Teleportation  ## Metadata - Author: [[Crossword]] - Full Title: Teleportation - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/0a2fd122-0971-4dde-9b91-cb7263faca33 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Missed The State Of The Word Recap** - Luke confessed he hadn't watched the State of the Word despite attending WordCamp US in person. - He compared his habit of watching Apple keynotes to wanting a short recap video for WordPress highlights. Transcript: Luke Let's hear it i didn't actually watch the state of the word from word camp us well i was there in person so i can give you my uh my takes this time around well and it may worth pointing out, Jonathan Um, why, or asking like, why, why didn't you watch it yet? Luke Uh, I guess I was looking for a summary of it somewhere. You know, I wanted to see what are going to be the big highlights. Is there anything in here that's going to be really important for me to see? And I didn't see anybody writing up a summary anywhere. Maybe, I don't know how I missed it, but I just, and then, you know, then I was just like, well, I must not, I must not be very important. Why? You know, every year, Apple just did the iPhone launch, right? And I got up at three in the morning and like I've done every iPhone launch since the original. And I watched the whole thing front to back, went for what, like an hour and a half or something like that. And it was great. I enjoyed it. It's a tradition of mine. And afterwards, I sent my wife the like little six minute YouTube recap video where someone like compiles all of the stuff and puts it in a six minute video. ([Time 0:01:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/829fbf28-9c49-4ee5-b740-c7f823debe1a)) - **Ambiguity Of The 'We' In Leadership** - Matt often speaks for a collective "we," but that "we" can be ambiguous across his different roles. - Jonathan found this ambiguity confusing when weighing community vs. organizational perspectives. Transcript: Jonathan I enjoyed it overall. I think that's worth saying that it was a marked improvement over the state of the word that I actually missed last year, but did catch up afterwards. So I wasn't able to catch that one in person. Well, one of the things that I enjoyed in particular was your team, the plugins team, being called out and referenced and appreciation shown. So you missed that call out by now watching it. Luke I did actually see that slide was shared in the plugin channel. Jonathan Yeah, that was great to hear. And that Matt took the time and energy to highlight some of the folks that are doing like good work throughout the project. One of the things that I noticed, and I think this may be, I just, this has been the case in the past, and I just haven't noticed it as much until now, is how Matt talks about we a lot throughout The conversation. And what I was struggling with at first, and still a bit struggling with afterwards is in my own head I'm like well who's the we that we're talking about and I presume that the we is he's Representing the community right but what I'm what I struggle with a bit personally is this well but which hat is he wearing right now and I guess I can understand that the intention is That this is the.org I'm a part of this community and I'm representing the interests of this community hat. But he's also got his automatic hats, and he opened up by saying that we're basically not going to talk about the elephant in the room. We're not going to talk about the stuff with WP Engine, et cetera. And I think what I struggled with a bit, Luke, because there's a lot of positive in it. Let me just pause you there. I think that's a great idea. Luke I think just to step out onto the stage and like I said, I don't know if he actually did this, but I'm imagining him just going, look, we're not going to talk about WP Engine. Let's get to it. That's basically what it was. I mean, that is way better than just not addressing it. Jonathan Yes. So he did a good job with that. I think what I struggled with was this narrative, this message. My paraphrase of it is this, we've been through a lot of things, all of us here together. Was it what Matt was saying on stage? And we got through a lot over this past year. ([Time 0:03:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8190dd20-63bd-4b8b-b1ba-e5a36c187e87)) - **Framing Without Full Acknowledgement** - Jonathan felt the State of the Word framed the community as having "been through a lot" without fully acknowledging how people were involuntarily dragged into conflicts. - He found that omission left important questions about agency and context unanswered. Transcript: Jonathan But he's also got his automatic hats, and he opened up by saying that we're basically not going to talk about the elephant in the room. We're not going to talk about the stuff with WP Engine, et cetera. And I think what I struggled with a bit, Luke, because there's a lot of positive in it. Let me just pause you there. I think that's a great idea. Luke I think just to step out onto the stage and like I said, I don't know if he actually did this, but I'm imagining him just going, look, we're not going to talk about WP Engine. Let's get to it. That's basically what it was. I mean, that is way better than just not addressing it. Jonathan Yes. So he did a good job with that. I think what I struggled with