Sometimes, the Best Experience Is Getting What Everyone Else Has
Remember that time you bumped into someone and realized, to your annoyance, that they had the exact same car or shoes as you?
Soon, this will be about as likely as getting hit by the remains of a SpaceX Starship prototype.
AI is pushing hyper-personalization to the extreme. It once started with tailored shopping and entertainment recommendations. But in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the landscape is shifting: personalized fashion, personalized learning, personalized medicine, personalized digital agents. Soon, the odds of running into someone who looks exactly like you will be near-zero. Because we’re all becoming uniquely different.
Except when we don’t want that.
Take interactive TV, for example. I’ve been hearing about the promise of personalized storytelling since I first raged against the ending of Blake’s 7, my favorite sci-fi series. But despite decades of hype, most attempts have flopped harder than a bad reality show. From QUBE’s button-mashing in the ‘70s to Netflix’s Bandersnatch, the idea always sounds futuristic—until people remember they just want to zone out.
Living in The Netherlands, I witnessed Philips' failed launch of "interactive CDs" in the late '90s—a technology that was technically fascinating but that absolutely no one found appealing.
Live voting, choose-your-own-adventure plots, shop-from-your-couch mechanics—most of it has been gimmicky, clunky, or just plain annoying. Until AI makes interaction seamless, audiences will keep ignoring the “interactive” part and just let auto-play do its thing.
But laziness isn’t the only factor.
Authenticity matters, too. Imagine a novel with two endings: one happy, one tragic. Sounds interesting—until readers start asking, Which one is the “real” version? It makes no sense because it’s fiction. However, people don’t want to choose an ending. They want to believe that one of them is the ending. Choosing your own path through someone else’s world ruins everything about it.
If I could rewrite Game of Thrones, I’d have everyone die in a final standoff between the Night King and the red witch Melisandre. But knowing my preferred ending in advance would kill the suspense. So, what’s the point? I’d rather be as disappointed as everyone else so that we can moan and bitch together.
This all clicked for me when I realized something about Amazon. They pioneered hyper-personalization—everyone gets a unique homepage. But when you buy a book, you get the same product as everyone else. And yet, technically, that doesn’t have to be the case.
For example, my new book Human Robot Agent is self-published, printed on demand by Amazon and IngramSpark. No warehouses, no unsold inventory—just pure, real-time, one-piece flow. I can update the manuscript and cover whenever I want.
LeanPub is yet another example of great technology with a questionable premise. As a fiction writer, I know there are compelling reasons to wait until a book is completely finished before publishing it. While changing chapters after people have received them is technically simple, it's extremely frustrating for readers. ("Sorry. The killer in chapter two is different now. And I've replaced the X-rated scene in chapter five." Huh?) Not surprisingly, the platform found its niche with types of books where revisions don't ruin the reading experience.
In theory, every reader of my book could get a different version.
I could include variables in the PDF to print custom names on the dedication page. I could toggle entire sections on or off based on customer preferences. Elon Musk fans could get a glowing freedom-of-speech tribute, while Musk haters would get a full anti-Nazi takedown. Amazon could algorithmically decide which version you receive based on whether you previously purchased MAGA caps or rainbow flags.
But just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. Because at some point, people will ask: Which version is real? What’s the author’s actual opinion? What is authentic here? (My opinion is that we can learn a thing or two from observing anyone, even the world’s richest assholes.)
History is littered with technological breakthroughs that failed to wow the masses. From Apple's Newton (1993) and Dean Kamen's Segway (2001) to Microsoft Zune (2006), Google Glass (2013), and Tesla's Cyberquad for Kids (2021), the list of tech products that left customers completely unmoved seems virtually endless.
AI is pushing hyper-personalization across industries, but not everything that’s possible is desirable. People aspire to be unique—but they also want to believe in a shared reality, even when it’s all made up. And that means, sometimes, the best experience is getting the same thing as everyone else, or not getting it at all.
With the help of AI, everyone can now write their own favorite ending to A Song of Ice and Fire. But we’d all rather wait.
Jurgen
P.S. I'm launching a self-paced e-learning course: New Fundamentals for Leaders in the Age of AI. It's paired with a learning cohort starting April 10. Join us for thought-provoking discussions!
