Your AI Profile Is Coming… And Who Owns It? [Raw Session]

00:00 — Convenience Has Another Layer

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.

This video is connected to the last few videos I did around convenience, grocery delivery, when things come to you, that kind of stuff.

And I think there is a whole other layer to that.

I think there is a whole new business opportunity too, which I’m not sure I fully understand yet. I have to investigate it a little bit more.

The idea is your profile.

Because the problem with a lot of convenience right now is not always the delivery of it.

It is that the person or the system doing the task does not really know you.

They do not know how you like your things, your judgment, your little preferences.

And that sounds small, but I think it might become a much bigger idea and a great opportunity.

Because what happens with technology is not just a store you log into.

What happens when it stores how you like things?

That is what I mean by an AI profile.

Not just your account, or your passwords, or payment information, or identity.

I compare that to Bitwarden because I use that.

But a version of you that moves from one store to another, one car to another, one salon to another.

Basically moving from robot to system with you.

And I do not fully know how I feel about this yet.

Because part of it sounds incredibly useful.

And part of it sounds extremely uncomfortable and scary in a way.

01:44 — Grocery Delivery Shows the Problem

A simple place this started for me was groceries.

I talked about this in my other videos, about how my wife hates grocery delivery in one way.

We like how it works.

We like the convenience of it and the simplicity.

But then there is someone picking your groceries for you.

They do not know how you like your avocados or your bananas.

They do not know which brands you like, or what you might switch based off a sale price, or if something is not available.

Sure, you can pick your options.

You can pick your alternatives.

But there is a whole other aspect to it where, I know it sounds kind of silly, but it is judgment and taste.

It is that household experience.

It is years of little decisions compressed into something you do without thinking.

And right now, that does not transfer very well.

You can make a list.

You can write the notes.

You can choose your replacements in the app.

But the system still does not really know how you choose.

It knows what you ordered.

It does not know why you picked what you picked, why there was a difference, or how you changed your mind.

And that is a massive difference between making a list and actually completing the list.

03:08 — What If Grocery Preferences Became Trainable?

So then I started thinking, what if that becomes trainable?

Maybe at first it is very simple.

You order groceries a few times and the app learns your substitutions.

Or maybe you reject certain items and it learns what you did not pick.

Or maybe one day there is a robot picker, an Optimus-type robot at the grocery store, and you go in and train it.

You go to the store.

You pick the produce.

You reject some things.

You choose others.

You touch it, smell it, look at it.

And over time, maybe very quickly, because with a robot you just set it and forget it, they learn your patterns.

Not just, this person buys bananas.

But this person likes bananas at this stage of ripeness.

This person avoids this brand.

They accept this substitution.

They do not want wilted greens.

They check the expiration dates.

This person would rather skip the item than replace it with the substitution currently available, based on price, flavor, brand, or who knows why.

And that starts to become more than a grocery list.

It becomes your grocery profile.

04:24 — Does the Profile Belong to the Store or to You?

Then the bigger idea is, does that profile belong to the store?

Or does it belong to you?

Because if it only belongs to the store, then one store knows you.

But if it belongs to you, maybe you can take it anywhere.

Maybe you can take it to a different grocery store.

You can go to a grocery store in any city, maybe even any country, and the system knows you.

That is a strange idea.

Because then the value is not just the robot.

The value is the profile.

The robot is just a worker.

The profile is the thing that knows you.

04:57 — Travel Makes the Profile Even More Powerful

Before I jump into the next part, this got me really thinking about vacations.

We go to different countries.

We do not speak the language.

So now it could open up a complete possibility where I do not need to know the language.

I can literally take my profile, and as long as stores have the same kind of setup, I can make my list in my language, send it to the grocery store, and then it shows up at my house, or my Airbnb, or my hotel, or wherever.

The profile aspect of it could be so powerful in my mind.

And once you see it in grocery stores, you can see it everywhere.

05:38 — Haircuts May Be an Even Better Example

The big example would be haircuts.

Again, with my wife and with a hairdresser.

Honestly, hair might be an even better example because a lot of people have trouble getting the same haircut, the same color, and the same style every time.

Even if they go to the same salon.

Even if they go to the same person.

They show pictures.

They explain exactly what they want.

There is still interpretation.

