Tokenmaxxing Spin Class
July 04, 2026
Bicycle for the Mind
I was reminded of this old post of mine from December 2020, deep in the pandemic era. I was lamenting that for all the tremendous advances, investment and intelligence focused on the information technology sector, humanity lacked anything close to the universally intelligent, adaptable "bicycle for the mind" vision that Alan Kay and Steve Jobs laid out.
Looking back on that thought six years later, LLMs seem to be exactly that magical technology. We now have the capability to spin up truly bespoke software for each individual at extremely low cost. Someone interested in long distance running, 20th century German literature or kubernetes theoretically has access to an all-knowing assistant that is able to meaningfully contribute and consult to all of those, while having deep knowledge of their personal context for notes, daily routines, emails, calendars, bills. Pretty much any knowledge or paper work is changed in a fundamental way.
Students everywhere have access to the wisest, most well-read tutor, knowledgeable on every subject, available all the time. If you told someone 40 years ago what AI is capable of doing today for $20 a month, they either wouldn't believe you or they would assume that we'd be living in a post-scarcity utopia.
And yet, our day to day life is very different from that. Instead of utopia, I'd argue for the majority of white collar professionals, the advances in AI have made their lives more uncertain due to layoffs, reorgs and a deep uncertainty regarding long term career prospects.
Tokenmaxxing
I found this talk by Gergely Orosz that takes a similar angle.
He talks about all the tremendous advancements and mass adoption of AI across the big tech companies. And yet for all the trillions of CapEx and hype, A lot of the day-to-day software the majority of humans interact with is getting noticeably worse. Brittle, basic UX bugs, security breaches (He goes in detail about the recent Instagram security breach that allowed anyone spoofing their location to take over any Instagram account)
I'm struck by the metaphor that we've actually gotten the bicycle for the mind, but now we don't really know what to do with it. AI Mania and top-down mandated forced adoption have resulted in a perverse incentive scheme, where for many people the primary goal of using "AI" is to be seen as "Using AI" in order to avoid layoffs in an uncertain environment.
We have these bicycles but instead of individual using them to pursue myriad, personal objectives, we've locked ourselves into a Tokenmaxxing Spin Class with everyone pedalling furiously to climb a leaderboard.
What now?
I think it's a very natural part of the adoption cycle as hype leads to rapid forced adoption and misuse. At some point we'll regain our heads and adopt a more sane approach. The important thing is that the tech works, open weight models will eventually catch up to the currently useful Sonnet/GPT5.5 level. We have the bicycle, now we just need the wisdom to start pedaling in the right direction at sustainable pace.