was this narrative, this message. My paraphrase of it is this, we've been through a lot of things, all of us here together. Was it what Matt was saying on stage? And we got through a lot over this past year. It was the heart of the message. It feels more like you've put us through a lot yes and and that's part of the struggle because it's true we all have been through a lot but but he's not directly acknowledging the degree To which uh we got brought along on a thing that most of us didn't sign up for. Right. And, and this goes all the way back to what we saw this last year. So in his, it felt like a big surprise, right? Like, wait a minute, you're signing us up for a war. What, why, why is there a war? Like what, who's fighting what, what's going on? ([Time 0:04:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ceaed291-72c7-4d18-97ed-9f7d49ddde04)) - **AI Positioned As Creative Tool** - Matt positioned WordPress around enabling creative expression and began situating AI within that mission. - Jonathan thought WordPress is a promising place to leverage AI but stressed considering unintended consequences. Transcript: Jonathan And he began to paint a picture for like where AI fits into that. He, I thought he did a good job of making it personal. I, I just found myself also struggling with the ongoing references to the we and the ambiguity around that and but on the whole it was yeah I was glad I experienced it in person gave me a Few things to think about and it was also good to see that he took time to acknowledge and recognize the efforts of volunteers like yourself who have been helping and the team involved In pushing this forward the most one more thing the most controversial thing i think that came out of it was the uh the announcement that word camp us will next be in phoenix in august which Is notoriously a hot time of year so i thought that was an interesting choice but we'll see how it plays out okay okay. Luke Okay. I've got two questions. The first, I'll give them both to you and then we can tackle them one at a time. The first is, what is the plan for AI in WordPress? I'm actually kind of interested to know about that. And I'm excited about the AI team that's formed and I've been sort of following along with the chats, but I want to know what Matt said. Also, the other question, was there any talk about the next phase of Gutenberg? Like what about collaborative editing? Jonathan Well, I know he made reference to AI, but it's been a couple of weeks now and it doesn't really stand out to me that there was much of a vision cast for what that's going to look like, except Acknowledging the work that's gone into it and that it was a focus, right? We had, during WordCamp itself, the core AI team announced a couple of new projects. ([Time 0:06:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9d322098-1595-4615-82af-af5b7c71ce66)) - **Conversation Over Cross-Examination** - Crossword will prioritize relaxed, human conversations over journalistic cross-examination with guests. - Guests choose what to include, enabling candid perspectives outside typical beats. Transcript: Jonathan We have some great guests coming up that I think in keeping with tradition, we won't announce until we actually drop the episodes. But I'm quite excited about some of the planning that we've done and who knows how it works out. But we've already got some great guests that we know about. Luke When you have guests that you're so excited to speak to, there's always just like the chance that something goes wrong at the last minute or the recording doesn't work or whatever. And you don't want to have announced something about this, like, oh, we've got this guest. And then it falls through. Jonathan Well, and what you and I have learned and we've been talking about a bit for a while is like we're not taking the role of journalists here in Crossword, right? Right. So there's also one of the things that we've gone back and forth on but have been really consistent with is we want the guests that we bring on to feel comfortable for us to have a good time, To be able to get their perspective, and to talk about things that maybe just aren't covered in their typical beats. And that means that we give them the freedom to decide what actually makes the cut or not, which is very different from what a journalist might do when you're on the record. Luke And similarly, we're not going to be like, kind of like with Mary, right? I really love that conversation. We got so much good feedback from our chat with Mary, just people saying it was really nice to get to know her a little bit. And we didn't cross-examine her. We didn't, you know, all that. We weren't police in a dark room with a bright light shining it on her because we're not journalists and we're not trying to be. We just talked about, I guess we tried to keep it real. We tried to make sure it was genuine. And that's what we're going to continue to try to do for guests this season. Jonathan And when comes into the conversation, as it will, then letting it follow where it's going to go, right? Like we don't, I don't want to make presumptions about that. So I am quite excited about the guests that we do have coming and looking forward to sharing that with folks. ([Time 0:08:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/49808379-688d-4b69-9dee-9aa86c5ab798)) - **Sponsors