There is still memory.

There are variations.

One person cuts slightly different.

The color is off a little bit.

Maybe the style looked good once, but nobody quite remembers exactly what changed.

So what happens if that becomes a profile also?

Your haircut profile.

Your color.

Length.

Layers.

Shape.

What you liked last time.

What you did not like last time.

What products worked.

What looked good after two weeks.

What grew out badly.

And again, maybe this is not a robot at first.

Maybe it is just a better digital record for a salon.

But eventually, maybe it is portable.

You go to a different salon, and instead of trying to explain yourself again from scratch, your profile comes with you.

Or one day, maybe there is a machine or robot in your house that can repeat the same cut or maintain the same style.

That would be pretty awesome.

That sounds futuristic, but the concept is not that strange.

It is just taking something humans already try to remember and making it repeatable.

07:09 — Convenience Is One Thing, Repeatability Is Another

This is where it starts to feel different.

Convenience is one thing.

Repeatability is another thing.

People do not just want things easier.

They want things done the way they like them.

And that is your profile.

07:22 — Cars Already Have a Small Version of This

Cars are obviously another example.

Cars already have small versions of this.

Seat memory.

Mirror memory.

Temperature.

Radio.

Pairing your phone.

Bluetooth devices.

Those are driver profiles.

But imagine it becomes much deeper than that.

You get into any car and it knows you.

It knows your seat, your mirror, your temperature.

It knows your music.

It knows if you prefer sportier rides or softer rides.

It knows if you are in a rush.

It knows what kind of driver you are.

It knows whether you are cautious or fast.

And if the car is autonomous, or even semi-autonomous, maybe it knows how you like to be driven.

Smooth.

Fast.

Direct.

Efficient.

Avoid highways.

Give more following distance.

Take your time.

Music on or off.

Silence.

Talk radio.

All these things become part of this profile, this different level.

08:26 — Waymo and the First Signs of This

One example of that would be my friends who were in San Francisco recently for a conference, and they were blown away by Waymo.

I might be saying the name wrong.

They got into one autonomous car, like a taxi, and they synced their playlist.

Then when they got out, they went and got something to eat.

Then they jumped into another one.

And they were blown away that when they got into the next one, it literally picked up mid-song from the last one.

Now that is a profile.

They are already doing that.

That already shows this is something people are thinking about.

That extra little level.

But I am thinking about it from a whole different ballgame.

09:17 — Airbnb, Travel, and Showing Up to a Place That Already Knows You

Say an Airbnb where you travel around a lot.

All of a sudden, the way you like your bed.

The groceries you like to have stocked ahead of time.

Toiletries.

Fabric softeners.

All these different things.

It knows who you are and what you like, depending on where you are going.

A ski trip.

A beach trip.

A city trip.

All these things are kind of laid out for you as soon as you show up because your profile follows you.

09:46 — Bitwarden Is the Closest Thing I Can Think Of Right Now

The closest thing right now that I can think of is Bitwarden.

I use Bitwarden for passwords, logins, notes, payment, identity, and it fills everything else for me.

It carries basic pieces of me from site to site.

And I think most of us already accept that now.

We do not want to remember every password.

We do not want to type our address a million times.

Same with payment information.

But we also do not want to store all these things on individual sites because they get hacked.

So you pick one secure place and allow it to be the maintainer of everything.

In some ways, it is already porting my identity.

But it is still mostly administrative.

It knows how to log me in.

It knows where I live.

It knows what cards to use.

It has secure information.

But it does not know my taste.

It does not know my preferences, habits, or decisions.

I think the next version could move in that direction.

From password management to preference management.

From identity management to personality management.

That sounds dramatic, but I do not think it is that far off conceptually.

10:56 — AI Systems Are Already Moving Toward This

AI systems are already trying to learn tone, style, preferences, memory, routines, and context.

I see that myself.

I set my instructions for writing the book.

I set how I like the code at work.

I have my own private memory where every time I do something at the end of a feature or bug, I ask if there is anything we should add to our memory that was found.

Sometimes it comes back with nothing.

But sometimes it comes back and says, this is something different we did that we have not done before, and it sounds like you have repeated it before, so we should add this.

So it starts to learn how I code and how I read.

Streaming platforms already suggest what they think you would like.

