Why Sticker Camera?

In the past year of building Sticker Camera, we've seen the public perception of AI change. Originally, most people were curious about it. Now, it seems like most people hate it.

I can understand why. Misinformation and Propaganda runs rampant. Hyperscalers are building datacenters that damage communities. AI Startups are blatantly advertising that they want to put humans out of jobs. Ownership structures are rapidly widening wealth inequality. AI is the frontier of progress in information technology. And technology has weakened our social fabric hugely in the past decades, largely with the adoption of social media and addictive short-form content feeds.

Some people are convinced technology is a bad thing. I can't blame them. But, I disagree. When I was growing up, like many of you, I was fascinated by the progress of technology. For my whole life, technological progress was persistent, noticeable, and speeding up. The promise at the end of the rainbow was Artificial Intelligence. Of course, it was a Sci-Fi concept at the time. The early stages were trippy, but laughable.

But in the past 5 years, the promise has been delivered. The Turing Test has been passed. Robotic cars drive themselves, and are the safest on the road. There is an adage in Software Development: “A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved.” That has changed to “A problem well-stated is a problem solved.” Software is now written in ordinary language, and an architect can build an entire app without ever touching a line of code. When you step back even a little bit, it's impossible to overstate how mind-blowing our world has become. And this new capability is available to the masses, with ChatGPT being the fastest adopted global technology ever. Open Source AI is a healthy ecosystem.

Fundamentally this is a technology which empowers our world to be more intelligent. To solve the huge problems in our modern world, we the people need all the intelligence we can get.

The bottom line is this: We must be able to use this new capability for repair, not only damage. We can't forget the obvious potentials for new medicine, translating our languages to understand each other, and new green sources of energy.

So, among all of this, why Sticker Camera? Our mission is to create technology that brings creativity and humanity out in people. When people play with our camera, they light up. It doesn't suck people in. When I share real-time wonder as people discover they can create anything, that keeps me building Sticker Camera. These simple experiences prove that AI technology can be used to encourage humans to be more human. And I want to prove this to you. So please, get one for yourself. If you don't love it, you can return it, no questions asked. But, I have a feeling that if you've read this far, you will see what I see.