The Calculator Moment: AI as a Universal Information Innovation

What AI Actually Is

AI is a collection of techniques and tools to do data work better. It is first and foremost just a (newly ubiquitous) way to analyze and synthesize data. Any domain that can make use of better data analysis has probably been improved by AI. Which, by definition, is almost every single domain.

But now that it has everyone's attention, it's getting applied to pretty much everything. And it turns out it's quite helpful in many, many applications. And we are seeing a lot of progress that has still not slowed down because now AI has the backing of governments and entire software and hardware ecosystems and datacenters to do this data analysis.

Personally I think it makes perfect sense that AI has so many applications. Because AI is about fundamentally working with data in a better way.

The Pattern We've Seen Before

When calculators first entered classrooms, there was panic. Teachers worried students would never learn arithmetic. Parents feared a generation that couldn't do basic math. Schools debated banning them entirely.

Today, we recognize this reaction as shortsighted. Calculators didn't eliminate the need for mathematical thinking—they freed students from tedious computation to focus on higher-level problem-solving. A calculator makes a bad mathematician slightly faster at getting wrong answers, but it makes a good mathematician vastly more productive at exploring complex problems.

AI is the same pattern. Just bigger.

What Makes This Different: Speed and Scale

Every major technological innovation follows this arc—from the printing press to electricity to the internet. Tools amplify human capability. Bad actors misuse them. Good actors become more productive. Society adapts.

What's unusual about AI isn't the pattern itself, but the distribution model:

• The smartphone took years to reach a billion people (manufacturing, supply chains, carrier deals)
• Electric cars are still constrained by physical infrastructure
• Earlier software required installation, compatibility checks, learning curves

ChatGPT hit 100 million users in two months. You just visit a website. Anyone who can type a sentence can use it immediately.

This is a knowledge-based innovation that reached global scale on launch day. That's genuinely new—not in kind, but in speed.

The Calculator Moment, Everywhere, All at Once

Here's what makes AI feel so chaotic: it's not a calculator moment for one domain. It's a calculator moment for every domain simultaneously.

• Programmers are experiencing what mathematicians felt about calculators
• Writers are experiencing what typists felt about word processors
• Artists are experiencing what photographers felt about Photoshop
• Teachers are experiencing what... well, what teachers felt about calculators

Every profession that involves knowledge work, pattern recognition, or creative output is having its "do we ban this or embrace it?" debate at the exact same time.

How People Actually Use It

Strip away the viral horror stories and look at actual use cases:

Learning and Exploration

• Visual learners generating interactive examples to understand concepts
• Programmers building throwaway apps just to see how something works
• Using AI as a tutor that can demonstrate concepts hundreds of different ways

Practical Problem-Solving

• Building tools for audiences too small to justify traditional development time
• Creating "software as ephemera"—apps that exist for one conversation, one demonstration, one specific need
• Rapid prototyping to test whether an idea is worth pursuing
• Surveying the landscape of what's technically feasible

Amplifying Existing Skills

• Good programmers shipping more ambitious projects
• Designers iterating faster on concepts
• Researchers processing information more efficiently

The Power Tool Principle

Chris Ashworth, CEO of QLab (theater automation software), put it perfectly:

"It's like having a room full of power tools. I wouldn't want to send an untrained person into a room full of power tools because they might chop off their fingers. But if someone who knows how to use tools has the option to have both hand tools and a power saw and a power drill and a lathe, there's a lot of work they can do with those tools at a lot faster speed."

Take a closer look at this metaphor: from tools to power tools. That leap in functionality is pretty much the definition of a technological innovation.

Responsibly wielding this new power is still the job of the human. The judgment, the creativity, the "does this actually solve the problem?"—that's still entirely on you.

Why the Discourse Feels Broken

Social media has made this transition uniquely painful. Not only has the technology reached billions rapidly, but billions can react to it rapidly, with content algorithms amplifying the most extreme takes.

The engagement-driven narrative focuses on edge cases:

• "Students CHEATED and learned NOTHING!"
• "AI detector FALSELY ACCUSED honor student!"
• "Artists' work STOLEN by AI!"
• "Programmers shipping code they DON'T UNDERSTAND!"

These represent tiny fractions of actual usage, but they become "what everyone knows" about AI.

Meanwhile, millions of people are:

• Using it as a learning tool
• Building things they wouldn't have had time for otherwise
• Becoming more productive at their actual jobs
• Generally being normal about it

The gap between how people actually use technology and how social media talks about technology has never been wider.

Some Real Concerns

To be clear: some concerns go beyond just "bad actors misusing it." There are legitimate cases we're still figuring out.

Take children using chatbots, for example. Even if we tell them "this isn't a real person," a child may not have the critical thinking capacity to truly internalize that distinction. Having a voice that seems to understand them, seems to care about their problems, but fundamentally doesn't—that's a genuinely novel situation we don't have historical precedent for.

But—and this is crucial—these concerns exist alongside the very real benefits. The challenge isn't choosing between "AI is all good" or "AI is all bad." It's navigating the specific contexts where it helps versus where it harms.

The Same Old Thing

This is not categorically different from any other tool innovation since the 1800s. AI just brought innovation across many domains really quickly.

Every general-purpose tool gets used in every possible way—for good, for ill, for learning, for laziness, for creativity, for harm. The printing press enabled both mass education and mass propaganda. The internet enabled both global connection and new forms of crime.

The pattern is old. The pace is new. The underlying dynamic of "tools amplify human capability" remains unchanged.

Moving Forward

If you have judgment and curiosity, AI accelerates learning in ways that weren't possible before. If you lack those things, AI just helps you be confidently wrong faster.

The calculator didn't eliminate the need for mathematical thinking. It eliminated the need for tedious computation.

AI doesn't eliminate the need for expertise. It eliminates certain types of tedious implementation.

Whether that's good or bad depends entirely on whether you're using it as a crutch or as a lever—and that's the same question we've been asking about tools for centuries.

The calculator moment is here. This time, it's happening to everyone, everywhere, all at once.

And just like with calculators, the people wringing their hands about it are probably going to look silly in twenty years.