Henrik Substack #7 - on AI voice, AI’s perfection paradox and my latest favorite AI tools and services
Welcome to my inklings—random things I stumble upon in the pursuit of “interestingness.” Grab a coffee and dive in! I’ll send these whenever I’ve gathered enough thoughts worth sharing.
I also publish a podcast about AI, make dogs and their people happy, and looking for 100,000 entrepreneurs to back the development of their new AI business.
For a non-AI break that’ll make you laugh: I recently stumbled across this gem on Conan O’Brien’s podcast with John Mayer. It’s a perfect palate cleanser if you’ve been neck-deep in tech like me. I started to find new podcasts using snipd.com - a service that DJs highlights from podcasts.
AI Hack: Auto-Summarizing My Newsletters. Here’s a nerdy one: I started to hack together a Google Apps Script with ChatGPT to do various things, like summarize my newsletters. It scans Gmail for anything tagged “newsletter,” runs it through Google Gemini or OpenAI’s API, and spits out a digest. Now I can skim the noise and pluck out the gold. Inbox overload? Solved. Want the code or a Loom on how I do? Hit me up!
The AI Perfection Paradox: We used to hide our digital polish—auto-tune in music, Instagram filters, AI-tweaked LinkedIn bios. Now, we flaunt it. But here’s the twist: when perfection is effortless, it loses its shine. In a world where AI makes everyone flawless, imperfection becomes the premium flex. Think aristocrats in tattered coats or luxury brands with whisper-quiet logos. AI’s real superpower might not be faking perfection but amplifying our messy, authentic humanity. Do we want to be admired or understood? Read more of my thoughts on this.
Voice is getting eerily human. AI voice tech is hitting new heights, and Sesame’s work is a prime example. Their Conversational Speech Model (peek at it on sesame.com) doesn’t just mimic—it feels alive. Voice now goes both ways; I’ve been testing tools like Wispr Flow (wisprflow.ai) to dictate at 220 words per minute—way faster than my 45wpm typing—and it’s become my go-to for drafting, emailing, and thinking out loud. Voice is no longer just a gimmick.
AI Assistants Trading Tongues: I stumbled across this X post showing AI agents switching into an AI-only language mid-chat to boost efficiency—like spies swapping secret codes. It’s not quite happening yet; the video’s a staged proof-of-concept, not a live demo. Still, it’s captivating. People shared it as if bots are already doing this, but the real kicker is what it hints at: a future where AI talks to AI, seamlessly, context-aware, and maybe in ways we don’t even catch. At Audos, we are thinking about this as we believe there will be a near future where a startup MVP needs an “Agent UI” so that other agents can talk to your service or product. Imagine bots negotiating deals or troubleshooting in their own lingo—Klingon coffee orders aside. It’s a peek at conversational commerce evolving, and I’m betting we’ll see it soon.
My New Book: Me, My Customer & AI —The New Rules of Entrepreneurship. AI makes starting a business easier but standing out harder. The edge? Human connection, turbocharged by AI. It’s a practical guide for founders—newbies or startup vets—to wield AI as a co-pilot and build something real. Sign up here to get notified when it drops!
Gadget Obsession: Controlling Your Computer with AI. Imagine AI as your desktop butler. Tools like Model Context Protocol for Claude let it navigate your screen, click buttons, and run tasks. I’m playing with it - getting it to organize my desktop folder in subfolders. It's worth trying - and paying attention to Claude and what they are doing with MCP. Another early example is Fleur - an attempt to make an app store for Claude.
Learning to Simplify the Complex: I’ve been inspired by folks like Bjarke Ingels (architecture explained) and Rene Redzepi (Netflex show), who distill big ideas into simple truths. Would love to be able to do some of that with entrepreneurship. Expanding the narrative about starting things to be more than stories about fundraising and unicorns. Stumbled over this LinkedIn post that breaks down a hairy concept with elegance. Do you have examples of this done well? Send ‘em my way!
Vibes & Reels: Volvo’s Rule-Breaking Ad. Volvo dropped a 3:46 min Instagram ad shot by Hoyte van Hoytema (cinematographer of Interstellar and Oppenheimer). It’s long, overproduced, and ignores every social media rule—yet it’s mesmerizing. Proof that vibe can trump algorithm. Hopefully a golden age for human orginality…
Speaking of Vibecoding - I enjoyed Andrews post about it - and ended up making an idea “vibecoding” style that Matt Meeker and I have been talking about with Replit: Waiting For My Wife .co
AI Playtime: Guess My Life! A maybe overused but fun quirky challenge with your favorite AI image generation tool: “Based on what you know about me, draw a picture of what you think my current life looks like.”
Tell me what works, what doesn’t—drop me a line! Reply here, chat on Substack, or ping me on LinkedIn. If you dig these inklings, share the love:
Good vibes!
This might be what OpenAI aims for with their OpenAI manifest file, which is necessary for creating plugins on their platform. It allow OpenAi to interface with your site without having classic API.
Seems a bit what OpenAi is preparing with their manifest.json that works for the plugins...