came to is that you shouldn’t necessarily write for the masses, but with specificity to people who might find the appeal in your most unique fascinations. He uses an anecdote to illustrate his point.

It is like the time someone told the composer Morton Feldman he should write for “the man in the street”. Feldman went over and looked out the window, and who did he see? Jackson Pollock.

Write for Jackson Pollock.

In this way, you will hopefully connect with people with whom you would want to engage in deep conversation.

But the internet is vast. It takes skill or dumb luck to find your people and foster mutual interests. A tool like Attie can potentially help with that search. Despite the current skepticism about the proliferation of AI apps, it seems this one may be valuable in actually fostering human relationships.