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AI is really shaking up everything.

2
00:00:02,676 --> 00:00:07,296
I think putting software as a entire,
like industry a little bit in a different

3
00:00:07,296 --> 00:00:12,976
light now, and, I think this does not
make local-first at all, less relevant.

4
00:00:13,246 --> 00:00:16,366
I think this is, as for most
things, a huge tailwind.

5
00:00:16,786 --> 00:00:21,629
But given that, both of us have been
really like, immersed in that new AI

6
00:00:21,629 --> 00:00:26,393
space as well, now, I think we can come
with a perspective where we can speak

7
00:00:26,393 --> 00:00:31,883
as insiders from the local-first space,
but also as insiders from the AI space.

8
00:00:32,183 --> 00:00:35,783
And with that fresh perspective, I
think we wanted to give this year's

9
00:00:35,783 --> 00:00:37,963
Local-First Conf a new, code of paint.

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00:00:39,343 --> 00:00:41,143
Hey Adam, so great to have you back.

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How are you doing?

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Hey Johannes.

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I'm good.

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Looking forward to the
arrival of Spring here.

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So I was just joking that the
two of us have been on the last

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00:00:51,073 --> 00:00:56,413
localfirst.fm episode since it hasn't
really been on a regular cadence

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00:00:56,413 --> 00:00:57,883
over the last couple of months.

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00:00:57,883 --> 00:01:02,756
I'm taking a bit of a, pause from
the podcast to reorient myself

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00:01:02,756 --> 00:01:07,916
in this new crazy world of AI
and coding agents, et cetera.

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And like, I wanted to get my
own hands even more dirty again.

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And yeah, little bit recalibrate, and I
think that's also gonna be quite the theme

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for, an announcement we're making today.

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And to foreshadow a little bit.

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What this year's Local-First
Conference will be about.

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So with that out of the way, yeah,
curious what's on your mind, Adam?

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Well, obviously as we ramp up
to this Conference and we're,

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we're doing something pretty
different this year, I think so.

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I don't know.

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Maybe I can give some, some history for, I
espect a lot of your listeners have either

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been to the Conference or know about it.

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but just for context, this will be
our third year and we started in 2024.

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we really weren't sure honestly,
if there was enough demand for it.

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You sort of had the idea of like,
Hey, I think there's space for or

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interest, you know, a latent interest
in local-first and we could build a

35
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conference around it on data ownership
and CRDTs and all that goodness is

36
00:02:03,475 --> 00:02:07,685
things that yeah, need a venue and a
place to meet in person and share ideas.

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00:02:08,135 --> 00:02:09,935
And we were genuinely really concerned.

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We just wouldn't sell enough
tickets and we'd lose money on the

39
00:02:12,215 --> 00:02:13,355
venue and all this kind of thing.

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00:02:13,595 --> 00:02:17,255
Instead, what happened was, I think our
venue held like 150 or 180, something

41
00:02:17,255 --> 00:02:18,635
like that, we sold it out within a week.

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00:02:18,965 --> 00:02:22,085
It was actually kind of embarrassing
because we had to be turning wonderful

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people away and plus ones for our
speakers and things like that, just

44
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'cause we were at the venue capacity, so.

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And for me it was also a big question
about bringing together eclectic mix

46
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of people, you had both academic people
who had been working on CRDT theorems

47
00:02:36,905 --> 00:02:43,295
and things for a decade and more kind of
fringy, you know, Brett Victor, Alan Kay.

48
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Tools for thought, perspectives
with more practical software

49
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engineers build React apps, just
looking for the newest and greatest

50
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technology to make their jobs easier.

51
00:02:53,395 --> 00:02:56,485
Startups, there was, sync vendors
were starting to become a little

52
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bit of a thing then, and, you
know, would these people even gel?

53
00:02:59,205 --> 00:03:00,715
And I think the answer was yes.

54
00:03:00,715 --> 00:03:02,755
The event was a huge success one day.

55
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Single track, everyone loved it.

56
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and it was a pretty obvious thing
then the following year, 2025 to

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expand it, we had a venue for 350.

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We did two full days plus a community
day, to more talks, more people.

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Everything was 2 to 3x the scale.

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And I think it really showed that
we had this, community here and

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that, that there was a lot of
cohesion and people wanted to come.

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Come back to it at the same time, I
think, because sync and sync engines were

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having a pretty big moment last year that
ended up being a, at least one of the

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day, was largely given over to that topic
and we explored that pretty thoroughly.

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So now we find ourselves thinking
about, okay, one, we just enjoy

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bringing this group of people together
in this community of people together.

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We want to get our friends back
together in Berlin in the spring or the

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summertime to just spend time together.

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But at the same time, we also know
the industry's changing and we also

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know that it would be a little boring
to just retread the same ground.

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So that's causing us to want to
be a little more creative with the

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direction we're going this year,
which is I think why we wanted to get

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together and talk about that today.

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Yeah, and I think if you're

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just now looking back over the last
two to three years, I feel that the

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world is just such a different place.

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When we look back then, local-first
was really like, a wake up call

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in this kinda like very almost.

79
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not by today's standard, almost
like static world, where things have

80
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feel like seem pretty settled in
terms of technologies, et cetera.

81
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And we have like our best practices.

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And local-first at that point was much
more of sort of like a provocation,

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hey, we can think differently
about this and like rethink, the

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typical like cloud model, et cetera.

85
00:04:42,420 --> 00:04:44,100
And like it stirred up
quite a bit of dust.

86
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And I think this is what, what got
people really interested about like

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insiders who've been thinking about
those lines for like many years.

88
00:04:51,710 --> 00:04:55,400
Some even like, decades and have
always built software this way.

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And, then last year's conference I think
has really shown a huge step to the year

90
00:05:01,281 --> 00:05:06,981
before in terms of like how much further,
how much mature the ecosystem has gotten.

91
00:05:07,731 --> 00:05:11,244
But, I think it would be,
like this year is different.

92
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It's not just like, yes, the ecosystem
has gotten a lot more mature and like

93
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all of those technologies are more
production ready, there's like more

94
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players, et cetera, but the world
around it is like, entirely different.

95
00:05:24,777 --> 00:05:26,997
AI is really shaking up everything.

96
00:05:27,324 --> 00:05:31,944
I think putting software as a entire,
like industry a little bit in a different

97
00:05:31,944 --> 00:05:37,624
light now, and, I think this does not
make local-first at all, less relevant.

98
00:05:37,894 --> 00:05:41,014
I think this is, as for most
things, a huge tailwind.

99
00:05:41,434 --> 00:05:46,277
But given that, both of us have been
really like, immersed in that new AI

100
00:05:46,277 --> 00:05:51,041
space as well, now, I think we can come
with a perspective where we can speak

101
00:05:51,041 --> 00:05:56,531
as insiders from the local-first space,
but also as insiders from the AI space.

102
00:05:56,831 --> 00:06:00,431
And with that fresh perspective, I
think we wanted to give this year's

103
00:06:00,431 --> 00:06:02,611
Local-First Conf a new, code of paint.

104
00:06:03,204 --> 00:06:07,477
this is where, you've been this year
leading the effort around the CFP.

105
00:06:08,047 --> 00:06:13,091
And yeah, so I'm excited to, talk through
the different themes we're expecting

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for the conference where we have a
set of curated speakers already, but

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we think, the best content is really
brought up from the community, who is

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building things in the local-first space.

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And this is, like the people who are
maybe listening to this podcast, or who

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have attended, the last few conferences.

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So yeah, this is, what I would
love to talk to you about.

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Yeah, well, maybe we can just start with
that call to action really upfront, which

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is we're broadening the umbrella for what
kind of talks we want a lot this year.

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And so if you do nothing else, you can
just stop listening to the podcast.

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Go read the CFP page.

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If you think there's any chance of what
you're working on, which has something

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to do with empowering users or making,
computers and software and the internet

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freer and more capable for enhancing
human life, then you should submit

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a talk that's your CTA right there.

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To drill, one level deeper.

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you already mentioned the AI topic
and obviously that feeds into this.

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There's also the desire to continue to
build and expand on the themes of this

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community and respond to other things
that are happening in the tech industry.

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On the AI side, obviously, where I
believe, you know, creation of software

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is changing fundamentally with AI
assisted coding, and I think people in our

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community have a very wide mix of views.

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There's people who come from a. very
skeptical point of view, I probably

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lean more in that direction myself,
especially up until recently, there's

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some bubble, it's gonna burst soon, it's
overhyped, it's, you know, whatever.

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And on the other end, there's probably
plenty of maximalist, people that,

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you know, I think it's not even such a
bold thing now to say that 2026 might

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be the last year that humans do all
that much direct coding in terms of

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like writing out programming syntax.

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and I suspect people listening fall
in a wide range of, views there, and

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we wanna make room for all of that.

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But, you know, at the same time, we're
acknowledging that this industry shift is

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happening while also staying grounded in
our values and what we're all here for.

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For the record, October, 2025
was the last time I wrote a

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single line of code by myself.

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So, but I'm leaning into
that, quite heavily.

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But I think as you say
that's a wide spectrum.

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And nonetheless, I think that makes,
even more clear that we need really

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good principles for the software we're
creating, and that we also want to use, I

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think, software through AI, like through
the terms like slop software, et cetera,

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I think has made it even more, even more
important to really care about like what

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we're using, not just for the perspective
of that "it's nice to use", but also for

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the perspective of like, data ownership,
privacy, security, all of those.

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And I think local-first is
still the guiding light for us.

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It's kinda like the gold standard for
what software should feel like, what

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software should be architected around.

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And I think this is where we hopefully
get the best of both worlds, where we

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00:09:04,840 --> 00:09:09,790
can have the cake and eat it too in
that regard that we can dream about

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software that follows those principles.

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But now it's a lot more feasible
to build those and to build those,

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not just for the sake of like
building software for potentially

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like a million target users, but for
yourself, like personal scale software.

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And this is where we had this
amazing closing keynote from Maggie

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Appleton at the first Local-First
Conference about Homecooked software.

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And I think in a way this year,

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barefoot developers, I think
was the term she, she used.

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That's right.

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And certainly what you could do
with language model assisted coding

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back then was, you know, much.

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more limited than what you can do today.

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But even then, she predicted that, which
I think is a good, a good illustration

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of the kinds of people that are in
our community that, you know, were

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values driven, but very forward facing.

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She, she saw what was coming years before.

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Exactly.

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And like now, this year's conference
is basically like, really like double

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clicking on her entire vision here
where like everyone can dream about

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software and like now make it a reality.

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And local-first doesn't just make it,
more secure and private, but like overall

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also like solves a whole bunch of other
problems that is still hard with software.

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So I'm really excited how like
those two or the, how the conference

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can be a place where those two
different worlds can come together.

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All of like the relentless, accelerated
AI community, who wants to, build things

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really quickly, but also the people
who like really care about software

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quality and like those principles.

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And this is something where I think it can
be, a really nice meeting space for folks.

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So, Adam, how about you wanna give
us a broad overview of the different

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kinda like, themes and then we
walk through them one at a time?

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Yeah, sure.

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So the overall theme for the conference
this year is user empowerment.

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that comes from, actually
a panel we had last year.

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I host a panel and one of the,
panelists was Martin Kleppmann, who

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00:11:07,751 --> 00:11:09,371
this year is a keynote speaker for us.

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Obviously he's really one of the,
founding fathers of, local-first.

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00:11:13,254 --> 00:11:17,454
But the way he described it was, we were
talking here a little bit about the kind

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of the specific implementation details
of sync engines and CRDTs versus the

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broader set of values and principles.

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And I think he put it
really well in saying.

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It's all about user empowerment.

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00:11:27,654 --> 00:11:33,144
If something gives users more empowerment,
more control, more capabilities, more

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00:11:33,144 --> 00:11:38,434
options, more freedom, then that to him
falls under the umbrella of local-first.

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00:11:38,554 --> 00:11:41,914
And if it's something that sort of
takes agency away, which there are times

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00:11:41,914 --> 00:11:45,154
where that makes sense, especially in
consumer software or whatever, that

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00:11:45,214 --> 00:11:49,018
people want less control over how they're
using their computers, that's fine.

199
00:11:49,018 --> 00:11:51,898
But that, leaves it outside
the realm of local-first.

200
00:11:51,918 --> 00:11:54,898
So we're borrowing that
idea and expanding on it.

201
00:11:54,928 --> 00:11:58,438
User empowerment, greater agency,
obviously a lot of that tends

202
00:11:58,438 --> 00:12:00,028
to flow through data ownership.

203
00:12:00,058 --> 00:12:03,598
'cause the data ultimately when
you're creating documents on a

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00:12:03,598 --> 00:12:07,108
computer, the data and feeling like
it belongs to you is, tends to be

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00:12:07,108 --> 00:12:09,149
core to that feeling of empowerment.

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00:12:09,479 --> 00:12:13,717
So with that overall theme, took together
with our, collaborator, Eileen Wagner,

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also a long time member of the community
who is, helping us here with the CFP.

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00:12:19,012 --> 00:12:21,702
But she basically sorted us
into three categories here.

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We've got new territories, which of
course includes plenty of AI stuff.

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We've got local-first maturity,
which is trying to see, you

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know, now we're pretty far along.

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00:12:30,642 --> 00:12:32,532
There's a lot of great
sync engine vendors.

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00:12:32,532 --> 00:12:35,922
There's some real world success
stories, but there's also

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interesting new challenges to face
user experience challenges, legal

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00:12:39,732 --> 00:12:41,622
challenges, or legal frameworks.

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00:12:41,955 --> 00:12:45,945
And then where we're really trying to
expand here is the larger ecosystem.

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00:12:45,945 --> 00:12:49,305
And there's a lot of exciting stuff
happening in, whether it's in something

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00:12:49,305 --> 00:12:53,142
like the area of game developments,
but also something like social media.

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00:12:53,142 --> 00:12:57,012
I think, you know, with ATproto and
to a lesser extent sort of the masked

220
00:12:57,132 --> 00:13:00,925
on ActivityPub world of things is
having their own moment and kind

221
00:13:00,925 --> 00:13:05,815
of causing people to ask questions
about data ownership and freedom and

222
00:13:05,875 --> 00:13:09,985
decentralization in this realm that
traditionally has been a very kind of

223
00:13:09,985 --> 00:13:14,875
centralized, closed, big tech, you know,
inscrutable algorithm world of things.

