The Era Of The Story Engineer
Watching and considering the announcements being made by OpenAI last week, I have concluded we are about to enter an era with a new “main character”: “The Storyteller, Visionary and Creative Futurist.”
That’s you.
With the acceleration of AI capabilities, Storytellers are being given a powerful new set of tools which will enable any creative visionary to rapidly iterate, prototype, define and implement ideas which defy current imagination.
Stories, not software, are the new interface to communicating with computers. It is no longer necessary to use intermediary programming languages to speak to computers to get what you want.
No, we will tell computers stories and they will turn those stories into reality.
If you can explain it, define it, put it into words, make it detailed, compelling and believable as a blog post, podcast, book or product definition — Pretty soon you will get whatever you ask for, can imagine, want or explain.
Welcome to the era of the Story Engineer.
What The Story Engineer Does
In software engineering, we have understood for a long time that the core focus is “iteration.” Develop a prototype, get user feedback, build up a product backlog, do daily stand-ups, add features and fix bugs and repeat.
After running through several loops like this, assuming you have available software engineers, you will probably get some sort of working software.
This iterative process will continue forward, with a key change: You will have unlimited access to skilled labor including software engineers, product managers, marketers and designers.
In other words: If you can explain what you want, you are going to get it.
A Story Engineer will be a person who has broad and deep expertise in many fields, enough to understand enough about software, biology, chemistry to instruct a computer which avenues of exploration to pursue.
The Story Engineer will be a hyper-generalist, someone who is deeply and broadly curious while also being visionary and creative.
Here is how applications will be developed in the near future:
- Write or express a vision for your application or product, what it is supposed to do and what the outputs are meant to be (Tell Your Story)
- Brainstorm it regularly with your customers, end-users and team
- Document what you want in some form
- Feed this vision into AI, ask the AI to expand on it, fill in gaps, do additional research and grow it out
- Check, validate and test the output of the AI
- Repeat the process
As AI progresses rapidly, you will be able to generate results with a less and less specific vision. AI will be able to offer multiple versions or pathways to achieve the same result.
In other words: If you write down literally any crazy vision right now, you will be able to feed this entire vision into AI within the next 3 years and get ALL OF IT immediately.
This is not a huge stretch. I recently wrote a huge article about the concept of a cryptocurrency marketplace for Celestial Assets. My plan is to feed this “crazy futuristic vision” into AI 6 months from now, 12 months from now and 18 months from now.
Within that time period, I am expecting AI to be able to take this “story input” and 100% build the working marketplace. The key thing? I just have to express a complete vision and it will happen.
The only thing I can see here that will remain fixed is that you need to be able to tell a story
A New Builder Operating System
Whether you realize it or not, most in the tech industry have been running an “operating system” invented years ago around how to go about building startups and projects. That operating system is rooted in books like “The Agile Manifesto,” “Lean Startup” and other similar works.
We are on the verge of needing to throw all of that out. The only thing I see remaining is storytelling and iteration. That’s it.
It’s Time To Think 15 Years Out
Imagine for a moment you have been thinking of an abstract vision for years and suddenly you are given a magic lamp to get whatever you want. That is basically what is happening right now.
We are being presented with tools that have nearly unlimited power, and are still in a sort of stunned silence: “Really, I can get anything I want if I can just articulate it properly?”
I would propose there is only a single course of action in this situation: Convene the futurists and rethink everything. That is the best you can do.
Create more stories, design bigger, better stories. Imagine the future harder, in more detail and document it.
There has never been a moment in history where it has paid off so much to organize highly creative, futuristic and abstract thinkers and iterate, brainstorm around key issues and produce visionary documents. What was previously an exercise is abstract thinking will be much more valuable as a use of time.
Creative Off-sites will be needed!
Many are complaining that “OpenAI Killed my Startup.” I believe that most people thinking this way have been building for a 3 year timeframe.
Everyone should be thinking 15 years out, because with the speed of AI development, chances are that within 2–3 iteration — Things which you could only have imagined occurring in 15 years can happen in 3.
We are currently only limited by our imagination, we have to learn to imagine harder, ask for more, want more and think further into the future because we will probably be able to summon whatever vision we have directly from AI in short order.
Fully biodegradable wind turbine designs? Ask for it from AI, and it will produce it.
You get the idea.