Support Season Planning** - Sponsors enable the show to continue and allow planning for the season's guests and topics. - Jonathan expressed gratitude to returning and new sponsors that support Crossword. Transcript: Jonathan First, we have Big Scoots, who's back for another season, as is EventCoy, which is awesome. And then we've added independent analytics into the mix, which I'm quite excited about. So grateful to all of them as sponsors. And it's part of what makes it possible for you and I to do what we've been doing. ([Time 0:11:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2eef843b-9d06-48d2-8c75-8d2a275eecfa)) - **Deliberately Consider AI's Unintended Costs** - Discuss the unintended consequences of AI early and intentionally as WordPress integrates it. - Preserve valuable friction where it protects human practices and long-term community health. Transcript: Jonathan I really liked how that piece introduced the concept of a reference like friction and the value of friction. And the importance of, you correct me here, it's like Chesterton's Law. It's like the idea of unintended consequences you get rid of something. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Luke So there are two analogies in the piece. One is, let's think about AI as though it weren't AI at all, but in fact, it was teleportation. And instead of all of the problems that we've got with AI, we can start to talk about it like, well, people aren't walking anymore. People aren't taking road trips anymore. But is it better on the whole? Yeah. It's much easier to get around, less pollution, et cetera, et cetera. But the more interesting analogy, I thought, was the analogy of the wood fire stove in the house. Yes. Yeah. Right? Where we, I don't, I don't know about you, but we, we have a fireplace, but it's not a stove. I know one person in my life that has a wood fire stove and this whole like practice of every morning, you know, to be able to cook for the day, you got to chop firewood and bring it all inside And then get this fire going in your house that warms the house and maintaining that. Like that is something that we've lost. There was something special, something human lost in that. Jonathan Yeah. And in the context of WordPress, what I think about, I think it's important to think about unintended consequences. And because I would argue that for the most of the world, the fact that you have instant heating, et cetera, is a good thing. Yes, exactly. It's important to think about what did you lose in that process? And as we're trying to figure out what happens next with AI in the project, I'm quite optimistic about its value. And I think it's going to be, I think WordPress is an especially interesting place to be able to leverage it. But it's also important for us as individuals and as an ecosystem to think about what are some of the unintended consequences of the progress that we're making here. And at least start having conversations about it. Luke Yeah, because I think that when it comes to other technological advances like social media, the internet in general, I think we did give away too much. I think we did lose too much. Is the internet on the whole better for the world? Yes, but if we had been more careful about it, we could have come up with a better way of doing it. And I think the same is going to be true for AI. Jonathan I think we're going to have a lot of opportunity this season to poke into that and explore it in both the conversations that we're going to be having and also with what's going to be coming Up in 6.9 because WordPress is now grappling with, okay, we're going to make forward progress here. And I think we can all agree that's important. And there's an excitement and energy around building in WordPress as a result of it. And it's also an opportunity for us to be thinking about, okay, what are the unintended consequences of this and where should there be friction, et cetera. ([Time 0:11:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f4aedce0-16b0-4f0c-90d6-6ba854ad1f06)) - **Wood Stove Analogy For Lost Practices** - Luke shared the "wood fire stove" analogy from the AI-as-teleportation piece to illustrate lost human practices. - He used it to argue that convenience can erase meaningful rituals we might regret losing. Transcript: Luke There are two analogies in the piece. One is, let's think about AI as though it weren't AI at all, but in fact, it was teleportation. And instead of all of the problems that we've got with AI, we can start to talk about it like, well, people aren't walking anymore. People aren't taking road trips anymore. But is it better on the whole? Yeah. It's much easier to get around, less pollution, et cetera, et cetera. But the more interesting analogy, I thought, was the analogy of the wood fire stove in the house. Yes. Yeah. Right? Where we, I don't, I don't know about you, but we, we have a fireplace, but it's not a stove. I know one person in my life that has a wood fire stove and this whole like practice of every morning, you know, to be able to cook for the day, you got to chop firewood and bring it all inside And then get this fire going in your house that warms the house and maintaining that. Like that is something that we've lost. ([Time 0:12:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b2395a2a-3f97-4110-a22a-30af120817b5))