224
00:13:15,105 --> 00:13:19,225
And to what extent are data ownership
and local-first values applicable there.

225
00:13:19,769 --> 00:13:24,299
So those three frames, the kind of new
territories, the maturity of local-first

226
00:13:24,599 --> 00:13:28,559
and the larger ecosystem are where we
have kind of a few subtopics for each

227
00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:32,885
one, and we're trying to hope, hoping to
get a good coverage on, CFP submissions.

228
00:13:33,392 --> 00:13:33,812
Awesome.

229
00:13:33,812 --> 00:13:36,812
Thanks so much for providing
this great overview.

230
00:13:36,842 --> 00:13:41,102
I would actually love to double
click on each of those and dig a

231
00:13:41,102 --> 00:13:46,219
little bit more in, since I think
each topic has, so much potential.

232
00:13:46,219 --> 00:13:49,852
And I think we could, like, if we'd
had a lot more time and space for the

233
00:13:49,852 --> 00:13:54,562
conference, we could almost like make each
of those their explicit like theme day.

234
00:13:54,622 --> 00:13:59,212
And so now we only have, well,
those two days for the conference.

235
00:13:59,443 --> 00:14:01,364
for the talks in one extra day.

236
00:14:01,554 --> 00:14:03,344
So we need to curate and pick.

237
00:14:03,624 --> 00:14:08,184
But I think this gives us like a really
nice broad buffet of like different,

238
00:14:08,437 --> 00:14:10,427
topics and talks to choose from.

239
00:14:10,637 --> 00:14:16,234
And ideally, those, themes speak to
people who want to submit a talk.

240
00:14:16,474 --> 00:14:18,544
So yeah, let's go through them.

241
00:14:18,549 --> 00:14:23,627
So maybe starting with the, local-first
maturity, maybe that is, where we, can

242
00:14:23,627 --> 00:14:29,000
reconnect the most from where we've left
off the first two years of the conference

243
00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:34,024
and also Sync Conf and, I think this is
like local-first maturity is really like

244
00:14:34,024 --> 00:14:38,327
that that is the essence of what last
year's conferences, were about, where we

245
00:14:38,327 --> 00:14:43,024
had local-first success stories, companies
like Linear, et cetera come to mind.

246
00:14:43,254 --> 00:14:45,414
The UX challenges of local-first.

247
00:14:45,414 --> 00:14:47,124
This is, you've mentioned Eileen before.

248
00:14:47,304 --> 00:14:51,864
She's given an amazing talk about
that last year legal framework.

249
00:14:51,894 --> 00:14:56,147
Maybe a little bit more top of mind
this year around, let's start with

250
00:14:56,147 --> 00:14:58,067
those like local-first success stories.

251
00:14:58,067 --> 00:15:00,407
Anything that comes to
mind for you in particular.

252
00:15:01,142 --> 00:15:05,275
Well, for sure the success stories should
be, there's obviously people building

253
00:15:05,275 --> 00:15:08,635
libraries, you know, the sync engine
vendors who are well funded and have a

254
00:15:08,635 --> 00:15:09,805
lot of customers and that sort of thing.

255
00:15:09,805 --> 00:15:13,075
But what I really wanna hear about
is the end user applications.

256
00:15:13,165 --> 00:15:17,968
You mentioned Linear, Linear CTO
Tuomas has been kind enough to give us

257
00:15:17,968 --> 00:15:21,897
excellent talks the last two years but
I also think of on a smaller scale,

258
00:15:21,897 --> 00:15:24,413
there's something like, we had a
talk last year that was about someone

259
00:15:24,413 --> 00:15:26,003
building a forestry application.

260
00:15:26,243 --> 00:15:30,228
So this is where someone walking around
with a phone that needs to basically

261
00:15:30,228 --> 00:15:34,458
tag each tree in the forest with what's
going on with it, whether it has a bug

262
00:15:34,518 --> 00:15:38,952
infestation, whether it needs whatever
else and it's a pretty simple thing.

263
00:15:38,982 --> 00:15:42,387
And you know, I like that talk a lot
because also they basically said,

264
00:15:42,387 --> 00:15:45,117
look, our data modeling is very simple.

265
00:15:45,297 --> 00:15:48,327
They built their own sync that
needs to, of course, not only work

266
00:15:48,327 --> 00:15:50,007
offline, but for a big chunk of time.

267
00:15:50,007 --> 00:15:51,147
But it's a pretty simple queue.

268
00:15:51,447 --> 00:15:55,827
And unlike full text editing, that
is a rich text editing that's very

269
00:15:55,827 --> 00:16:01,407
complicated you actually can accomplish
all the goals of local-first with not a

270
00:16:01,407 --> 00:16:05,207
huge amount of engineering for some of
these simpler, use cases and domains.

271
00:16:05,207 --> 00:16:07,774
So I think there's plenty of people
in the community that have their

272
00:16:07,774 --> 00:16:11,644
hobby projects or whatever that they
use together with their friends.

273
00:16:12,004 --> 00:16:16,444
But what I like to see we're far
enough along now is what is at scale.

274
00:16:16,444 --> 00:16:20,231
I wanna see a Linear and Obsidian or
some of these smaller scale things

275
00:16:20,231 --> 00:16:23,471
like the forestry app that have
been doing this for a long time.

276
00:16:23,471 --> 00:16:26,561
You have real world data and you can
talk about the challenges of debugging.

277
00:16:26,561 --> 00:16:29,681
You can talk about the challenges
of accumulating data history.

278
00:16:29,681 --> 00:16:33,619
You can talk about what are the
ugly and difficult parts of this

279
00:16:33,619 --> 00:16:36,709
that we're grappling with from
using this frontier technology.

280
00:16:37,303 --> 00:16:38,323
Yeah, definitely.

281
00:16:38,353 --> 00:16:41,953
And I think there's, just thinking
through like the software and new

282
00:16:41,953 --> 00:16:45,708
software that I've been using over
the last like year or so, I've been

283
00:16:45,708 --> 00:16:50,298
using like Rayon for example, quite
a bit, which is like a Figma like,

284
00:16:50,390 --> 00:16:54,562
software, but for more like architecture
use cases as I'm like remodeling

285
00:16:55,065 --> 00:17:00,405
the house I grew up in and that's been
like really nice to get sort of the

286
00:17:00,405 --> 00:17:05,055
benefits that I'm like spoiled with
of like using production software

287
00:17:05,055 --> 00:17:07,305
like Figma now for more use cases.

288
00:17:07,305 --> 00:17:11,982
And I think that's just like one example
for like, that seeping into more and

289
00:17:11,982 --> 00:17:14,502
more parts of the software we're using.

290
00:17:14,502 --> 00:17:18,025
And I think that will just,
continue and like, particularly

291
00:17:18,025 --> 00:17:23,795
now where, AI is another driver
of like personalized software.

292
00:17:24,335 --> 00:17:28,535
I think it's just like very clear
that we want those benefits of

293
00:17:28,535 --> 00:17:32,015
like collaboration, that things
should work offline, et cetera.

294
00:17:32,255 --> 00:17:37,175
Like if anything, those problems are
now even more pressing, where when

295
00:17:37,175 --> 00:17:41,655
we have software that is like meant
for individuals, and to have like

296
00:17:41,655 --> 00:17:46,896
that software, be shared, across
like family members or, friends.

297
00:17:46,896 --> 00:17:50,646
This is where you don't like, you,
probably don't build it out as like

298
00:17:50,646 --> 00:17:54,489
a SaaS architecture from the get
go, but you're building this like

299
00:17:54,489 --> 00:17:56,109
in a different way to begin with.

300
00:17:56,399 --> 00:17:59,789
SQLite certainties having a
bit of a moment again as well.

301
00:17:59,999 --> 00:18:02,609
So I think we're gonna
see a lot more of that.

302
00:18:02,879 --> 00:18:05,429
Files are, are, are are
the hot new thing again.

303
00:18:06,149 --> 00:18:06,509
Unix

304
00:18:06,509 --> 00:18:06,839
tools.

305
00:18:06,839 --> 00:18:06,959
Yeah.

306
00:18:07,049 --> 00:18:07,679
Honestly.

307
00:18:08,189 --> 00:18:12,706
Honestly, files could have almost
been like another category, in itself.

308
00:18:12,706 --> 00:18:16,006
Like it should really also, and
not to sound like a broken record,

309
00:18:16,006 --> 00:18:22,901
but like, yeah, with the AI hat on,
files and folders are like the best

310
00:18:22,901 --> 00:18:25,328
foundation for agents to do good work.

311
00:18:25,748 --> 00:18:31,391
And it has, intentionally or not really,
like, become, again, a main way of like

312
00:18:31,391 --> 00:18:33,821
how data collaboration works, et cetera.

313
00:18:34,241 --> 00:18:37,601
And so, yeah, I think there's
a lot to be explored there.

314
00:18:37,711 --> 00:18:41,581
A lot of creative people doing
weird, interesting things.

315
00:18:41,581 --> 00:18:46,128
So if you're, if you're like that,
please submit a talk and, yeah, I

316
00:18:46,128 --> 00:18:50,164
think there's like whatever, you've
been working on in regards to like

317
00:18:50,214 --> 00:18:54,931
traditional local-first in the sense of
like the previous conferences, we would

318
00:18:54,931 --> 00:19:00,087
love to hear from you, but also around
the UX challenges, of, local-first.

319
00:19:00,087 --> 00:19:04,167
I think we're still just scratching
the surface of like trying to

320
00:19:04,227 --> 00:19:09,177
understand that, trying to like
deal with the implications of that.

321
00:19:09,267 --> 00:19:13,977
I think we're allowing ourselves to
dream a little bit bigger or a little

322
00:19:13,977 --> 00:19:16,257
bit more nichey with software now.

323
00:19:16,737 --> 00:19:22,887
And now that might require like new
user experience paradigms and like,

324
00:19:22,887 --> 00:19:27,417
particularly also when it comes to
extending collaboration just beyond

325
00:19:27,567 --> 00:19:33,760
people, but also like collaborating
with like other agents, is another

326
00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:38,320
aspect that I think squarely fits
into the realm of local-first as it's

327
00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:40,510
another like kind of trust boundary.

328
00:19:40,570 --> 00:19:43,120
You wanna understand what has happened.

329
00:19:43,150 --> 00:19:44,560
Do you want to collaborate?

330
00:19:44,590 --> 00:19:47,320
Do you wanna like detach, be by yourself?

331
00:19:47,650 --> 00:19:52,060
Do you want to like revoke
authentication, authorization, et cetera.

332
00:19:52,537 --> 00:19:54,302
Maybe real time collaborate.

333
00:19:54,607 --> 00:19:59,193
I think there's a lot here, whether you
want to look at us for the AI lens or

334
00:19:59,193 --> 00:20:03,723
not, but I think that area is like super
underexplored and if you've been exploring

335
00:20:03,723 --> 00:20:05,427
that, we'd love to hear from you.

336
00:20:06,003 --> 00:20:06,183
Yeah.

337
00:20:06,183 --> 00:20:08,073
The UX challenges for me as part of the.

338
00:20:09,803 --> 00:20:13,360
I don't wanna say quite say fun part,
but sort of it is because it's a chance

339
00:20:13,360 --> 00:20:15,550
to rethink those computing primitives.

340
00:20:15,550 --> 00:20:15,880
Right?

341
00:20:16,060 --> 00:20:19,510
And the files example is a good
one to me, where files and the Unix

342
00:20:19,510 --> 00:20:25,270
methodology and everything as a tool
and pipes and redirects was really kind

343
00:20:25,270 --> 00:20:27,040
of a first love for me in many ways.

344
00:20:27,040 --> 00:20:30,400
In computing, especially creative
com, you know, computing that's

345
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:31,750
designed for creating things.

346
00:20:32,395 --> 00:20:36,115
And then, you know, mobile
basically abstracted files away.

347
00:20:36,115 --> 00:20:39,595
And that's kind of a win for
most of the consumer use cases.

348
00:20:39,825 --> 00:20:43,845
but actually is kind of disempowering
for creative work that you wanna do.

349
00:20:43,845 --> 00:20:46,925
And now again, the files are,
somehow having a moment again.

350
00:20:46,955 --> 00:20:50,225
But now we live in this world of things
like real-time collaboration, version

351
00:20:50,225 --> 00:20:54,612
control pull requests, yeah, live
collaboration, async collaboration, and

352
00:20:54,612 --> 00:20:58,212
thinking about how all those people pieces
fit together or how you can use those

353
00:20:58,212 --> 00:21:01,538
building blocks for the particular piece
of software you happen to be building.

354
00:21:01,868 --> 00:21:03,758
That is very interesting to me.

355
00:21:04,442 --> 00:21:07,322
So another one is legal frameworks.

356
00:21:07,442 --> 00:21:11,102
So we are working with, like, we're
building those systems, maybe just

357
00:21:11,102 --> 00:21:15,025
for us, maybe for others, but, like
we're not building this in a vacuum.

358
00:21:15,055 --> 00:21:19,285
Sure, I can build some software
that might just run like locally

359
00:21:19,315 --> 00:21:21,998
on my, phone or on my computer.

360
00:21:22,433 --> 00:21:25,343
Or like on like a little
shared server in my home.

361
00:21:25,673 --> 00:21:28,203
But in that regard, no one cares.

362
00:21:28,263 --> 00:21:33,183
But like once I put it a little bit more
out there for the world to see and to use,

363
00:21:33,390 --> 00:21:37,680
or possibly that it's like still meant
to be used for a smaller group, but it's

364
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:40,290
still accessible for others, possibly.

365
00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:42,300
So you need to think
about the implications.

366
00:21:42,300 --> 00:21:43,950
You need to possibly lock it down.

367
00:21:43,950 --> 00:21:47,100
You need to constrain it,
you need to set expectations.

368
00:21:47,370 --> 00:21:53,430
And one like way of setting expectations
or being constrained is through like

369
00:21:53,430 --> 00:21:58,890
our legal system, whatever legislation
we're falling into, like Germany, where

370
00:21:58,890 --> 00:22:00,690
we're doing this conference in like.

371
00:22:00,775 --> 00:22:06,165
Very particular set of legal constraints,
also like European constraints, et cetera.

