I've noticed my daughter sometimes spends more time watching ads on her iPad than actually using the app she opened.
And it worries me.
Sure, I could stop her from using these apps altogether, and sometimes I do. But some of them genuinely provide value. She enjoys them, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.
But the underlying problem doesn't go away. And it's certainly not limited to children or iPads.
Many digital products make money by capturing our attention. The more time we spend using them, the more opportunities they have to turn that attention into revenue.
Now imagine what happens as AI makes it increasingly easy to create endless content, products and experiences, personalized to each of us.
The more these systems learn about us, the better they can become at capturing our attention.
But here's the irony.
AI might also be our best tool for protecting it.
As information becomes increasingly abundant, ignoring everything means potentially missing something valuable. Yet consuming everything is impossible.
AI can help us find what's relevant, understand different perspectives and focus on what actually matters to us.
But to do that well, it needs something fundamental: our own knowledge and context.
And that raises a question I've been thinking about a lot.
Who controls that knowledge, and whose interests is AI ultimately serving?
This is one of the reasons I'm building Lattris.
I believe technology should return more value to our lives than the attention we give it. Whether that's time, money, knowledge, meaningful experiences, or simply the freedom to focus on something that matters more.
Lattris is one piece of that puzzle. It's a foundation for giving people control over the knowledge and context their AI can use, so that intelligence can work in their interests.
It won't stop the ads appearing on my daughter's iPad.
But I hope that, as she grows up, she'll have access to technology that helps her decide where to direct her attention, rather than constantly competing to take it away.
I've documented more about the problem I'm trying to solve, and why Lattris exists, here:
https://lattris.com/by/4/memories/the-problem-why-lattris-exists-2a4d