Cars have driver settings.

Phones know your habits.

Apps know your behavior.

And if you are not paying for it, you are the product.

The difference is that right now, those profiles are fragmented.

Amazon.

Google.

Apple.

Netflix.

Spotify.

Your hairdresser.

But the bigger shift would be those pieces becoming one portable layer.

One version of you that can be used across services.

That is where it gets interesting.

And to be honest, it gets very risky and scary.

12:23 — The Useful Side Is Obvious

The useful side is obvious.

You would not have to explain yourself all the time.

You would not have to start over with every service.

No rebuilding preferences for every app.

You would not have to teach every system separately.

Things would feel smoother.

Grocery picking.

Salon.

Car.

Restaurants.

Hotels.

Your Airbnb.

The robot going around your house doing all your work for you.

Cleaning.

Knowing what temperature to put the washer on.

Knowing when you want things turned on or off.

When the lights should be on.

Where to put stuff in the fridge.

How to organize things.

All these simple little decisions that are made unconsciously are now being stored and saved.

And honestly, for some people, it could be more than useful.

It could be accessibility.

For elderly people.

Disabled people.

Busy families.

People with health issues.

It helps.

There are so many different levels of how this can help in so many ways.

When you really look at it, the world could adjust to you a little bit more.

That is the good side.

And I do not want to ignore that because sometimes we talk about these things only in end-of-the-world type situations.

But convenience does solve real problems.

Automation does solve issues.

Profiles reduce friction.

The issue is not that it is useless.

The issue is that it is extremely powerful.

14:01 — The Uncomfortable Side Is Ownership

The uncomfortable side is ownership.

Who owns your profile?

That is probably the main question here in my mind.

If grocery stores learn your preferences, does the grocery store own that data?

At the salon, is it you or is it the salon?

The car.

The robot in your house.

Is that going up into the cloud somewhere?

Or is that still your own personal profile?

It becomes your AI assistant.

What you prefer.

What you buy.

What you regret.

It will remember those things.

And what you respond to.

So who controls all that?

Because this is not just data in the old sense.

It is not just name, address, email, and phone number.

It is behaviors.

Preferences.

A version of your tastes and habits that may become more valuable than your basic identity.

Because knowing who I am is useful.

But knowing how I choose is a whole other level.

And that can serve me, or it can be used against me.

15:03 — Personalization Can Become Manipulation

This is where manipulation comes in.

If a system knows what I like, it can help me.

But it can also steer me.

It can show me the products I am most likely to buy.

It can frame choices in a way I am most likely to accept.

It can slowly shape my defaults.

It can make substitutions that are good for the company, not for me.

It can learn when I am tired.

When I spend more.

When I avoid thinking about my choices.

What kind of messages work best when trying to manipulate me.

That is a different form of normal advertising.

Normal advertising guesses.

Today it already goes deeper than that because of how sophisticated it is.

But this brings it to a whole different level.

It scares me to think of Meta taking over something like this.

Meta glasses are watching everything you are doing.

I am going off script here, but I do not trust Facebook at all.

That is a personal thing.

But if everyone starts wearing their glasses, then it is not just knowing what I like and what I do.

It is watching what I am doing.

It is watching how I make those decisions and how I interact.

And they are definitely capturing that information.

There is no way around it.

That feels uncomfortable.

Not because all personalization is bad.

But because personalization has a shadow side.

It can serve you, or it can narrow you.

16:36 — The Lock-In Problem

There is also a lock-in problem.

If one company builds the best profile of you, leaving that company becomes harder.

Not because you cannot leave technically.

But because everything works worse somewhere else.

Groceries are worse.

Recommendations are worse.

Routines break.

Saved preferences disappear.

That is a different kind of lock-in.

It is not only that your files are trapped.

It is that your learned self is trapped.

And that might become one of the biggest competitive advantages.

Companies may not just compete on product.

They may compete on how well they know you.

And once they know you well, you may stay because starting over feels annoying.

That already happens a little bit.

People are connected through photos, messages, ecosystems.

I am an Apple user.

I am an Amazon user.

But an AI profile would take that further.

Because now the thing you lose is not just access.

You lose your accumulated understanding.

All your preferences.

All your knowledge.

So then it becomes:

Can I export my profile?