372
00:22:06,445 --> 00:22:08,365
But we're not building this in a vacuum.

373
00:22:08,365 --> 00:22:13,328
We need to like fit into the
constraints, realities of the real world.

374
00:22:13,722 --> 00:22:16,272
One big question is like,
where does data live?

375
00:22:16,572 --> 00:22:18,462
But also of like, other questions?

376
00:22:18,462 --> 00:22:22,782
Well, like what sort of rights
do I as a user of software have?

377
00:22:22,782 --> 00:22:27,935
Like, GDPR is certainly something
that really changed, the ecosystem

378
00:22:27,935 --> 00:22:30,025
quite a bit for better or for worse?

379
00:22:30,218 --> 00:22:35,118
I think actually one, funny aspect
of GDPR, like maybe one intended or

380
00:22:35,118 --> 00:22:40,105
unintended consequence that I'm quite
excited about is that GDPR has had a

381
00:22:40,105 --> 00:22:43,435
massive impact on data compatibility.

382
00:22:43,975 --> 00:22:47,215
Where you can now go to like
pretty much every service and

383
00:22:47,215 --> 00:22:49,225
through the right to be forgotten.

384
00:22:49,465 --> 00:22:53,965
Like you can still export your data,
but that exported data now actually

385
00:22:53,965 --> 00:22:56,065
gives you all the data for that service.

386
00:22:56,245 --> 00:22:57,940
So you can now like go to LinkedIn.

387
00:22:57,940 --> 00:23:02,680
It's like, hey, like give me all my
data or like, go to x.com, give me all

388
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:07,840
my data, and like now you can export
that and like build tools with it.

389
00:23:08,050 --> 00:23:12,850
So I think that's like one interesting
ways of like how a legal framework

390
00:23:12,850 --> 00:23:17,260
has unlocked data compatibility,
even though that like, and not in

391
00:23:17,260 --> 00:23:20,380
a very rigorous way, but at least
something better than nothing.

392
00:23:20,590 --> 00:23:23,290
And so that just like
as one anecdote of like.

393
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:27,520
How something has changed and
unlocked new opportunities.

394
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:29,950
And I think there will
be a lot more like that.

395
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:32,950
Like good developments, bad developments.

396
00:23:33,140 --> 00:23:37,160
Another real world analogy might be
if you're going to Linear and you

397
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:41,180
create a team, you need to set like,
Hey, where should the data be stored?

398
00:23:41,300 --> 00:23:42,920
Do you want to have it stored in the US?

399
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:44,690
You don't wanna have it stored in EU.

400
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:47,120
Like, that's another way
to like really model that.

401
00:23:47,650 --> 00:23:51,697
And I think that's just like,
scratching the surface of how

402
00:23:51,697 --> 00:23:55,567
we need to bake those realities
into the software we're building.

403
00:23:55,987 --> 00:24:01,133
And, I think there, this is an area that
that's really worthwhile thinking through

404
00:24:01,523 --> 00:24:05,413
and be hopefully inspired by, new ideas.

405
00:24:06,210 --> 00:24:06,390
Yeah.

406
00:24:06,390 --> 00:24:09,570
I'm weirdly interested in the legal
frameworks area and I hope we get

407
00:24:09,570 --> 00:24:11,370
some good submissions on that.

408
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:15,605
I think it is natural for people
in the tech world to dismiss or

409
00:24:15,605 --> 00:24:17,615
downplay that aspect of things.

410
00:24:17,615 --> 00:24:21,395
Especially maybe if you come
from the Silicon Valley, American

411
00:24:21,395 --> 00:24:23,675
Maverick laws just get in my way.

412
00:24:23,675 --> 00:24:25,625
I'm gonna ignore them perspective.

413
00:24:25,825 --> 00:24:27,385
but yeah, we're, we're
both here in Europe.

414
00:24:27,385 --> 00:24:30,802
I, two, two things that come to
mind for me on that, that are

415
00:24:30,802 --> 00:24:32,057
interesting and of this moment.

416
00:24:32,898 --> 00:24:37,098
One is, yeah, you mentioned GDPR
and much maligned in some ways.

417
00:24:37,098 --> 00:24:42,105
You know, the cookie banner thing
is an unfortunate consequence of

418
00:24:42,105 --> 00:24:46,785
how that all played out, but it also
has provided real front guidelines

419
00:24:46,785 --> 00:24:51,952
for handling of person identifying
information that I think  genuinely has

420
00:24:51,952 --> 00:24:54,322
made the internet a safer place, right?

421
00:24:54,322 --> 00:24:58,072
It's full of threat and attacks
and that's only getting worse

422
00:24:58,072 --> 00:25:01,732
now that, that stuff can all be
superpowered with language models.

423
00:25:01,732 --> 00:25:05,569
But, you know, when I was working
on an AI powered browser called Dia

424
00:25:05,839 --> 00:25:10,166
last year, it was actually genuinely
helpful to us to basically go and ask

425
00:25:10,166 --> 00:25:12,586
the question, what is GDPR recommended?

426
00:25:12,641 --> 00:25:17,021
And it basically comes down to, okay,
we wanna be able to train on user data

427
00:25:17,021 --> 00:25:21,731
that's incredibly valuable to our users
in the same way that, you know, Google's

428
00:25:21,941 --> 00:25:25,481
magic results and auto complete works
so well because they're training it on

429
00:25:25,481 --> 00:25:26,621
what other people are searching for.

430
00:25:26,621 --> 00:25:28,481
And that's how it can seem
to kind of read your mind.

431
00:25:28,901 --> 00:25:31,441
That's the same thing is true
with, Cursor and the auto complete.

432
00:25:31,681 --> 00:25:35,856
So there's huge value in training on user
data, even though there's, you know, but,

433
00:25:35,861 --> 00:25:38,854
but there's obviously some, things you
need to be really cautious about there.

434
00:25:38,854 --> 00:25:41,104
And GDPR gives actually
really good guidance.

435
00:25:41,104 --> 00:25:45,049
It basically says if you strip
all information that can tie

436
00:25:45,049 --> 00:25:46,399
it back to a particular user.

437
00:25:46,399 --> 00:25:49,219
Certainly anything personally
identifiable, like a name or an email,

438
00:25:49,309 --> 00:25:52,849
but also you're decoupling it from the
user ID at the moment of collection

439
00:25:53,179 --> 00:25:57,709
and anonymizing there and you throw it
away within 30 days, you're all good.

440
00:25:57,919 --> 00:26:00,919
That's a very simple framework and
actually we could do a lot with that.

441
00:26:00,919 --> 00:26:04,069
We could really, go pretty
far with training our own,

442
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:06,519
models with data in that frame.

443
00:26:06,519 --> 00:26:08,859
And it was actually nice to
have that, not just from a legal

444
00:26:08,859 --> 00:26:11,979
perspective, but from just a best
practices guidance perspective.

445
00:26:12,479 --> 00:26:16,766
so GDPR has been a mixed bag
in some ways, but has also I

446
00:26:16,766 --> 00:26:18,171
think provided genuine value.

447
00:26:18,376 --> 00:26:20,656
The other thing I would throw
out that is also probably kind of

448
00:26:20,656 --> 00:26:24,706
from the Europe perspective that's
top of mind now is sovereignty.

449
00:26:24,886 --> 00:26:27,076
Basically data sovereignty
and software sovereignty.

450
00:26:27,376 --> 00:26:31,186
And I think a lot of the European Union
as a whole, but also individual countries

451
00:26:31,186 --> 00:26:35,296
are thinking about how to decouple
themselves a little bit from US providers.

452
00:26:35,596 --> 00:26:39,706
And I think we can put aside, or we
don't wanna make a political conference

453
00:26:39,706 --> 00:26:43,756
or be too tied to whatever current event
happens to be in the news at the moment.

454
00:26:43,936 --> 00:26:47,416
But I think in general, this is a
good perspective for nations to have

455
00:26:47,416 --> 00:26:50,626
and it is just a scaled up version
of local-first data ownership.

456
00:26:51,076 --> 00:26:55,306
It is just a version of the same reason
I say it's good for me to have control

457
00:26:55,306 --> 00:26:59,356
over my data and have the ability to
make choices about it, not only in

458
00:26:59,356 --> 00:27:00,706
the short term, but in the long term.

459
00:27:00,706 --> 00:27:01,696
Where do I back it up?

460
00:27:01,906 --> 00:27:04,696
Can I delete it, can I
duplicate it, et cetera.

461
00:27:04,876 --> 00:27:06,496
There's a version of that for nations.

462
00:27:06,496 --> 00:27:09,792
And I think that's a little bit what,
Europe is grappling with right now.

463
00:27:09,792 --> 00:27:13,662
And I think totally separate from
anything happened in the current moment.

464
00:27:13,662 --> 00:27:15,387
That's a good thing to think about.

465
00:27:15,387 --> 00:27:19,591
That's a long-term thing that helps
create greater agency and autonomy

466
00:27:19,591 --> 00:27:22,402
and security for your nation,
just as it does for an individual.

467
00:27:23,454 --> 00:27:27,737
And I think there's also really like a
window of opportunity, around that, where

468
00:27:27,947 --> 00:27:32,594
like, whether, what do you wanna call,
like, big players like Monopoly or not?

469
00:27:32,827 --> 00:27:37,474
that aside, I think there are now real
cases of precedent where I think certain

470
00:27:37,474 --> 00:27:42,274
German states, for example, have made
the switch away from Microsoft to like

471
00:27:42,274 --> 00:27:44,637
some, open source software, et cetera.

472
00:27:44,637 --> 00:27:50,040
And like, I think that sets a, like
me as someone who has like, very good

473
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:53,850
feelings towards open source and wants
to see open source software succeed,

474
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:56,070
I think there's new momentum here.

475
00:27:56,340 --> 00:27:59,640
And I think local-first can really
also through that perspective,

476
00:27:59,910 --> 00:28:01,890
play a more mainstream role.

477
00:28:02,125 --> 00:28:05,515
Since like you don't just, yes, you
can have like your open source react

478
00:28:05,515 --> 00:28:09,055
components, but that does make like
fully functional software where you

479
00:28:09,055 --> 00:28:10,585
can replace other software with it.

480
00:28:10,585 --> 00:28:10,765
Yeah.

481
00:28:10,765 --> 00:28:14,455
Like you need to think about data
and if you're making that painful

482
00:28:14,455 --> 00:28:18,385
switch from one software stack, that
might even like include all the way

483
00:28:18,385 --> 00:28:22,979
to the operating system, you probably
like experience a lot of pain there.

484
00:28:23,249 --> 00:28:27,769
And ideally, you now choose a
foundation that gives you more

485
00:28:27,769 --> 00:28:31,459
optionality in the future when you
might want to do another switch.

486
00:28:31,729 --> 00:28:35,222
And this is where things like,
data compatibility, et cetera,

487
00:28:35,282 --> 00:28:36,632
all like play into this.

488
00:28:37,267 --> 00:28:43,807
And where ideally, like legal frameworks
set a good foundation and like encourage

489
00:28:43,837 --> 00:28:49,340
things like data compatibility, et cetera,
but in a thoughtful way where it does

490
00:28:49,340 --> 00:28:55,390
not, introduce so much overhead and like
bureaucracy that it grinds down like the

491
00:28:55,620 --> 00:28:57,640
velocity of like hurricane ship software.

492
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:00,034
And I think this is like
the best of all worlds that

493
00:29:00,034 --> 00:29:02,914
local-first wants to empower that.

494
00:29:03,060 --> 00:29:05,775
Where if you build with like
those local-first data layers.

495
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:11,010
The data layer takes care of that for
you, and you can focus on the software.

496
00:29:11,190 --> 00:29:15,900
So I think this is all like a very rich
area, to talk about and I think that

497
00:29:15,900 --> 00:29:20,910
what's makes it really interesting is
to hear it through the lens of like one

498
00:29:20,910 --> 00:29:26,040
particular story, whether it is like a
company having made that switch, whether

499
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:30,888
you've built software and like you've
made your software more compatible and

500
00:29:30,888 --> 00:29:36,348
interoperable in some way, or, yeah,
there's like all of those stories that

501
00:29:36,528 --> 00:29:40,590
I've heard over the years and I think
those deserve a broader, audience.

502
00:29:40,590 --> 00:29:44,377
And so if you have something to share
in that regard, please definitely take

503
00:29:44,377 --> 00:29:46,550
the step and like, submit it to the CFP.

504
00:29:46,907 --> 00:29:47,477
That's a great point.

505
00:29:47,477 --> 00:29:51,947
It almost makes me wanna make data
portability or something to that regard.

506
00:29:52,224 --> 00:29:53,634
a top level topic.

507
00:29:53,634 --> 00:29:56,004
But I think this comes back to
the principle in local-first,

508
00:29:56,004 --> 00:29:57,204
which we call the Long Now.

509
00:29:57,729 --> 00:30:00,519
Which is, yeah, once you've
been around for a while, you

510
00:30:00,519 --> 00:30:01,659
can see the gray in my beard.

511
00:30:01,659 --> 00:30:05,019
I've been working with computers
for many decades now, and I've

512
00:30:05,019 --> 00:30:06,789
seen many products come and go.

513
00:30:06,789 --> 00:30:08,379
Software platforms come and go.

514
00:30:08,739 --> 00:30:11,919
But being able to preserve that
data for a variety of reasons.

515
00:30:11,919 --> 00:30:13,089
'cause it's important for your company.

516
00:30:13,119 --> 00:30:14,409
'cause it's important for you personally.

517
00:30:14,409 --> 00:30:18,779
There's emotional meaning and saving your
old family photos or the, master thesis

518
00:30:18,779 --> 00:30:20,369
he wrote in university or whatever.

519
00:30:20,769 --> 00:30:24,039
And then of course it is natural
that especially the startup industry,

520
00:30:24,039 --> 00:30:26,769
which skews young and people are
building products and moving fast

521
00:30:26,769 --> 00:30:30,399
and thinking about tomorrow and next
quarter and not 10 years from now.

522
00:30:30,449 --> 00:30:31,729
That's, that's fine.

523
00:30:31,729 --> 00:30:34,479
and well and good, but
maybe that is a role.

