# Reality: To Follow

> How AI is bridging the gap between our "fuzzy big ideas" and the friction of the real world.

**Published by:** [Hard Mode First](https://hardmodefirst.xyz/)
**Published on:** 2026-03-19
**URL:** https://hardmodefirst.xyz/reality-to-follow

## Content

A Room, ReimaginedEver since the January blizzard in New York City, we’ve been living with a plaster-cracked ceiling in our dining area. While we waited for the snow to melt and the weather to warm up so that roofers could address the problem straight to the source, I started imagining what a completely new look might bring for our dining area. I settled on a different paint color (sage green) and a more inviting ceiling light. We haven’t been able to make any of these changes yet, but for my birthday this week, my husband offered me this: A printout of a NanoBanana rendering of the room (complete with my ideal new look) and a hand-written card: Reality: To follow. What a 2026 way to celebrate a birthday.The NanoBanana image rendering of our new room concept (once the walls and ceiling are fixed…)If You Can Speak It, You Can Achieve It?One of the reasons why it’s so addicting to build with AI is that the feeling of “feeling seen” digitally is intoxicating.Earlier this week, I worked with one of my AI coaching clients on a problem statement around helping him sort through some gnarly reports and long write ups that hit his inbox regularly. Like a lot of high-throughput individuals, his inbox was wreaking havoc on his work day. So we spoke about how he prioritizes which messages to keep vs. toss immediately, which ones he reads closely vs. skims, which ones he saves for later and why. “Why am I telling you all of this?” he wanted to know. “Because if you can explain it to me, then you can explain it to an AI,” I told him. “And the AI can actually help you figure out a way to fix it.” In other words, first get the problem down in any digital form. Then the AI can help you accomplish that task. Despite 15 years of working among technologists, I’d never been able to creatively express myself digitally until I started building my own apps. Now that I’ve been at it for over a year — and I’ve gotten a few apps across the arbitrary finish line of “app store ready” — I’ve started to notice the patterns in my own work.The stuff I build is a direct reflection of the way that I think.The stuff I build is constrained only by my own incomplete understanding of a topic or idea.AI is making it easier for me to share my fuzzy big ideas with real humans who can also help.But here’s another thing I’ve noticed about the stuff I’ve been building digitally: The highest-friction moments exist among real-world integration.The reality is that my museum learning app, MuseKat, will be a far better digital learning companion in a screen-free world where young kids can interact with the world around them through custom-programmed wearables, not their parents’ cellphones.The reality is that Scribblins, my audio-first app that invites kids to build upon their own drawings and art with an AI narrator, will never work in multi-player mode in classrooms if we’re stuck using iPads and Kindle tablets forever.The reality is that while I can peek inside any number of abandoned storefronts in NYC and instantly created AI-generated visualizations about what it might look like as builder studio, it doesn’t cover the costs of actually securing a lease or building it out.Nano Banana’s meta take on a bunch of my previously generated AI renderings of reimagined workspaces for the AI age.AI might help you see the future, but it still takes IRL work to make it happen Reality: To follow.Getting Grounded in RealityIt can be pretty hard to feel grounded in reality these days. Impossible, even.Right now, all of us are playing an extreme version of an MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) game. Like it or not, we all woke up one morning in November 2022 with a supercomputer companion in our satchels. Some people started using it right away. Others are still waiting to discover that it’s buried in their inventory. For those of us playing, the rules are a blur:Are we playing for territory? To see who can claim the most digital soil first?Are we playing for speed or money? To build the fastest-earning software business the world has ever seen?Is this an elimination round? Or is it possible for all of us to “beat the game” together?How are we actually doing? Who’s keeping score? Do you get points for learning something new, for making more money, or for sharing the impact with others? The mockups look nice and glossy. The prototypes are functioning just fine, and our supercomputers are ready. But the roof still needs fixing, which costs human time and human money. The real game is only just beginning. Reality: To follow.

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