Can I carry it with me?

Is it stored locally?

Do I have full control of it?

Does someone else have access to it?

Can I modify it?

Can I reset it?

Those questions matter.

And if I delete it or reset it, does someone else still have fragments of it somewhere?

Because without control, an AI profile could become another thing we rent from a platform.

A version of ourselves that we do not fully own.

18:08 — Cloud, Local, and Permission-Based Profiles

This is why I keep thinking about different ways the profile could exist.

Cloud-based is the easiest way to look at it.

You sign in and your preferences follow you.

But cloud-based also means someone else stores it.

Maybe there is a local version, something stored on your phone or on a device you control.

Maybe the robot can access it temporarily.

The car can read it when you are driving.

The salon can upload it when you go there.

The grocery store can pass it around.

I do not know.

Maybe it is like a permission system.

You do not give every company all of you.

You give a part of you.

This is me thinking through what happens here.

Design matters.

This could become one of those areas where the boring details are actually the whole thing.

Permission.

Portability.

Encryption.

Local storage.

Exporting.

Deleting.

Auditing.

Resetting.

Changing it.

Maybe there is a middle version.

Maybe your profile is not one giant thing.

Maybe it is broken up.

Maybe all these different things have a piece of it, and you control the main part that unlocks it.

Maybe you have the main key that is you, and each grocery store holds a piece of it that connects to you.

I do not know.

Some of these things you may want to connect.

Some you may want to keep separate.

In the end, who gets access to it?

Signing in with one big platform and letting it know everything about me is convenient.

But it is also extremely scary.

19:39 — Do I Even Want Everything to Be Repeatable?

That brings up a deeper question.

Do I even want everything to be repeatable?

Because part of me likes the idea.

Get the same haircut.

Get groceries picked correctly.

Have systems understand me.

But part of life is also change.

Trying something different.

Being surprised.

Changing my taste.

Having a human suggest something.

Realizing you do not like what you used to like.

If your profile is too strong, does it freeze you?

With deeper profiles, correction becomes important.

The profile needs to know that people change.

What I liked before may not be what I like now.

Maybe I like something new now.

What I choose under stress may not represent me.

What I bought once may not be part of my identity.

Maybe it was a mistake.

Maybe it was one of those regrets.

And that matters because a model of you is always going to be incomplete.

We are always evolving and changing and trying new things and disliking some things.

It is not you.

It is a representation of you.

A useful one, maybe.

But still incomplete.

20:59 — The Direction Feels Real

This is where I land.

I think this is probably coming in some form.

Maybe not exactly like this.

Maybe not one universal profile.

Maybe not as clean or smooth as the thumbnail makes it look.

But the direction seems real to me.

More memory.

More personalization.

More automation.

More systems that do not just respond to commands, but learn your preferences.

And I think the important question is not just, can we build this?

The important question is, who controls it?

If I have an AI profile, I should be able to see it.

I should be able to correct it.

Move it.

Delete it.

I should have full ownership of it.

I should be able to choose which parts are shared.

I should be able to give companies parts of it, or a full version of it, depending on what I feel comfortable with, or how deeply I want to be integrated with that system.

That feels like the line.

The profile should serve the person.

The person should not become trapped by the profile.

And maybe that is the real concern.

Not that AI knows you.

But that AI knows us through systems we do not control.

22:10 — From Password Management to Preference Management

That is the thought right now.

We have password management.

Eventually, we may have preference management.

And maybe after that, personality management.

Systems that know not just who we are, but how we like things done.

Everything.

And that could make life easier.

It definitely would make life easier.

It could make things more repeatable and less stressful.

But it could also make us easier to predict, influence, and lock in.

So the question I am left with is pretty simple.

If there is going to be a portable version of me, do I own it?

Or does someone else own it?

Because that might be one of the bigger technology questions coming.

Not just what AI can do.

But who controls a version of us that AI learns?

And this goes back to one of the other videos I did about how we are giving ChatGPT and Claude everything at the moment.

We are asking every single private thing, public thing, business thing, idea, whatever.

And that is being stored somewhere.

So again, that is probably one of the most valuable things people are going to have to learn how to control and be part of.

It is a scary thought.

I would love to see what people think about this.

Thanks.

Bye.