524
00:30:34,479 --> 00:30:37,735
Governments can play a little bit, but
it's also a role that, yeah, maybe our

525
00:30:37,735 --> 00:30:41,065
community can play, which is encourage
people to think a little bit about that

526
00:30:41,065 --> 00:30:46,102
long term, both as users, what's going to
make my data be a little safer, give me

527
00:30:46,102 --> 00:30:47,962
that long term optionality, as you said.

528
00:30:48,194 --> 00:30:52,239
but also product makers to think
in terms of like, okay, may maybe

529
00:30:52,239 --> 00:30:55,449
my product won't be hero, will have
changed a lot in five or 10 years.

530
00:30:55,689 --> 00:30:59,485
Am I empowering my users, to take
their data and go to where they need

531
00:30:59,485 --> 00:31:00,805
to go when the time comes for that?

532
00:31:01,604 --> 00:31:05,324
And I think it's just like a wonderful way
to think about the world a bit more, like

533
00:31:05,324 --> 00:31:10,304
positive sum, where I think we've, like
in some areas of software, we've already

534
00:31:10,484 --> 00:31:14,650
figured us out, like in a pretty good
way when we have like languages and like

535
00:31:14,650 --> 00:31:16,720
ideally like typed languages, et cetera.

536
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:19,990
Like you have an API that you
can compatible with and then

537
00:31:19,990 --> 00:31:21,550
you can like reuse modules.

538
00:31:21,730 --> 00:31:24,850
We even got that all the
way to like UI, et cetera.

539
00:31:25,180 --> 00:31:27,850
But for data, this is where
we're struggling still the most.

540
00:31:27,850 --> 00:31:32,060
And I think this is like one of the
core themes around local-first where

541
00:31:32,060 --> 00:31:35,780
there has been tremendous progress
to, to make, progress in that regard.

542
00:31:36,220 --> 00:31:40,630
And in that theme of like user
agency, et cetera, personal software,

543
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:44,464
I think this will play an even
bigger role, where we are gonna

544
00:31:44,464 --> 00:31:46,384
have like more software than ever.

545
00:31:46,414 --> 00:31:48,964
Whether it's like we've built this
ourselves, whether it's agents

546
00:31:48,964 --> 00:31:52,654
have built it, and then those
things can, can talk to each other.

547
00:31:53,074 --> 00:31:56,764
But I think it's also like changing
in an interesting way where the

548
00:31:56,764 --> 00:32:01,354
contract between that does not have
to be like absolutely perfect anymore.

549
00:32:01,684 --> 00:32:07,000
But like now AI can also like, shoulder
a bit of that burden of like talking

550
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,390
to each other, where now we can like
get away with having fuzzy software.

551
00:32:11,195 --> 00:32:16,620
Where it has like CSV over here and
like a JSON API over there, and the

552
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:21,440
agent can like very easily either ad
hoc one-off, like convert something or

553
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,330
create a script that talks to each other.

554
00:32:23,540 --> 00:32:28,070
So I think we're like, we're getting
closer and closer having like some

555
00:32:28,070 --> 00:32:33,140
bridges and ideally over time we'll
get to like really having very reliable

556
00:32:33,140 --> 00:32:38,826
bridges that just, in our minds when
we hear a story like over there and

557
00:32:38,826 --> 00:32:42,516
like we write it down over there,
like we are a bridge and just works.

558
00:32:42,516 --> 00:32:45,490
And ideally software can
be like that in the future.

559
00:32:45,983 --> 00:32:49,703
I like that a lot and I like that
point that software is becoming

560
00:32:49,733 --> 00:32:53,693
cheaper to make, so therefore it will
be more ephemeral, more throwaway.

561
00:32:53,693 --> 00:32:56,573
You'll be more likely to make
something that's purpose-built for

562
00:32:56,578 --> 00:32:59,813
a, a shorter period of time, whether
it's an internal tool at a company

563
00:32:59,813 --> 00:33:01,103
or a personal app or something.

564
00:33:01,463 --> 00:33:02,453
Something like that.

565
00:33:02,753 --> 00:33:05,963
And in the past we've really relied,
or to date you could say we've

566
00:33:05,963 --> 00:33:10,673
really relied on, my Gmail is still
readable 20 years ago because Gmail

567
00:33:10,673 --> 00:33:12,413
still exists and is well maintained.

568
00:33:12,736 --> 00:33:16,546
but instead, maybe if we have a system
that is more based on, well, I can

569
00:33:16,546 --> 00:33:21,106
use an email tool that's a little bit
bespoke and gets stops being relevant

570
00:33:21,106 --> 00:33:24,196
or stops being maintained two years
from now, and it's no big deal because

571
00:33:24,196 --> 00:33:28,126
getting my email out or whatever data
came from that tool and into the next

572
00:33:28,126 --> 00:33:32,026
thing that I'm going to use is pretty
straightforward to do from through some

573
00:33:32,026 --> 00:33:34,306
combination of export data portability.

574
00:33:34,306 --> 00:33:38,896
But also, as you said, that importing
and ingesting data and making data

575
00:33:38,896 --> 00:33:41,536
coherent with the help of AI is easier.

576
00:33:41,536 --> 00:33:43,396
So I like that idea of a lot.

577
00:33:43,396 --> 00:33:47,956
This, the software is kind of ephemeral
and fits the need you have in the exact

578
00:33:47,956 --> 00:33:49,756
moment, and then you can move on from it.

579
00:33:49,786 --> 00:33:52,526
The data is something that
has a longer lifespan.

580
00:33:52,526 --> 00:33:55,406
It can move with you
from, product to product.

581
00:33:56,306 --> 00:33:56,936
Exactly.

582
00:33:57,476 --> 00:33:57,896
Great.

583
00:33:57,896 --> 00:34:01,505
So this was local-first maturity,
and we've already teased a little

584
00:34:01,505 --> 00:34:05,865
bit of like some adjacent topics,
but the, the other, big pillars here,

585
00:34:05,931 --> 00:34:10,775
as Elene put it, is like the new
territories and the larger ecosystem.

586
00:34:10,775 --> 00:34:14,975
So maybe if we spend a bit of time on
the new territories where we have like,

587
00:34:14,975 --> 00:34:20,281
designing for agency, then around like
AI, local and open weight models, and

588
00:34:20,281 --> 00:34:23,191
then also AI assistance for local-first.

589
00:34:23,431 --> 00:34:26,101
Maybe starting with the
first one, design for agency.

590
00:34:26,338 --> 00:34:27,568
What should people think about here?

591
00:34:27,748 --> 00:34:28,108
Yeah.

592
00:34:28,108 --> 00:34:34,888
For me, this would come to the topic of,
I like computers as a tool for thought,

593
00:34:34,888 --> 00:34:39,208
a way to augment, thinking, a way to
make humans more creative, more capable,

594
00:34:39,208 --> 00:34:41,098
able to accomplish our goals better.

595
00:34:41,578 --> 00:34:45,538
I sometimes think, especially as
consumer products have have come to

596
00:34:45,538 --> 00:34:49,828
dominate, for example, just sort of
usage and revenue in the computing world.

597
00:34:49,828 --> 00:34:52,408
There ends up being this weird
race to the bottom of, hey,

598
00:34:52,678 --> 00:34:53,938
the computer will think for me.

599
00:34:54,188 --> 00:34:55,208
that's what we like about AI.

600
00:34:55,208 --> 00:34:55,448
Good.

601
00:34:55,448 --> 00:34:56,318
I don't need to think anymore.

602
00:34:56,318 --> 00:34:57,368
The computer can do it for me.

603
00:34:57,418 --> 00:35:01,208
And that to me is a very sad perspective.

604
00:35:01,328 --> 00:35:05,121
And rather I would think, wanna
think that, AI or other capabilities

605
00:35:05,178 --> 00:35:08,884
that we continue to develop as, we
continue to explore the computing

606
00:35:08,884 --> 00:35:14,104
space are things that help us do
more and better the things we enjoy

607
00:35:14,104 --> 00:35:15,844
doing, being creative and thinking.

608
00:35:16,181 --> 00:35:20,471
and so I think the design for
agency topic is the idea of, okay.

609
00:35:20,831 --> 00:35:24,311
So if you're doing something with
language models, with computer vision,

610
00:35:24,311 --> 00:35:30,458
with agents, whatever it is, what can be
part of your design, in the sense of how

611
00:35:30,458 --> 00:35:36,068
your product works, that really engages
and creates more agency and more deeper

612
00:35:36,068 --> 00:35:37,963
understanding from your users, right?

613
00:35:38,143 --> 00:35:41,623
The negative scenario or the people
often quote is that Star Trek

614
00:35:41,623 --> 00:35:43,033
next generation episode, right?

615
00:35:43,033 --> 00:35:46,813
Where people have this, these omniscient
computers that do everything and

616
00:35:46,813 --> 00:35:50,113
then they lose all the capability
to understand not only just how to

617
00:35:50,113 --> 00:35:52,843
fix the machines, but just really
how the world around them works.

618
00:35:53,113 --> 00:35:55,873
And then when those computers
start to fail, they're suddenly

619
00:35:55,993 --> 00:35:57,103
like helpless children.

620
00:35:57,463 --> 00:36:02,233
And I think for me, good computing tools
of all sorts, and that includes everything

621
00:36:02,233 --> 00:36:06,103
to do with AI and language models deepens
our understanding of the world, deepens

622
00:36:06,103 --> 00:36:10,303
our understanding of the technology by
freeing us from some of the fussy details

623
00:36:10,303 --> 00:36:15,593
of where exactly does the semicolon go,
and allowing me to spend more time on the

624
00:36:15,883 --> 00:36:20,503
mental models and the frameworks and the
principles and how things fit together and

625
00:36:20,503 --> 00:36:23,203
how we use those to accomplish our goals.

626
00:36:23,823 --> 00:36:24,183
Yeah.

627
00:36:24,183 --> 00:36:29,133
And I think this is, I mean, for, for
me, AI has been like one of the biggest

628
00:36:29,193 --> 00:36:32,613
unlocks to like just learn new things.

629
00:36:32,613 --> 00:36:36,513
I've gotten into so many new areas,
like I've gotten deeper on like

630
00:36:36,513 --> 00:36:38,073
some hardware related things.

631
00:36:38,073 --> 00:36:41,523
I've gotten deeper on
understanding how wifi works,

632
00:36:41,616 --> 00:36:43,956
like band channels, et et cetera.

633
00:36:43,986 --> 00:36:48,026
Like gave me a deeper and a broader
understanding of the world, like

634
00:36:48,026 --> 00:36:52,460
I have been on an accelerated pace
of, learning and understanding.

635
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:56,510
and I think that's like the positive
sum, version of that or like the

636
00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:02,676
flip side or the other, scenario,
of an like the utopia maybe of that

637
00:37:02,676 --> 00:37:04,963
Star Trek, anecdote you shared.

638
00:37:05,273 --> 00:37:10,786
So, one other much more concrete
topic that I think has been, a very

639
00:37:10,846 --> 00:37:15,720
new one that's come, about over
the last few years as, like off the

640
00:37:15,720 --> 00:37:18,060
shelf models became available at all.

641
00:37:18,690 --> 00:37:22,906
And now we also have like, open weight
models and they're even small enough

642
00:37:23,236 --> 00:37:29,483
that you can run them on your own device,
whether it's on a very beefy, desktop

643
00:37:29,483 --> 00:37:34,624
grade machine or whether it's like, scaled
down models that might even work in the

644
00:37:34,624 --> 00:37:39,664
browser, that might even work on like a
phone or other much lower end devices.

645
00:37:40,054 --> 00:37:47,134
I think that opens a whole new category of
software and use cases, et cetera, whether

646
00:37:47,134 --> 00:37:52,321
it is, like that you built a little
system that relies on like detecting

647
00:37:52,321 --> 00:37:54,961
certain shapes to do a certain thing.

648
00:37:54,961 --> 00:37:58,501
Maybe you're building, like maybe you
have chicken at home and you wanna like

649
00:37:58,501 --> 00:38:03,691
automate a little gate that like, opens
when a chicken walks through or whether

650
00:38:03,691 --> 00:38:05,431
you have like some other use cases.

651
00:38:05,431 --> 00:38:10,298
But this is you ideally wanna do that like
reliably, locally, efficiently, et cetera.

652
00:38:10,298 --> 00:38:14,471
And there's so many, like we can, we
can just like dream so much bigger now

653
00:38:14,471 --> 00:38:20,141
of like what we can build in a way that
does not rely on like Anthropic currently

654
00:38:20,141 --> 00:38:25,031
not having an outage and us like paying
whatever, a lot of money each time.

655
00:38:25,031 --> 00:38:29,328
We are like using a bit of like
API quota and, I think this is

656
00:38:29,328 --> 00:38:31,824
gonna be like right now, this is.

657
00:38:31,924 --> 00:38:35,944
Probably similar to the early
days of like computers being room

658
00:38:35,944 --> 00:38:38,308
sized, and not very capable yet.

659
00:38:38,338 --> 00:38:42,528
And I think that's just gonna, like at
some point our little like devices like

660
00:38:42,528 --> 00:38:48,424
this, will be able to do like really,
really impressive, inference capabilities.

661
00:38:48,864 --> 00:38:52,748
And I think this is like, now is
the time to start thinking about

662
00:38:52,748 --> 00:38:56,558
that and start already embracing
that in all sorts of different

663
00:38:56,558 --> 00:38:58,748
scenarios, form factors, et cetera.

664
00:38:59,108 --> 00:39:02,618
So I think this area could be
about like if you're building

665
00:39:02,948 --> 00:39:06,788
infrastructure, building tool, like
maybe you're the company behind some

666
00:39:06,788 --> 00:39:10,838
of those open models and you wanna
show people what's already possible.

667
00:39:10,838 --> 00:39:11,918
I think that's really great.

668
00:39:12,241 --> 00:39:16,201
if you are building applications,
systems, et cetera, that already

669
00:39:16,201 --> 00:39:18,788
use, open models, local models.

670
00:39:19,458 --> 00:39:21,528
that is like a story we'd love to hear.

671
00:39:21,738 --> 00:39:26,908
We had last year, Thomas from Google
already share, some earlier versions

672
00:39:26,938 --> 00:39:32,244
of like how you can run, Gemini Nano in
Chrome and showed some really cool demos.

