“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” // Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
South Park Commons (SPC) is a community focused on the earliest stages of idea exploration. They’ve compiled a list of questions representing areas of active investigation by their members, who are founders, technologists, and researchers. Instead of seeking specific startups, SPC is interested in fostering curiosity around emerging technologies and their societal impact.
The questions cover a wide range of topics, including:
Software Development: How AI-generated code will change development, version control, and the relationship between coding and design.
Agentic Workforce: Managing a workforce of AI agents, including coordination, oversight, and shared systems of record.
Technical Operations: The role of AI co-pilots and agents in technical operations, network operations centers, and site reliability engineering.
Foundation Models: Exploring new architectures for foundation models that improve performance, custom knowledge embedding, and interpretability.
Hardware for AI: Investigating whether new chip architectures are needed for “always-on” AI inference, particularly for mobile and embedded devices.
Drone Software: The potential for a unified software platform for drones and the specialized applications that could be built on top of it.
AI and Children: Designing intuitive, multimodal creative tools for children using AI.
Multi-player AI: Creating collaborative AI platforms that manage shared context and knowledge for multiple users.
Credibility Disruption: How AI will impact industries reliant on established brands and reputation.
Consumer Experiences: Exploring new consumer applications and experiences unlocked by readily available AI.
Creative Process: The future of the creative process, including new tools for design and production, and how mastery will be defined.
Content Consumption: How content consumption habits will change as content creation costs approach zero.
Data Ownership: The potential shift from platform-owned to user-owned data, and the infrastructure needed to support it.
Marketing and Advertising: How marketing and advertising will evolve in a world where consumers use AI agents.
Action-Oriented Agents: Rethinking digital environments and interactions for agentic systems not limited by human input methods.
APIs for Agents: Reimagining APIs for a world where AI agents are the primary users of software.
Human-Computer Interaction: Exploring new forms of interaction as human-computer interfaces become higher-throughput and lower-latency.
Business Ownership: How small businesses can compete with private equity, and how AI can empower solo entrepreneurs.
Globalization and National Interests: Balancing globalization with national priorities, and how startups can capitalize on these trends.
Simulation-Driven Development: The use of advanced simulations for product development and scientific discovery.
Second-Order AI Beneficiaries: Identifying the companies that will thrive by enabling the growth of foundation models and AI.
E-commerce: The evolution of e-commerce, including new form factors, search and discovery, and personalized experiences.
Regulation and Innovation: Balancing regulation and customer protection with the need for innovation in a rapidly changing technological landscape.
Fintech in India: The future of fintech in India, including the role of local language models and the evolution of financial services.
Ennui and Automation: Addressing the potential societal impact of increased automation and leisure time.
SPC encourages individuals exploring these questions to reach out to their team members or apply for membership.
