Embrace The Range

I’ve just finished reading Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. It’s an awesome piece of knowledge, and a lot of things have clicked after going through it. As I suspected, having a broad understanding of various fields is far superior to deep specialization in a narrow area. Being able to thrive in “wicked” environments, as David Epstein calls them, is something humans excel at.

It was particularly interesting to think about this in the context of the tremendous progress we are witnessing in AI today. The narrower and more “kind” an environment is, the easier it is to automate. For me, it’s helpful to envision a spectrum - from narrow specializations, where strict rules make everything predictable, to unimaginably complex systems where no two situations are the same. A great deal of the tasks in the first half of the spectrum are automated, and the further you go, the harder it becomes to replicate human performance. However, it seems that AI is the technology excelling in this regard and will eventually occupy the entire spectrum of tasks.

The book gave me the valuable insight into the direction I want move. Specifically, it became clear that it’s more beneficial not to follow a single trajectory but rather to explore a range of seemingly unrelated fields. Paradoxically, this diverse set of experiences can enable one to surpass those who are extremely knowledgeable in just one specialization.

Clearly, creativity is key to the value a person can create. Creative people excel at solving problems in unexpectedly unique ways. They are more capable of finding connections that others overlook. The more disparate the concepts, the less likely it is that anyone has thought of combining them into a single idea - and that’s exactly where inventions emerge.