673
00:39:32,574 --> 00:39:37,688
And all of this has come a really long
way and, I think across all sorts of

674
00:39:37,688 --> 00:39:40,058
different devices, platforms, et cetera.

675
00:39:40,328 --> 00:39:44,708
So if you're doing cool things in that
regard, please definitely apply to speak.

676
00:39:45,318 --> 00:39:49,188
Yeah, I think so much attention
is on the frontier models and the

677
00:39:49,382 --> 00:39:53,012
sort of one giant chat bot that can
do everything, multimodal models,

678
00:39:53,022 --> 00:39:54,872
ChatGPT, and Claude and so forth.

679
00:39:55,311 --> 00:39:59,929
And those are of course impressive and
very useful and there's a lot to that.

680
00:40:00,291 --> 00:40:02,797
But I really have, opened up
to the value of things like

681
00:40:02,797 --> 00:40:04,387
lightweight classifier models.

682
00:40:05,197 --> 00:40:08,694
Yeah, embeddings, including, there's
plenty of text embedding, models that

683
00:40:08,694 --> 00:40:12,084
you can just run in a Python server
with PyTorch that are great, really

684
00:40:12,204 --> 00:40:16,074
almost as good as basically as good as
what you can get in the big providers.

685
00:40:16,584 --> 00:40:20,274
Things like computer vision and OCR have
actually been good for a pretty long time.

686
00:40:20,514 --> 00:40:23,664
I think in some ways, you know,
maybe myself, I almost feel a little,

687
00:40:23,914 --> 00:40:28,084
surprised, you know, something about
the AI hype, you know, around chatbots

688
00:40:28,084 --> 00:40:31,534
and large language models then caused
me to take a closer look at a lot of

689
00:40:31,534 --> 00:40:34,894
these other ML technologies that have
been getting good for a long time.

690
00:40:35,194 --> 00:40:38,134
A lot of the text embedding stuff
and semantic search and things like

691
00:40:38,134 --> 00:40:41,884
that have been, you know, really had
their breakthroughs 10 years ago.

692
00:40:42,094 --> 00:40:44,734
Computer vision has also been
very good for a long time.

693
00:40:44,734 --> 00:40:47,344
We know that because captures
keep getting harder and harder.

694
00:40:47,684 --> 00:40:51,254
And you can do a lot with these, in those
very specialized cases, like what you

695
00:40:51,254 --> 00:40:54,964
were describing with, yeah, whether it's
a robot in your house or, something like

696
00:40:54,964 --> 00:40:58,984
that, but also software where you can have
the model run on each keystroke, right?

697
00:40:58,984 --> 00:41:00,514
You can do all kinds of things.

698
00:41:00,989 --> 00:41:04,139
They're very different versus
needing to wait several seconds for

699
00:41:04,289 --> 00:41:07,642
a heavy inference to come back from
the big language model provider.

700
00:41:07,732 --> 00:41:11,362
And just broadly, the story of
computing is one of taking these

701
00:41:11,392 --> 00:41:15,532
computing things that are originally
are heavy and slow and as you said,

702
00:41:15,532 --> 00:41:19,792
require a room size computer and making
them smaller and cheaper and faster.

703
00:41:19,797 --> 00:41:22,312
And that just opens up all
kinds of new use cases.

704
00:41:22,522 --> 00:41:24,892
And there's really great open
models out there from Quinn

705
00:41:24,892 --> 00:41:26,692
to Llama to many, many others.

706
00:41:26,992 --> 00:41:30,532
And yeah, I think if you're working
either on open weight models, or open

707
00:41:30,532 --> 00:41:34,432
models of any kind or the libraries
behind it, like Transformer.js or

708
00:41:34,432 --> 00:41:36,712
PyTorch or something like that,
we'd love to hear a talk from you.

709
00:41:37,585 --> 00:41:38,125
Awesome.

710
00:41:38,185 --> 00:41:45,165
So the next topic in the new territories,
area is AI assistance for local-first.

711
00:41:45,555 --> 00:41:50,205
This is, I guess more around like the
application of those new materials

712
00:41:50,235 --> 00:41:52,005
to those new building blocks we got.

713
00:41:52,395 --> 00:41:56,595
And I think that can be really,
like wide ranging, can be going in

714
00:41:56,595 --> 00:41:58,215
all sorts of different directions.

715
00:41:58,215 --> 00:42:01,515
Like, and I think the exciting part
is actually the stuff that we can't

716
00:42:01,515 --> 00:42:05,805
even, like, think about right now,
but that maybe some of you are,

717
00:42:05,842 --> 00:42:09,892
actively exploring and have built
like surprising things on top of this.

718
00:42:10,232 --> 00:42:13,802
But just some things that came,
to mind for me as I've been like,

719
00:42:14,018 --> 00:42:19,242
experimenting myself or thinking this
through, like just to, generate ideas.

720
00:42:19,332 --> 00:42:24,762
How can AI address like some of those
open problems in the local-first

721
00:42:24,762 --> 00:42:29,082
space or like some challenges that
are so like kind of hard to crack

722
00:42:29,382 --> 00:42:30,942
and if we're allowing ourselves.

723
00:42:31,712 --> 00:42:36,602
To go beyond the realm of like
deterministic, traditional software.

724
00:42:36,602 --> 00:42:39,349
And like, we're using those
fuzzy materials a bit more.

725
00:42:39,349 --> 00:42:42,655
And like we're thinking of like,
hey, if we're actually, embedding

726
00:42:42,655 --> 00:42:47,169
them into our local software stack,
what becomes possible through this?

727
00:42:47,169 --> 00:42:52,142
So like, just one way, for example is
let's say you're building a power tool and

728
00:42:52,142 --> 00:42:57,542
like you have a very, very sophisticated
set of like system settings, et cetera.

729
00:42:57,542 --> 00:43:01,322
Like for me, for example, the Apple
system settings come to mind and

730
00:43:01,322 --> 00:43:04,612
they're really like, I don't think
they're the pinnacle of modern software.

731
00:43:05,032 --> 00:43:07,255
And, I always need to use search.

732
00:43:07,255 --> 00:43:11,175
And like five different things come
up and then it's like the 15th one

733
00:43:11,175 --> 00:43:12,835
that I was actually looking for.

734
00:43:13,165 --> 00:43:15,625
And like, it's just like very painful.

735
00:43:16,405 --> 00:43:22,885
Now where we are so spoiled by like
using things like ChatGPT et cetera,

736
00:43:22,885 --> 00:43:27,512
like it really feels like worlds a part
of like how good something could be.

737
00:43:27,512 --> 00:43:34,612
So why not use something like a, ChatGPT
chat interface to interact with your

738
00:43:34,612 --> 00:43:39,412
own app that like, you can, instead
of have to click the clock settings,

739
00:43:39,615 --> 00:43:44,950
like why not allow your entire app to
begin configurable through AI models.

740
00:43:45,340 --> 00:43:48,910
And so to make that actually happen
now you need to bring in like that

741
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:52,270
fuzzy LM piece into your software.

742
00:43:52,270 --> 00:43:56,800
But like exploring that, like figuring
out best practices, figuring out

743
00:43:56,800 --> 00:44:01,920
like how can you actually, constrain
that, that you don't, give the, users

744
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:06,537
so much, power that they can like
accidentally tear apart the app and

745
00:44:06,537 --> 00:44:08,247
it's no longer functional, et cetera.

746
00:44:08,247 --> 00:44:10,757
I think there's a lot
to be explored there.

747
00:44:11,137 --> 00:44:12,737
So just as one area.

748
00:44:13,057 --> 00:44:18,667
Another one is to give even more power
to the user or build systems in a way

749
00:44:18,667 --> 00:44:20,497
that wasn't really feasible before.

750
00:44:20,497 --> 00:44:25,027
We talked about the data interoperability
before data exports, et cetera.

751
00:44:25,447 --> 00:44:29,017
Now we can actually build like
fuzzy bridges between different

752
00:44:29,017 --> 00:44:32,797
software that were never meant
to be talking to each other.

753
00:44:32,867 --> 00:44:36,437
Whether it's like in real time
or whether it's just like making

754
00:44:36,437 --> 00:44:41,270
sort of, export interfaces a
little bit more ergonomic to use.

755
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:46,744
And now you could imagine whatever,
like using your, local supermarket

756
00:44:46,834 --> 00:44:51,440
that might have like a certain,
online shopping, like not even API,

757
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:56,787
but just like a maybe connecting that
with your own home build to-do app.

758
00:44:57,147 --> 00:45:02,030
And, there is not really like the
end all be all integration API, yet

759
00:45:02,090 --> 00:45:03,860
you can make those things happen now.

760
00:45:03,860 --> 00:45:08,870
So this is just like one of many, many
ideas where hopefully you all have

761
00:45:08,870 --> 00:45:12,803
been exploring some interesting use
cases that we'd love to hear about.

762
00:45:12,803 --> 00:45:16,774
So this is what comes to mind for me
about AI assistance for local-first.

763
00:45:16,774 --> 00:45:21,019
Yeah, using these new technologies
to make the world more local-first,

764
00:45:21,019 --> 00:45:23,239
especially maybe parts that
have been resistant to that.

765
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:27,229
I think breaking down data silos is one of
the biggest ones that's been such a long

766
00:45:27,229 --> 00:45:31,789
running topic at you could switch with
projects like Cambria, but almost always

767
00:45:31,789 --> 00:45:36,319
it involves kind of a convince everyone
to build their software on a completely

768
00:45:36,319 --> 00:45:40,069
different stack, which sort of Yeah.

769
00:45:40,069 --> 00:45:41,899
Is very much an uphill battle.

770
00:45:41,899 --> 00:45:42,229
Right.

771
00:45:42,531 --> 00:45:45,405
And as you point out, there's a
great agency in our personal lives.

772
00:45:45,435 --> 00:45:49,440
I've experienced this already with, yeah,
being able to pull out, I don't know.

773
00:45:49,440 --> 00:45:52,740
You know, there's some website that
has a list of things and I want

774
00:45:52,740 --> 00:45:55,650
to put that into a spreadsheet,
but it doesn't offer a CSV export.

775
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:56,550
Okay.

776
00:45:56,700 --> 00:45:59,910
I basically could do that with a
screenshot or a PDF and let the language

777
00:45:59,910 --> 00:46:03,810
model do the hard work of, you know,
turning it into something coherent.

778
00:46:04,037 --> 00:46:06,047
Similar idea there is just downloading.

779
00:46:06,047 --> 00:46:10,017
I like to download my transactions from
my bank account on a quarterly basis, so I

780
00:46:10,027 --> 00:46:14,837
have a record of that that's separate from
whatever clunky interface the bank has.

781
00:46:15,197 --> 00:46:19,277
But inevitably, if you have a couple of
accounts and then they're all in slightly

782
00:46:19,277 --> 00:46:22,577
different formats and trying to like
bring them all together into any kind

783
00:46:22,577 --> 00:46:24,827
of unified ledger is nearly impossible.

784
00:46:24,827 --> 00:46:28,007
It's just not worth the bother
for an individual or whatever.

785
00:46:28,007 --> 00:46:32,267
But actually now with language model, it's
pretty easy to do an ad hoc thing where I

786
00:46:32,267 --> 00:46:36,917
can go do the download effort myself once
a quarter, but then pull that all into a

787
00:46:36,917 --> 00:46:39,137
spreadsheet with a normalized data set.

788
00:46:39,137 --> 00:46:40,517
That feels very empowering for me.

789
00:46:40,517 --> 00:46:44,627
It's like, okay, now I have all my
transactions in a place that I control

790
00:46:44,837 --> 00:46:48,797
in a format that I want that isn't
dependent on, you know, my bank letting

791
00:46:48,797 --> 00:46:52,787
me, you know, I go to login to download
something and it tells me, oh, sorry,

792
00:46:52,787 --> 00:46:57,467
we only support transactions, you know,
back six months or whatever thing, right?

793
00:46:57,467 --> 00:47:02,207
Very disempowering user experience
that instead it's something that data

794
00:47:02,207 --> 00:47:06,077
that feels like it belongs to me, my
banking and transaction data, and I

795
00:47:06,077 --> 00:47:09,707
have it in a place and a format that
I can control for the long term.

796
00:47:10,512 --> 00:47:11,082
Exactly.

797
00:47:11,235 --> 00:47:16,407
it's just so cool to see like how far
people take, like how much they embrace

798
00:47:16,407 --> 00:47:20,727
the new forms of like, agencies that they,
I guess they, they've been always like

799
00:47:20,727 --> 00:47:25,727
longing for, but now, like it becomes
feasible to, like really go for it.

800
00:47:25,727 --> 00:47:29,537
And I think it's so, also so liberating
that you can build software for

801
00:47:29,537 --> 00:47:34,337
yourself unburdened by like making
it enterprise grade, et cetera.

802
00:47:34,667 --> 00:47:38,027
And so you can like, you know, I
need to hold it this way and it's

803
00:47:38,027 --> 00:47:39,734
gonna work, otherwise it falls apart.

804
00:47:39,734 --> 00:47:40,394
But that's fine.

805
00:47:40,874 --> 00:47:45,067
And I think that's like the, beauty
of like building tools for yourself

806
00:47:45,127 --> 00:47:49,957
and like local-first gives us the
glue that they actually can bear like

807
00:47:49,957 --> 00:47:52,344
real weight and like work together.

808
00:47:52,854 --> 00:47:58,084
So that is the new territories, which
I think is very related to the larger

809
00:47:58,134 --> 00:48:02,594
ecosystem where we have, a set of
like other, very interesting topics.

810
00:48:02,594 --> 00:48:06,942
So like some of them we've teased before,
but just to run through like on a high

811
00:48:06,942 --> 00:48:10,182
level and then we can go into them
like again, we have like self-sovereign

812
00:48:10,212 --> 00:48:14,892
identity, we have social media and
data ownership, encrypted messaging,

813
00:48:15,192 --> 00:48:19,912
game development with local-first and
malleable software in the age of LLMs.

814
00:48:19,962 --> 00:48:23,759
So maybe starting with the
self-sovereign identity, what

815
00:48:23,819 --> 00:48:25,319
should people think about here?

816
00:48:25,559 --> 00:48:30,249
Which sort of stories might we be
interested in having at the conference?

817
00:48:30,959 --> 00:48:31,109
Yeah.

