It's easier to get started

It's easier than ever to take an idea and run with it, ask ChatGPT or Claude (or Gemini, or any other tool of choice) for help, and have concepts flowing in minutes.

Far less so when I was a young adult.

Yes, the lower barrier to entry allows for a lot more slop and junk to exist, and means that many of the skills we developed are not as in need as they used to be—but I love the ability for anyone with a laptop (or even a mobile device) and interest to fire up a chatbot and ask for help.

Two years ago, I was feeling a lot of uncertainty about my work, where product design would go, and where my future would be in all that. I still don't have all the answers.

But in 2026, I took a proactive turn toward trying to just take what I know and share it—let the future worry about itself.

Part of that has been helping people from tweens to seventies play with tools like Claude and ChatGPT, and see how they can help unlock crazy ideas.

That's been a lot of fun.

Every time I run a little mini class (and I've had the privilege of helping around a hundred people in person this year—what a joy each of them has been!), I learn from those I'm presumably teaching. They teach me.

And one thing I've learned is that the ease with which we can get started now points back to something every human has—curiosity, creativity, traits innate in each of us just waiting to be unlocked.

I'm incredibly fortunate that, as a teenager, I was given a desktop computer by the state of California—offered to me as a student in the charter school system. That device, a computer that I could call my own, gave me the ability to tinker, to learn, to go crazy.

Not everyone got that chance in the early 2000s. I was one of the lucky ones.

Now, we're in a world where so many more people can get started.

Just this week, I had an idea for something I wanted to 3D print. After starting up a conversation with ChatGPT, I managed to get a model that worked in Bambu, and printed it out. What a joy.

As I've helped interested folks play around with chatbots, I've learned that the fastest path toward helping someone is to work with an idea of theirs (or suggest a few quick ones) and quickly get something up and running; it could be a hello world website, a snake game. It doesn't really matter. The main point is for someone (especially non-technical folks) to see that they can just type/talk directly into a chat window and see things get created, then tweak those accordingly.

This is most useful on a Mac or PC, where you can tell the AI to run things directly on the computer—but increasingly, you can do similar commands on mobile devices.

I've been thinking about the recent election in the US, and the near-universal rejection of data centers. Americans don't want those in their backyards. And I get it. I'm not here to push for that. I'd probably have been voting right alongside them if given the chance.

Still, I've been thinking about AI and the novelty of playing with toys compared to the creativity possible with these tools. I'm not sure if it's worth it, if all the money spent and energy burned is beneficial—but I know one thing: I'm seeing some kids get into building and tinkering as a result. They might have anyway (like me 20 years ago), but I'm always open to more people having more chances to follow their curiosity and push and learn.

For me, that was stumbling across Macromedia Flash 4 as a teen, when I found it fallen off the back of a proverbial truck and installed it. I was mesmerized, finding value in a tool that allowed me to create.

I want more of that for the next generation. Maybe we should keep the bar hard and only allow the most advantaged kids across the gate. But I don't think so. I think we should make it as easy as possible for as many (and I'm thinking primarily of kids right now, but really this applies to all ages) as possible to get started.

And if that means some of the things I used to do and get paid for become obsolete—well, I'm wrestling with that still. I hope it turns out to be a good thing for as many of us as possible. I want a world where art, creativity, skill, and tech know-how all matter and all give as many of us as possible the ability to make a living following those threads.