Actual People Involved

APIs are great. But adding more A1 doesn’t necessarily make a better steak.

Everyone is connecting everything right now.

AI. MCPs. APIs. Custom connectors. CLIs.

Gnarly🏄 I’m here for it. (Not for the AI slop, but for the use case of AI making people more efficient without somehow losing their soul to HAL 9000)

But I’ve been thinking about it...

An API is basically an order ticket in a restaurant queue.

— You tell the server what you want. — The server gets it to the kitchen. — The kitchen makes it.

Great. The information is moving from the table to the kitchen.

Now imagine the customers keep ordering their steak well done and drowning it in an ungodly amount of A1 steak sauce.

The chef thinks they have terrible taste. If you like well-done steak, I question why you would go to a steakhouse, but I digress.

So the customer asks the steakhouse for easier access to A1 steak sauce.

That’s actually a pretty reasonable request if you want to eat a nearly burnt steak.

The waiter could put it on the table. Let the customer bring their own custom-made A1 steak sauce. Do they charge them for it? As a steakhouse, do you make your own A1 steak sauce to add to your steaks since everyone all of a sudden is making requests for it? Do you build an elaborate system that predicts exactly how much A1 they are going to need based on every steak they have ever ordered and the potential future orders?

Look. A steakhouse could get REALLY good at delivering A1.

But at some point I hope an “Actual Person Involved” asks:

“Why does this guy need so much steak sauce?”

The customer might say, “Maybe I just have a deep admiration for A1,” or, “Have you tried eating this dry steak? The only thing that makes it edible is the A1 steak sauce...”

🏄 COOL, I guess...

I’ll drown my steak in it too if I had to have well-done steaks every time I go to a steakhouse too? 🤷‍♂️

Maybe they don’t know what a properly cooked steak tastes like.

Maybe the customer said “no pink” because that’s the best way they knew how to explain what they didn’t like.

Or maybe the steak just isn’t very good (and the steakhouse doesn’t care).

Those are completely different problems.

And another connection to more A1 doesn’t tell us which one we’re solving.

That’s why I jokingly think we need more...

A.P.I.

Actual People Involved in the consumers’ requests.

Someone who can hear what the customer is asking for without assuming the customer’s proposed solution is the problem.

Someone who knows the product well enough to say, “Hey, before we burn this thing to charcoal, here’s what I’d recommend and why.”

And if the customer listens to all of that and still wants their steak cremated and drowned in A1?

Let them pay.

Make the damn steak.

APIs are great. Connect whatever makes sense.

But adding more A1 doesn’t necessarily make a better steak.

(Yes, the cartoon is me. No, I don’t actually order steak well done. I like rare to medium rare. Yes, I like A1. Sue me.)

Anyway, this post isn’t really about A1.

#AI #ProductDesign #API #AutomotiveSoftware