818
00:48:31,109 --> 00:48:34,808
Well in general, this category of the
larger ecosystem is one I'm excited

819
00:48:34,808 --> 00:48:37,628
about because I think there are so
many adjacent communities that are

820
00:48:37,628 --> 00:48:41,708
interested in, yeah, for example, things
like freedom, you know, the open source

821
00:48:41,708 --> 00:48:43,448
community, obviously the Linux world.

822
00:48:44,168 --> 00:48:48,868
The Open Web and open standards, as well
as things like the end-to-end encryption,

823
00:48:48,898 --> 00:48:51,205
kind of privacy, nerds out there.

824
00:48:51,205 --> 00:48:53,815
You know, there's, that's not
exactly what local-first is

825
00:48:53,815 --> 00:48:55,255
about, but it's very adjacent.

826
00:48:55,255 --> 00:48:58,135
There's a lot of shared technologies
and things, and this is an invitation

827
00:48:58,135 --> 00:48:59,905
for folks in those communities.

828
00:48:59,905 --> 00:49:04,375
And I'm even sending out some emails and
so forth to folks to try to invite them in

829
00:49:04,375 --> 00:49:06,355
to say, look, let's see where we overlap.

830
00:49:06,355 --> 00:49:08,522
Let's, find the edges there.

831
00:49:08,868 --> 00:49:09,005
yeah.

832
00:49:09,005 --> 00:49:11,765
The identity topic though,
this is a big one for me.

833
00:49:11,765 --> 00:49:14,135
It's something I've been
fussing about my whole career.

834
00:49:14,135 --> 00:49:17,498
I have whole, article about it
in my making computers better

835
00:49:17,738 --> 00:49:19,195
essay, from a few years ago.

836
00:49:19,195 --> 00:49:22,165
But it basically boils down to, I
think the way we identify ourselves to

837
00:49:22,165 --> 00:49:26,485
computers is kind of an embarrassment,
usernames and passwords, identity theft.

838
00:49:27,085 --> 00:49:30,625
Now you've got, I don't know, magic
login links and login with Google

839
00:49:30,725 --> 00:49:35,455
passkeys and whatever, and it's
just endlessly confusing for most

840
00:49:35,815 --> 00:49:38,185
users and even for power users.

841
00:49:38,185 --> 00:49:41,365
Yeah, the amount of time in my day,
I end up spite typing in two factor

842
00:49:41,365 --> 00:49:44,995
codes and digging magic links out of
emails and just trying to convince

843
00:49:44,995 --> 00:49:46,795
the computer that I am who I say I am.

844
00:49:47,185 --> 00:49:48,295
And I know why it's that way.

845
00:49:48,295 --> 00:49:51,445
Of course, as a professional that's
worked in this field and particularly

846
00:49:51,445 --> 00:49:54,722
in the security, space, on and
off, over the course of my career.

847
00:49:54,722 --> 00:49:56,841
But it really is a shame to me.

848
00:49:57,201 --> 00:50:00,411
And then in the meantime, you have
this more and more control and

849
00:50:00,411 --> 00:50:04,341
more and more ownership over our
identities that go to the companies.

850
00:50:04,341 --> 00:50:07,341
And basically it's been a kind of
a good deal to say like, look, I'll

851
00:50:07,341 --> 00:50:10,791
just let Google manage my identity and
then I can click the login with Google

852
00:50:10,791 --> 00:50:14,565
button everywhere, because it is such
a hard problem and I can just kind

853
00:50:14,565 --> 00:50:17,115
of outsource that to them, sort of.

854
00:50:17,115 --> 00:50:19,815
But there, it's kind of like a little
bit of a deal with the devil there

855
00:50:19,905 --> 00:50:21,225
comes with a lot of trade offs.

856
00:50:21,573 --> 00:50:25,400
and local-first is a chance to,
rethink that, reinvent that.

857
00:50:25,434 --> 00:50:27,546
and of course there are also
a lot of adjacent communities.

858
00:50:27,546 --> 00:50:29,286
Things like Open ID for example.

859
00:50:29,286 --> 00:50:33,276
We'll talk a little bit more about,
app proto and ActivityPub in a moment.

860
00:50:33,276 --> 00:50:36,656
But they have their own concepts of
identity and how you give people ownership

861
00:50:36,656 --> 00:50:40,396
over your online handle, in a way that's
sort of secure and safe, but doesn't

862
00:50:40,666 --> 00:50:44,356
put the user in the position of needing
to manage a bunch of cryptography keys,

863
00:50:44,356 --> 00:50:45,986
which they're inevitably going to lose.

864
00:50:46,216 --> 00:50:49,906
so I think anyone working on anything
in this space, whether it feels

865
00:50:50,046 --> 00:50:52,636
local-firsty or not, if you're working
with passkeys, if you're working

866
00:50:52,636 --> 00:50:56,083
with, any kind of identity system,
yeah, we'd love to hear from you.

867
00:50:56,993 --> 00:50:59,403
Yeah, I think this is a highly.

868
00:50:59,690 --> 00:51:00,863
unsolved area.

869
00:51:00,893 --> 00:51:02,663
I wouldn't say under explored.

870
00:51:02,663 --> 00:51:04,736
I think, people are really exploring it.

871
00:51:04,736 --> 00:51:06,656
It's a hard problem in
really interesting ways.

872
00:51:06,956 --> 00:51:11,396
It is a hard problem and I think we've,
we've also come a long way already.

873
00:51:11,396 --> 00:51:14,676
Like for example, like if you're
depending on, which pact with the

874
00:51:14,676 --> 00:51:18,726
devil you've made, you can already
have a slightly more convenient life.

875
00:51:18,756 --> 00:51:24,320
So me being, in pact with the Apple
ecosystem, I am very thankful for things

876
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:29,090
like Touch Id, et cetera, that are then
like nicely working together with things

877
00:51:29,090 --> 00:51:31,381
like 1Password, Passkeys, et cetera.

878
00:51:31,513 --> 00:51:36,678
and like being able to understand how
those things work and like thinking

879
00:51:36,678 --> 00:51:38,328
through the implications, et cetera.

880
00:51:38,328 --> 00:51:41,825
Like let's me be for, for this
point in time, in a relative sweet

881
00:51:41,825 --> 00:51:46,545
spot between, like living a secure
life, but also having convenience.

882
00:51:46,635 --> 00:51:50,325
But there's still like great
levels of like lock in, et cetera.

883
00:51:50,355 --> 00:51:55,065
And I think this is also like all
of that aside, like we're now also,

884
00:51:55,131 --> 00:51:58,821
having this like phase shift in
regards to software where we are no

885
00:51:58,821 --> 00:52:03,745
longer the only ones who are doing
things on our behalf, with computers.

886
00:52:03,745 --> 00:52:08,551
Like if we're, now whatever, like
maybe ordering, like some food or

887
00:52:08,577 --> 00:52:13,603
we're doing some other things, maybe
we're, like scheduling something on,

888
00:52:13,723 --> 00:52:15,913
the calendar or whatever it might be.

889
00:52:16,213 --> 00:52:19,903
It's no longer just us, but there's
like another thing that needs

890
00:52:20,113 --> 00:52:22,453
identity and even more fine grains.

891
00:52:22,453 --> 00:52:26,550
And I think one aspect here as well
is like if you're going from beyond

892
00:52:26,550 --> 00:52:32,596
authentication to authorization, so far
we have like, all off scopes, et cetera,

893
00:52:32,596 --> 00:52:34,936
but like it's very all or nothing.

894
00:52:34,936 --> 00:52:38,226
And it's all like, okay,
you, now get access forever.

895
00:52:38,466 --> 00:52:43,426
But maybe for like those agentic use
cases, you might want to think about it

896
00:52:43,436 --> 00:52:48,156
like, okay, you get to do this like one
time, or you get to do this like for five

897
00:52:48,156 --> 00:52:52,706
minutes, or you get to do this like only
for this email address or for this scope.

898
00:52:52,736 --> 00:52:57,776
So I think we want to make this like
much more fine-grained, but in a way

899
00:52:57,836 --> 00:53:02,546
where you like, it's, it's frankly
like going through like the permission

900
00:53:02,546 --> 00:53:06,716
granting on like a Google OAuth flow is
already overwhelming for most people.

901
00:53:07,016 --> 00:53:09,686
And now making this
even more fine granular

902
00:53:09,776 --> 00:53:09,956
Yeah,

903
00:53:09,986 --> 00:53:11,156
I think is like really

904
00:53:11,246 --> 00:53:11,346
tough challenge.

905
00:53:11,346 --> 00:53:11,531
Thinking of a

906
00:53:11,696 --> 00:53:12,056
giant

907
00:53:12,056 --> 00:53:12,441
array of check

908
00:53:12,446 --> 00:53:12,656
check

909
00:53:12,656 --> 00:53:16,270
boxes on the GitHub, token generation
and there's a reason for it.

910
00:53:16,270 --> 00:53:22,233
But then yes, again, that trade off of,
convenience and security is ever present.

911
00:53:22,633 --> 00:53:26,173
I think it's that intersection
of like user experience

912
00:53:26,173 --> 00:53:28,810
design and also cryptography.

913
00:53:28,810 --> 00:53:30,580
Like how do you make it actually secure?

914
00:53:30,610 --> 00:53:34,886
and I think that to, come together
in the best of both worlds.

915
00:53:35,216 --> 00:53:39,326
I think that is like a area that's
like highly deserving of like

916
00:53:39,326 --> 00:53:43,196
more resources, more investment,
more smart people working on it.

917
00:53:43,496 --> 00:53:46,166
So if you're working on that,
we'd love to hear from you.

918
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:50,040
ideally where you cover quite
a bit of that intersection.

919
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:53,390
I think this is probably not
the best, conference to share

920
00:53:53,390 --> 00:53:56,540
like your new breakthrough of
like some cryptographic nuance.

921
00:53:57,273 --> 00:54:01,703
But I think where we can like bring those
two things together where you can also

922
00:54:01,703 --> 00:54:06,063
with the focus of like, or one aspect
can be the solve sovereign, aspect.

923
00:54:06,123 --> 00:54:09,813
I think it doesn't have to be
a prerequisite, but I think if

924
00:54:09,813 --> 00:54:12,063
something points in that direction.

925
00:54:12,333 --> 00:54:17,953
And also I think another, tricky part
here is like that we need to kind of

926
00:54:18,043 --> 00:54:24,291
create a bridge from like today, where
people are like, defacto using things

927
00:54:24,291 --> 00:54:29,138
like login with Google, et cetera,
because it strikes A, acceptable balance

928
00:54:29,138 --> 00:54:30,878
of like convenience and security.

929
00:54:31,268 --> 00:54:36,768
And if there's like a much to esoteric,
version out there that doesn't have a

930
00:54:36,768 --> 00:54:40,265
credible path to becoming mainstream,
I think that also is something that

931
00:54:40,265 --> 00:54:42,335
needs to be taken into consideration.

932
00:54:42,335 --> 00:54:46,245
So this is a very nuanced
topic and I think as one of

933
00:54:46,245 --> 00:54:48,335
the harder nuts to crack here.

934
00:54:48,955 --> 00:54:51,415
but if you're working on that,
we'd love to hear from you.

935
00:54:51,835 --> 00:54:56,405
And I think with that it is like a
natural transition to, things like

936
00:54:56,675 --> 00:55:01,735
BlueSky ATproto where we talk about,
social media and data ownership.

937
00:55:01,745 --> 00:55:03,675
So you've already mentioned initially.

938
00:55:04,410 --> 00:55:10,160
That Martin Kleppmann is affiliated with
the ATproto ecosystem, and I think that's

939
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:16,127
just like one example for a broader,
set of design challenges and like goals

940
00:55:16,187 --> 00:55:20,627
that I think is like nicely adjacent or
partially overlapping with local-first.

941
00:55:20,627 --> 00:55:24,087
So do you want to give a little
bit more detail on this topic?

942
00:55:24,647 --> 00:55:25,247
Yeah, for sure.

943
00:55:25,247 --> 00:55:28,537
I think social media and data ownership
is so interesting because social

944
00:55:28,537 --> 00:55:34,373
media is the classic centralization
and the classic opaque appliance

945
00:55:34,373 --> 00:55:38,603
with a mysterious algorithm that you
can't and don't know how it works.

946
00:55:38,633 --> 00:55:44,273
And in general, I would say we could,
obviously could, and indeed I have

947
00:55:44,273 --> 00:55:47,003
in the past done whole podcasts
on social media and the both the

948
00:55:47,003 --> 00:55:48,283
positive and negatives that that has.

949
00:55:48,923 --> 00:55:53,753
Impacts that has had on society and
us as individuals, but narrowing in

950
00:55:53,813 --> 00:55:57,390
a little more on this kind of, yeah,
user empowerment around, and data

951
00:55:57,390 --> 00:55:59,610
ownership in our computing lives.

952
00:56:00,050 --> 00:56:04,563
It is the nature of the classics like
an Instagram or a Facebook or even a

953
00:56:04,563 --> 00:56:07,653
Twitter back in its heyday that, you
know, it, it is a very centralized

954
00:56:07,653 --> 00:56:09,453
closed, you have little ownership.

955
00:56:09,663 --> 00:56:13,490
You can just participate
in this stream of, content.

956
00:56:13,903 --> 00:56:17,647
and now we have this
new crop of, creations.

957
00:56:17,858 --> 00:56:21,537
I think Mastodon and ActivityPub
was, kind of early out the gate,

958
00:56:21,537 --> 00:56:24,680
but now there's some really good
energy around, BlueSky and ATproto.

959
00:56:24,810 --> 00:56:27,900
Actually, I think even as right
as we record this, the ATmosphere

960
00:56:27,900 --> 00:56:29,610
Conferences is happening.

961
00:56:29,644 --> 00:56:33,447
which yeah, just a lot of
good energy in there and it's

962
00:56:33,447 --> 00:56:34,977
a different set of problems.

963
00:56:34,977 --> 00:56:39,612
I think the classic local-first
app is something more like Linear

964
00:56:39,612 --> 00:56:43,572
or Notion or Figma, which is a
document editor, heavy creative work.

965
00:56:43,572 --> 00:56:45,312
You're collaborating with a small team.

966
00:56:45,312 --> 00:56:47,742
You really care a lot about
the output of that data.

