A single essay about AI has now been viewed more than 72 million times on X. That’s more than a third of the platform’s users.
The essay, "Something Big Is Happening," was written by AI startup founder and investor Matt Shumer, CEO of OtherSide AI. In roughly 5,000 words, Shumer lays out what he calls "the honest version" of what is happening in AI, which until now he's been too afraid to share because "the honest version sounds like I've lost my mind."
He compares where we are right now to February 2020 when most people hadn't yet registered that COVID, a virus spreading globally, was about to upend their lives. His argument now: We're in the same "this-seems-overblown" phase of something much bigger than COVID.
I talked about Shumer's essay with SmarterX and Marketing AI Institute founder and CEO Paul Roetzer on Episode 197 of The Artificial Intelligence Show.
Shumer's essay wasn't a revelation to anyone who has been following AI closely. It was confirmation. But that's exactly the point. The chasm between what AI insiders know and what the general public understands has become enormous.
Shumer says the gap between what he's been saying privately and what is actually happening "has gotten far too big." That tension between what you know and what people are ready to hear is familiar territory for anyone deep into AI.
"I totally get what he's saying about you're just filtering what you're saying based on who you're talking to and what they are prepared for. What are they actually ready to hear?" says Roetzer.
Roetzer used to avoid talking about artificial general intelligence on the podcast and especially on LinkedIn because most people didn't even know the basics of using a chatbot yet. AGI would have been too much for them.
One of Shumer's sharpest observations is about the free-tier problem. Most people are using the free version of ChatGPT and judging AI based on that experience, while paying users have access to more advanced models.
"I'm always shocked by the number of business users I talk to," says Roetzer. "I see them using ChatGPT, the free version. I'm like, 'The free version? You have no idea what's going on.'"
Shumer says he's no longer needed for the technical work of his own job. He simply describes, in simple language, what he wants built, walks away for hours, and returns to find the work complete. The latest models, he wrote, display something that feels "for the first time, like judgment."
As Shumer puts it in the essay:
"The reason so many people in the industry are sounding the alarm right now is because this already happened to us. We're not making predictions. We're telling you what already occurred in our jobs and warning you that you are next."
Shumer also writes from deep inside the tech world and his timelines don't account for the massive human friction that slows adoption in the real world.
Most organizations, Roetzer says, are "still just getting started on the road to true AI adoption and transformation. There is enormous resistance to change that is not going away. This is human nature, the friction that is going to slow adoption down."
This is a critical distinction. The technology is moving at the pace Shumer describes. The adoption is not. Most organizations are still in the early stages of figuring out how to use AI and are unaware of the advanced capabilities rolling out every few months.
"The vast majority of workers and leaders have no idea what the full capabilities of today's models are," Roetzer says. "They still think of and use ChatGPT and other gen AI platforms as answer engines and writing assistants."
He compared it to the early internet: "This is like giving someone the internet back in 2000 and the only thing they knew to use it for was sending and receiving emails,” Roetzer says. “They're blissfully unaware of how they were living in the early days of search and e-commerce and social media being completely invented and redefining business and society."
Shumer's most practical advice is financial. He writes that if you believe even partially that the next few years could bring real disruption to your industry, then basic financial resilience matters more than it did a year ago.
The recommendation is straightforward: increase your personal runway, reduce your burn rate. Not because the sky is falling, but because no one knows exactly what's coming or how it will affect them. What people need are options and time if the worst-case scenarios play out.
The people who will navigate disruption best are the ones who give themselves a financial cushion before they need one.
Shumer's core message, and the one Roetzer fully endorses, is that the biggest advantage anyone has right now is simply being early.
"The professionals who understand, embrace, and apply it in their jobs are going to have superpowers. They have superpowers right now," says Roetzer.
That means paying for premium AI tools. Experimenting daily. Understanding what these models can actually do, not what you heard they could do six months ago.
"The models are getting smarter faster. Your greatest chance to thrive through this disruption and uncertainty ahead is to become AI forward," Roetzer says. “Now, we define AI forward as someone who embraces AI, even though they have fears and anxiety about it.”
He continues: “It comes down to two fundamental things. You have to be able to work with the AI and you have to know what questions to ask of it. And you have to know what to do with the answers. And then you have to know how to talk to it, collaborate with it, and learn from it."
The ground is shifting, fast. That's exactly why Shumer’s essay matters, Roetzer says.
"It just was the right essay at the right time,” he says. “And it might end up being a bit of a tipping point and gets the conversation going, which is what we needed."