The dot and the Swarm: Benefitting from the bitter lesson
Summary
Ethan Mollick reflects on The Bitter Lesson and argues that organizing work with AI agents can be achieved with minimal human-directed structure, through swarms of agents like Muse, Dots, Grok Bot, and similar tools. He traces how OpenAI's Navier-Stokes effort illustrates large-scale coordination among thousands of agents, and discusses implications for management, coordination, and the evolving role of humans in guiding AI-enabled work. The piece blends theory, anecdotes, and forward-looking speculation, ending with a note about his upcoming book.