967
00:56:48,282 --> 00:56:51,612
Social media where it's sort of global
town square, little fragments of

968
00:56:51,612 --> 00:56:56,262
data, everyone gets merged into a big
stream is on the surface, a completely

969
00:56:56,352 --> 00:57:01,285
different, both technical and kind of
design or user experience, challenge.

970
00:57:01,285 --> 00:57:04,435
But at the same time, when you look
at what ActivityPub and ATproto have

971
00:57:04,435 --> 00:57:07,589
been grappling with, including things
like personal data servers and how

972
00:57:07,589 --> 00:57:10,919
you have ownership over your identity,
how you make your handle portable,

973
00:57:10,919 --> 00:57:14,669
but still kind of globally unique and
especially verifiable, trustable, right?

974
00:57:14,809 --> 00:57:17,359
not easy to impersonate that
you're the New York Times or a

975
00:57:17,359 --> 00:57:18,859
politician or something like that.

976
00:57:19,189 --> 00:57:22,279
So there's some really interesting
technical and design work that has

977
00:57:22,279 --> 00:57:24,409
been done in both of those communities.

978
00:57:24,559 --> 00:57:28,022
I think we already have, some folks lined
up to speak on some aspects of those.

979
00:57:28,022 --> 00:57:31,622
But I think there's, that's such a rich
area that if you're working on something

980
00:57:31,862 --> 00:57:35,582
in this space with either one of those
communities or otherwise in the kind

981
00:57:35,582 --> 00:57:39,962
of broader, how do we make social media
something more empowering for users,

982
00:57:40,242 --> 00:57:42,889
yeah, we'd love to hear that, we'd love
to see a, talk submission from you.

983
00:57:43,467 --> 00:57:43,857
Yeah.

984
00:57:43,857 --> 00:57:49,377
In particular also like using those
protocols, those ideas to go beyond

985
00:57:49,377 --> 00:57:53,037
social media where you can basically
like to, draw that bridge to the

986
00:57:53,037 --> 00:57:55,067
previous, like, identity question.

987
00:57:55,067 --> 00:57:58,949
Like right now I think this is, we
we're blind to it at this point, that

988
00:57:58,949 --> 00:58:02,849
when there's new software, like, okay,
of course I need to create an account.

989
00:58:03,209 --> 00:58:07,571
And like, depending on, which
sort of patterns you use, maybe

990
00:58:07,631 --> 00:58:11,073
you automatically like, look for
that sign in with Google button.

991
00:58:11,103 --> 00:58:15,476
Or if it's a developer oriented thing,
like sign in with, GitHub, I'm more in

992
00:58:15,476 --> 00:58:19,649
the camp of like, where I always try to
like just, create a standalone account

993
00:58:19,709 --> 00:58:22,044
just in case, something were to happen.

994
00:58:22,364 --> 00:58:24,651
but does it have to be this way?

995
00:58:24,711 --> 00:58:28,881
Are there other ways and
like, and not just for.

996
00:58:29,131 --> 00:58:34,481
social media use cases, but for something
that spans a much, wider range of

997
00:58:34,481 --> 00:58:39,271
scenarios, whether that is like something,
I don't know, like maybe there's something

998
00:58:39,271 --> 00:58:44,801
in between where it's something in
between Figma, Linear and, and social

999
00:58:44,801 --> 00:58:49,964
media, whether it's like a, smaller scale
community that you are part of where

1000
00:58:49,964 --> 00:58:51,764
you do some very interesting things.

1001
00:58:51,764 --> 00:58:57,434
Maybe a community for a school that
you volunteer in, or you have a much

1002
00:58:57,434 --> 00:59:02,017
richer set of different, kinds of media
you deal with, whether it's documents,

1003
00:59:02,017 --> 00:59:07,084
whether it's chats, whether it's like
some, posts, some forum like things.

1004
00:59:07,354 --> 00:59:09,634
Then you also have like
things like identity.

1005
00:59:09,784 --> 00:59:12,964
And I think this is just like
an example for thinking about

1006
00:59:12,964 --> 00:59:14,344
this a little bit more broadly.

1007
00:59:14,614 --> 00:59:18,884
So if you're using, some of those
technologies or exploring that.

1008
00:59:19,604 --> 00:59:21,194
And see how we can bridge those worlds.

1009
00:59:21,264 --> 00:59:26,537
we'd love to hear from you and, going
from one, one, tricky technical,

1010
00:59:26,804 --> 00:59:28,544
nuanced topic to another one.

1011
00:59:28,944 --> 00:59:33,414
Another like evergreen in
local-first and beyond is like

1012
00:59:33,414 --> 00:59:35,964
encryption and encrypted messaging.

1013
00:59:36,234 --> 00:59:40,714
So, I think highly related to the
areas that we talked about before.

1014
00:59:41,104 --> 00:59:44,651
And I think is another,
aspect of software.

1015
00:59:44,651 --> 00:59:49,121
I think for a lot of software, kinda like
still an optional part because it's hard,

1016
00:59:49,361 --> 00:59:54,634
but ideally over time it becomes just like
a no-brainer to have to have encryption,

1017
00:59:54,874 --> 00:59:57,171
for your, data, for your applications.

1018
00:59:57,471 --> 01:00:02,448
It is, I think also dependent on the
kind of like app you're working with.

1019
01:00:02,478 --> 01:00:05,688
So for example, if you're working
in the finance space or the

1020
01:00:05,688 --> 01:00:09,731
healthcare space, I think it's
much more, table stakes already.

1021
01:00:09,761 --> 01:00:13,211
And then there are other areas
where it's much less common.

1022
01:00:13,604 --> 01:00:18,834
but ideally this is a quality that
does not, quadruple the effort it takes

1023
01:00:18,834 --> 01:00:23,154
to build the app, but it's some just
something, a data library, for example,

1024
01:00:23,154 --> 01:00:25,644
like Automerge takes care of for you.

1025
01:00:26,094 --> 01:00:29,324
And so yeah, those are like
some preliminary thoughts

1026
01:00:29,344 --> 01:00:31,098
on this topic from, my end.

1027
01:00:31,128 --> 01:00:33,254
But yeah, curious to hear yours, Adam.

1028
01:00:33,914 --> 01:00:39,394
I mean, end to end encryption is first
of all just such a powerful technology.

1029
01:00:39,454 --> 01:00:44,644
You know, I think wars have been one with,
it is one frame you could use yet remains

1030
01:00:45,001 --> 01:00:49,673
hard to put into practice in a way that
is approachable for users because, you

1031
01:00:49,673 --> 01:00:53,453
might think of it, everything boils down
to a key management problem, but managing

1032
01:00:53,453 --> 01:00:58,223
keys is really difficult and incredibly
abstract, even for very power users.

1033
01:00:58,446 --> 01:01:01,699
And certainly for a more
mainstream computer user.

1034
01:01:02,179 --> 01:01:05,149
Yet you see all these places where
encryption, when it has been brought to

1035
01:01:05,149 --> 01:01:08,809
bear effectively in the computing world,
it is a complete game changer, I think

1036
01:01:08,809 --> 01:01:12,799
of like SSH for connecting to servers
versus Telnet, which came before it.

1037
01:01:13,129 --> 01:01:17,599
I think of HTTPS for website encryption
has, I think, literally brought trillions

1038
01:01:17,599 --> 01:01:21,979
about dollars of value into the economy
through enabling things like e-commerce

1039
01:01:21,979 --> 01:01:24,793
and online, stock brokerages and so on.

1040
01:01:25,543 --> 01:01:29,923
Something like password managers and
how they can provide a secure, setup,

1041
01:01:30,023 --> 01:01:32,531
based on their, encryption arrangement.

1042
01:01:32,531 --> 01:01:36,281
And then more recently you've got, for
example, encrypted messaging like Signal.

1043
01:01:36,611 --> 01:01:41,411
And I think when we find ways to
bring those to bear in a way that

1044
01:01:41,411 --> 01:01:45,851
is approachable for end users,
it can just unlock so much value.

1045
01:01:45,851 --> 01:01:49,511
But it remains the case that there are
a lot of areas where we haven't really

1046
01:01:49,691 --> 01:01:51,701
effectively brought it to bear fully.

1047
01:01:51,851 --> 01:01:55,114
And yeah, if you're working on any
of these, whether it's something

1048
01:01:55,114 --> 01:01:58,384
relatively well established like
encrypted messaging or something a

1049
01:01:58,384 --> 01:01:59,924
little more, on the cutting edge.

1050
01:01:59,924 --> 01:02:03,481
Like last year we heard a, an amazing
talk from Brooklyn Zelenka about

1051
01:02:03,491 --> 01:02:07,771
Keyhive, which is a kind of adding an
identity encryption layer to Automerge.

1052
01:02:08,438 --> 01:02:13,511
This just remains an area that is very
hard, but I think again, just has the

1053
01:02:13,511 --> 01:02:15,071
potential to provide so much value.

1054
01:02:15,941 --> 01:02:16,481
Awesome.

1055
01:02:16,611 --> 01:02:21,691
so another adjacent topic, a little bit
more lighthearted, and yet probably one

1056
01:02:21,691 --> 01:02:27,214
of the most, OG adopters of local-first,
and they've always built software

1057
01:02:27,214 --> 01:02:29,524
this way, which is game development.

1058
01:02:30,088 --> 01:02:37,318
I think most games, particularly
in the era of like internet not

1059
01:02:37,318 --> 01:02:42,118
being as ubiquitous as it is
today, have like, out of necessity.

1060
01:02:42,156 --> 01:02:44,014
They needed to be local-first.

1061
01:02:44,014 --> 01:02:49,414
So you can play single player
campaigns or whatever, but also like

1062
01:02:49,414 --> 01:02:54,221
in that gold, era you had, a lot of
games also having multiplayer modes.

1063
01:02:54,311 --> 01:02:56,951
And this is where you had
like LAN parties, et cetera.

1064
01:02:56,951 --> 01:03:01,527
And like, software was just like built
in a different way where like internet

1065
01:03:01,691 --> 01:03:05,261
a lot of games, even didn't like
support it or like was one, feature

1066
01:03:05,261 --> 01:03:07,151
that was added a little bit later.

1067
01:03:07,601 --> 01:03:08,796
And it's just like a.

1068
01:03:09,191 --> 01:03:14,951
I think an interesting case study for how
like a different parallel universe evolved

1069
01:03:15,161 --> 01:03:19,691
and like did very complex data management
with a lot of like similar challenges

1070
01:03:19,691 --> 01:03:23,651
where you needed to have like, reactivity
you needed to be like, very efficient.

1071
01:03:23,651 --> 01:03:26,801
You needed to like care about persistence.

1072
01:03:27,007 --> 01:03:30,570
so I think there's like a lot of
parallel universe lessons learned

1073
01:03:30,780 --> 01:03:35,654
that maybe never really, fully
percolated into the web ecosystem.

1074
01:03:35,874 --> 01:03:37,667
Probably sometimes for, the worst.

1075
01:03:37,667 --> 01:03:44,397
I think I always feel, I can learn a
lot from the game ecosystem overall, as

1076
01:03:44,487 --> 01:03:48,587
a lot of like lessons have been already
much, earlier been learned there.

1077
01:03:48,917 --> 01:03:52,517
And I think now it's like
that, that is still true today.

1078
01:03:52,847 --> 01:03:57,462
And video games have always been like
the, one of the most demanding use cases

1079
01:03:57,762 --> 01:04:02,679
and where like latency really matters,
where like all of those things, matter.

1080
01:04:02,769 --> 01:04:07,505
And, I think it's just about time
that we bridge the world from game

1081
01:04:07,505 --> 01:04:09,935
development to the local-first ecosystem.

1082
01:04:10,235 --> 01:04:15,642
So if you're, doing things in the
game development space and you have

1083
01:04:15,642 --> 01:04:19,452
some interesting stories to share
about how your game has always

1084
01:04:19,452 --> 01:04:23,955
been local-first, then, please
definitely consider submitting a talk.

1085
01:04:23,955 --> 01:04:26,085
So that, that's kind of
my, my perspective on it.

1086
01:04:26,475 --> 01:04:29,265
But I think you have even more
nuanced takes on this, Adam.

1087
01:04:29,689 --> 01:04:30,445
Well, yeah.

1088
01:04:30,445 --> 01:04:32,425
I don't know about nuance, but
it's definitely close to my heart.

1089
01:04:32,425 --> 01:04:34,315
I actually began my career in video games.

1090
01:04:34,315 --> 01:04:38,125
I probably like a lot of little
kids, I basically got inspired to

1091
01:04:38,125 --> 01:04:39,625
learn to program, to make games.

1092
01:04:40,050 --> 01:04:41,540
And, began my career there.

1093
01:04:41,540 --> 01:04:44,420
I worked for four or five years
in the game industry, including on

1094
01:04:44,420 --> 01:04:46,610
PlayStation 2 games and Dreamcast games.

1095
01:04:46,610 --> 01:04:48,520
And that was kind of the era then.

1096
01:04:48,964 --> 01:04:53,934
And it's an incredible world of technology
that's very separate from the productivity

1097
01:04:53,934 --> 01:04:58,977
software, web operating system, thing
where you're just drawing 60 frames or

1098
01:04:58,977 --> 01:05:01,977
120 frames per second on a blank canvas.

1099
01:05:02,277 --> 01:05:06,064
The APIs to the underlying system
are just a very, very different thing

1100
01:05:06,064 --> 01:05:08,884
than perhaps what we're used to, in
some ways easier to work with, in some

1101
01:05:08,884 --> 01:05:13,834
ways harder, but yeah, the performance
and being able to use it wherever.

1102
01:05:14,187 --> 01:05:17,607
even certainly in the age before
internet connection was ubiquitous,

1103
01:05:17,607 --> 01:05:21,057
but even nowadays, yeah, you expect if
you have a game on your device, that

1104
01:05:21,057 --> 01:05:23,367
you should be able to play it on the
plane and not be worried about whether

1105
01:05:23,367 --> 01:05:25,347
you have internet in that moment.

1106
01:05:25,347 --> 01:05:27,897
Even think something like, you know,
even once you start to add some

1107
01:05:27,897 --> 01:05:31,767
internet connectivity, Hey, I wanna
post my high score to a global thing,

1108
01:05:31,767 --> 01:05:34,377
but you don't expect the game will
just stop working the moment that the

1109
01:05:34,377 --> 01:05:37,367
high score API is not available, so.

