Moxie (creator of Signal) seems to be working on an AI thing now. I'm not sure what will distinguish this from things like Venice or the privacy focused AI @TonyGiorgio works on (which I can't remember the name at the moment). Whatever the case, Moxie knows how to write an interesting blog post.

Search trained us to be transactional: keywords in, links out. When you type something into a search box, it has the “feeling” of broadcasting something to a company rather than communicating in an intimate space.

The conversational format is different. When you’re chatting with an “assistant,” your brain pattern-matches to millennia of treating dialogue as intimate. You elaborate. You think out loud. You share context. That’s a big part of what makes it so much more useful than search – you can iterate, elaborate, change your mind, ask follow-up questions.

I think this distinction is interesting, but even more so is where he takes it next:

When you work through a problem with an AI assistant, you’re not just revealing information - you’re revealing how you think. Your reasoning patterns. Your uncertainties. The things you’re curious about but don’t know. The gaps in your knowledge. The shape of your mental model.

The blog post is mostly an advertisement for trying out Moxie's new AI service called Confer, but I enjoyed reading it nonetheless.