Post by **Ethan Mollick** published on **October 1, 2026** on *One Useful Thing* (~2,000 words), subtitled *Benefitting from the Bitter Lesson*. Mollick revisits an anticipation he now considers mistaken: he thought that getting agents to work in groups would require lengthy human design, "akin to building a company."
#Bitter Lesson#bitter lesson#agent management
Ethan Mollick — professeur à la Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) · auteur de *One Useful Thing* (Substack).
Long thread published on X on **September 29, 2026** by **Ryan Sarver** (@rsarver), titled *"Personal AI Should Actually Be Personal"*; roughly **1,700 words**, 91.5k views at time of collection. Starting point: **Amazon** blocked **Muse** (**Meta**) from its shopping site, and users lost access to their shopping agent, *"a side effect of a dispute I had no say in."* **(A)** Definition: a personal AI must be **owned** (open source, data in controlled storage, portability), have **a single principal**, offer a readable contract and inspectable trade-offs, run wherever one chooses, and be pleasant to use. **(B)** Observation on the current landscape: Muse opts users into training by default, **Instinct** carries a *"perpetual and irrevocable"* license; estimated cost gap of **$3,000 to $7,000 per user per year** against $20 a month. **(C)** A reversal: the owned stack can end up better, because the user gives it *"every corner of your life."* **(D)** A five-layer stack (clients, harness and connectors, memory, two-tier models, machine) and a call to build a productized version of **OpenClaw**. Responds to **Brad Gerstner** on trust; extends the body of work on shopping agents and markdown memory.
#personal AI#personal AI#personal agent
Ryan Sarver (@rsarver) · auteur du fil sur X ; fonction non indiquée dans le texte.