1110
01:05:37,699 --> 01:05:41,504
And then you have so much going on in
the world of these different engines like

1111
01:05:41,504 --> 01:05:47,207
Unreal and Unity and Gadot engine slash
game development tools and yeah, I just

1112
01:05:47,207 --> 01:05:51,124
feel like there's, maybe a lot these
communities can learn from each other

1113
01:05:51,124 --> 01:05:54,154
and yeah, if you're someone in that,
tough space, we'd like to hear from you.

1114
01:05:54,802 --> 01:05:59,185
Yeah, I think there are just so many
amazing stories waiting to be heard in

1115
01:05:59,185 --> 01:06:04,349
the local-first ecosystem, whether it's
someone who like struggled to scale

1116
01:06:04,349 --> 01:06:09,352
World of Warcraft, to like massively
multiplayer scenarios where I mean,

1117
01:06:09,352 --> 01:06:11,702
it's already hard to build multiplayer.

1118
01:06:12,007 --> 01:06:17,127
like systems for 10 users, but now, like,
think about this, like in the, tens of

1119
01:06:17,127 --> 01:06:22,267
thousands of users, in like, in much
harsher, real time scenarios, et cetera.

1120
01:06:22,267 --> 01:06:27,071
So, or whether you're building like,
more modern games that, they're currently

1121
01:06:27,101 --> 01:06:29,141
like scaling things even further.

1122
01:06:29,447 --> 01:06:30,917
so yeah, we'd love to hear from you.

1123
01:06:31,071 --> 01:06:35,674
if you think this is interesting for
the local-first community and as the

1124
01:06:35,674 --> 01:06:41,331
last topic, in the list, we, we probably
like the, kinda like the key topic that

1125
01:06:41,471 --> 01:06:46,501
is the, center for us this year is like
malleable software in the age of LLMs or.

1126
01:06:47,281 --> 01:06:49,561
malleable software like at all.

1127
01:06:49,651 --> 01:06:52,201
But then also in the
age of LLMs, that's new.

1128
01:06:52,201 --> 01:06:56,731
That was not really like the, we got
like the early glimpses of that last

1129
01:06:56,731 --> 01:07:00,991
year, but at last year's conference, but
I think it was still so early, I don't

1130
01:07:00,991 --> 01:07:03,061
think like Claude Code was released yet.

1131
01:07:03,306 --> 01:07:07,271
ChatGPT was out there, of course,
but I think it was not yet at a

1132
01:07:07,271 --> 01:07:12,264
point where it like really clicked
for everyone that this is real and

1133
01:07:12,264 --> 01:07:13,734
not just like a niche use case.

1134
01:07:14,214 --> 01:07:19,801
And I think now it's like, already
so ubiquitously available that we can

1135
01:07:19,981 --> 01:07:22,171
make this a part of our application.

1136
01:07:22,501 --> 01:07:25,831
And I think there's like really one of
the broadest topics here, almost like a

1137
01:07:25,831 --> 01:07:30,580
catchall for a lot of, different, talks
that could fit into the conference.

1138
01:07:30,903 --> 01:07:34,023
the anchoring point here is like, uh,
what we've talked about before with

1139
01:07:34,023 --> 01:07:42,303
like Maggie's, closing keynote from 2024
was it, with like barefoot developers.

1140
01:07:42,843 --> 01:07:46,146
And I think this can,
cast a really wide net.

1141
01:07:46,196 --> 01:07:48,920
And, what are your
thoughts on, this topic?

1142
01:07:49,190 --> 01:07:51,860
Yeah, we'll probably first just
defining malleable software.

1143
01:07:51,860 --> 01:07:56,390
For those not familiar, this is the
idea that software systems are ones

1144
01:07:56,390 --> 01:08:01,370
that could be modified by their users as
we're using it or to adapt to our needs.

1145
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:06,460
and of course, Ink & Switch has a, I
dunno, 8,000 word essay up on the website

1146
01:08:06,730 --> 01:08:10,481
if you search for malleable software,
that can dive into detail on that.

1147
01:08:10,781 --> 01:08:14,741
But, you know, how does language model
assisted coding it seems to enable so

1148
01:08:14,741 --> 01:08:18,671
much the ability to create new software
and especially for people who are on the,

1149
01:08:18,761 --> 01:08:22,281
not necessarily professional software
developers, even if they're technical and

1150
01:08:22,651 --> 01:08:24,401
good at thinking about software systems.

1151
01:08:24,821 --> 01:08:29,006
But when you think of the classic,
let's call it vibe coded app, it's

1152
01:08:29,006 --> 01:08:32,636
let me make a one-off website that I
can post, but that's very different

1153
01:08:32,636 --> 01:08:37,136
from being able to modify the tools
that I'm relying on in my daily life.

1154
01:08:37,166 --> 01:08:40,766
My text editor, my email client,
my web browser, et cetera.

1155
01:08:41,243 --> 01:08:45,743
so I think on one hand, language
model coding should, in theory,

1156
01:08:45,983 --> 01:08:50,903
really open up some major new
possibilities for malleable software.

1157
01:08:51,083 --> 01:08:53,963
On the other hand, I think we have some of
the same old problems we have always had

1158
01:08:53,963 --> 01:08:59,703
around data siloing around kind of closed
ecosystems, closed appliance heavily.

1159
01:09:00,033 --> 01:09:04,703
You know, the control, the locus of
control lies completely with the software

1160
01:09:04,703 --> 01:09:07,163
vendors and very little with the users.

1161
01:09:07,453 --> 01:09:11,983
and how has this world evolved or what
new possibilities are opened by the

1162
01:09:11,983 --> 01:09:16,543
existence of language model assisted
coding or other AI things or other things

1163
01:09:16,543 --> 01:09:20,803
that have changed in the technology
world since we last convened in 2025?

1164
01:09:21,553 --> 01:09:26,413
Yeah, I think this is, I mean, this topic
in itself has been sort of like a core

1165
01:09:26,413 --> 01:09:31,273
pillar for this year's conference, and I
think we've like added quite a lot other

1166
01:09:31,273 --> 01:09:36,580
ones just because, it felt like the right
moment to, to broaden the net a bit.

1167
01:09:37,090 --> 01:09:41,353
But I think here, like malleable
software, this was, a theme that I

1168
01:09:41,353 --> 01:09:45,239
mean, is is one of the key tracks
of, the Ink & Switch, family.

1169
01:09:45,479 --> 01:09:50,009
But I think now with AI models,
et cetera, it's really something

1170
01:09:50,009 --> 01:09:51,419
that's becoming mainstream.

1171
01:09:51,809 --> 01:09:56,189
And where before I think it was
like very something that developers

1172
01:09:56,189 --> 01:09:58,199
maybe had romantic thoughts about.

1173
01:09:58,199 --> 01:10:02,986
Like, oh yeah, this was like, also on my
list of side projects I wanted to build.

1174
01:10:03,316 --> 01:10:06,556
And now you can actually
build it for yourself.

1175
01:10:06,556 --> 01:10:10,966
Or maybe you built software for
like someone in your family, or it's

1176
01:10:10,966 --> 01:10:14,776
just like a, almost as an act of
kindness of like supporting someone

1177
01:10:14,916 --> 01:10:16,646
like this is through your abilities.

1178
01:10:16,646 --> 01:10:18,556
And now it becomes so easy.

1179
01:10:19,461 --> 01:10:25,458
I think now that will lead to so much,
creation of, new software that will also

1180
01:10:25,458 --> 01:10:27,738
have like interesting new consequences.

1181
01:10:28,104 --> 01:10:31,401
whether it's that we need to wrestle
with, the quality of the software,

1182
01:10:31,451 --> 01:10:33,051
or the interoperability of it.

1183
01:10:33,471 --> 01:10:37,881
And also like, yeah, how much
control do we give to, users?

1184
01:10:37,881 --> 01:10:42,124
How much control, do we, like
where do we draw the line between,

1185
01:10:42,404 --> 01:10:47,114
a developer building the software
versus a user using the software?

1186
01:10:47,334 --> 01:10:50,551
Like a lot of power tools
are very customizable.

1187
01:10:50,551 --> 01:10:53,161
But now I think that line
gets more and more blurry.

1188
01:10:53,464 --> 01:10:57,375
We'd love to hear from people who
have been wrestling with, those

1189
01:10:57,375 --> 01:11:02,275
blurry lines and trying out different
ideas and sharing your learnings.

1190
01:11:02,464 --> 01:11:05,301
What sort of software you've been
building as a barefoot developer.

1191
01:11:05,498 --> 01:11:06,068
Yeah.

1192
01:11:06,098 --> 01:11:10,617
I think this is, quite the
portfolio of, different themes and

1193
01:11:10,617 --> 01:11:15,121
different topics that we're gonna
have for, this year's conference.

1194
01:11:15,421 --> 01:11:15,841
That's right.

1195
01:11:15,841 --> 01:11:19,711
We maybe even run the risk of
being too scattershot or too wide

1196
01:11:19,716 --> 01:11:21,511
ranging, but in some ways I'd rather.

1197
01:11:21,776 --> 01:11:24,676
take the risk of having too many
ideas, too many interesting,

1198
01:11:24,849 --> 01:11:28,596
intellectual, avenues to
pursue, then get stuck in a rut.

1199
01:11:28,596 --> 01:11:32,186
And now seems like a great time to do
it with the changes happening, in the

1200
01:11:32,186 --> 01:11:36,506
technology world, but in general because
of the foundation of success we've had

1201
01:11:36,506 --> 01:11:40,166
in the event to date and the community
we've built around, that just seems

1202
01:11:40,166 --> 01:11:43,686
like the perfect time to, broaden and
bring new people in and fresh ideas.

1203
01:11:44,217 --> 01:11:49,257
And like all of that is not to say
that we ran out of ideas with like the,

1204
01:11:49,497 --> 01:11:53,911
traditional way how we did the Local-First
Conference, the last two years before.

1205
01:11:54,271 --> 01:11:58,657
But I think what it's always been all
about for me and for I'm sure for you as

1206
01:11:58,657 --> 01:12:02,697
well is like the people who actually come
and like the conversations we're having.

1207
01:12:03,147 --> 01:12:08,817
And it is like no one in that ecosystem
has been there only because they

1208
01:12:08,907 --> 01:12:10,617
only care about the data sync engine.

1209
01:12:10,617 --> 01:12:16,497
It's always been in service of like some
broader vision and like some specific

1210
01:12:16,497 --> 01:12:21,647
use case that really like, had real
impact and real meaning for their life.

1211
01:12:22,067 --> 01:12:24,767
And like I think all of those
different themes we now talked

1212
01:12:24,767 --> 01:12:29,634
about is like one manifestation, one
direction of that and local-first.

1213
01:12:30,129 --> 01:12:31,719
It's like the foundation of that.

1214
01:12:31,719 --> 01:12:33,639
It's kinda like what
brings us all together.

1215
01:12:34,029 --> 01:12:37,779
And I think what all of those people who
have attended and have contributed to

1216
01:12:37,779 --> 01:12:42,260
the conferences have, in common is that
they have a very, deep understanding of

1217
01:12:42,260 --> 01:12:47,712
the, technical world and of the world
more broadly, but, also a broad interest

1218
01:12:47,977 --> 01:12:53,244
and, are always keen to be inspired
to think a little bit different about,

1219
01:12:53,574 --> 01:12:56,094
like be beyond their current horizon.

1220
01:12:56,154 --> 01:13:01,592
And I think this is, what we, try to,
also, facilitate through the conference

1221
01:13:01,622 --> 01:13:06,598
where those, different talks are hopefully
little points of inspiration that can

1222
01:13:06,598 --> 01:13:11,392
lead to further exploration by everyone
who's attending and paying interest.

1223
01:13:11,975 --> 01:13:12,635
Well said.

1224
01:13:13,145 --> 01:13:16,535
Well, I think we hammered in the, you
know, submit a talk call to action.

1225
01:13:16,796 --> 01:13:17,895
we'll say it one more time.

1226
01:13:17,895 --> 01:13:20,898
The CFPs open till I think, end of April.

1227
01:13:20,928 --> 01:13:23,478
So you have a little bit of
time, but not too much time.

1228
01:13:23,808 --> 01:13:26,508
But also if, even if you don't
wanna give a talk, buy a ticket,

1229
01:13:26,568 --> 01:13:28,488
just come listen to all the ideas.

1230
01:13:28,845 --> 01:13:31,155
we got sponsorship
booths available as well.

1231
01:13:31,155 --> 01:13:35,415
If, the folks at the, an event
like this are interesting to, talk

1232
01:13:35,415 --> 01:13:36,885
to for your, for your company.

1233
01:13:37,095 --> 01:13:40,935
So we'd love to have you come
participate in any of those three forms.

1234
01:13:42,150 --> 01:13:42,690
Awesome.

1235
01:13:42,810 --> 01:13:46,090
Well, Adam, thanks so much for
talking this story together.

1236
01:13:46,160 --> 01:13:49,470
I feel like this is also already Yeah.

1237
01:13:49,470 --> 01:13:54,507
Given me so much excitement for, what
we're gonna hear, at the conference

1238
01:13:54,547 --> 01:13:58,557
and like in a way where we still don't
fully know which stories we'll hear,

1239
01:13:58,557 --> 01:14:01,110
but we'll know about the broad topics.

1240
01:14:01,310 --> 01:14:07,050
So that've got me very excited already
and I can't wait for, the conference and

1241
01:14:07,050 --> 01:14:09,420
to meet a lot of familiar and new faces.

1242
01:14:10,350 --> 01:14:10,980
Same here.

1243
01:14:11,040 --> 01:14:12,660
I'm excited for the new themes.

1244
01:14:12,660 --> 01:14:16,590
I'm excited to see old friends,
and I'm excited to enjoy beautiful,

1245
01:14:16,860 --> 01:14:18,900
beautiful Berlin in the summertime.

1246
01:14:21,270 --> 01:14:21,750
All righty.

1247
01:14:21,870 --> 01:14:22,620
Thanks so much.

1248
01:14:22,620 --> 01:14:23,220
Take care.

1249
01:14:23,225 --> 01:14:23,405
Bye.

1250
01:14:23,785 --> 01:14:24,005
Bye.