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Are we living in a golden age of stupidity?
Actions, AI, E-commerce spend, and Viral Loops
Peeyush Jain & Mohit Garg
November 05, 2025
In partnership with
Salutations, Olio aficionados! 👋
Midweek greetings to all, as we unveil the 201st chapter of Weekly Olio—a delightful concoction of laughter, insight, and a sprinkle of mystery. Within these pages, you'll discover a handpicked selection of fascinating finds from the vast realms of the internet.
Keep your eyes peeled for this week’s Publisher’s Parmesan, arriving this Sunday!
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The Quote 💭
“If an action tires your body, but puts your heart at ease, do it.”
The Tweet 🐦
What comes next for AI? Perhaps physically specific intelligence, more than artificial general intelligence.
Here’s a draft thesis.
(1) First, AI is now entering the trough of the hype cycle. Every tech, no matter how amazing, goes through this. It’s actually one of the best
— Balaji (@balajis)
4:41 PM • Oct 21, 2025
Interesting read covering what to expect next in AI.
The Infographic 💹
South Delhi and suburban Mumbai residents spend more than a quarter of their household budgets online, matching digital shopping rates in the UK and China, per Kotak. The rest of urban India trails far behind at under 8%, closer to South Africa's penetration rate.
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The Short Read 📝
This article on X by Andrew Chen revisits the lost art of engineered virality from the Web 2.0 era (2005–2010), when social platforms systematically optimized viral loops to reach massive audiences. He defines true viral growth as product-embedded mechanics—invites, sharing, referrals—measurable via a viral factor (the ratio of new users generated by an existing cohort). A viral factor above 1 means exponential growth; below 1, the loop dies.
Chen explains how to track this using cohort data, optimize through A/B testing, and balance virality with retention to ensure sustainable growth. He contrasts meaningful viral design with “spam loops” of early social networks that relied on aggressive invites and eventually collapsed due to saturation and poor user stickiness. Ultimately, Chen argues that while the tactics evolve across AI apps, marketplaces, and PLG products, the underlying theory of viral loops—measurable, repeatable user-driven growth—remains timeless and central to building enduring products. Read more…
The Long Read 📜
Are we living in a golden age of stupidity? - by The Guardian
This piece, with a highly provocative title, posits that we might be living in the golden age of stupidity shaped by convenience and technological tools like Chat GPT. It describes research from MIT where users who relied on ChatGPT when writing essays showed markedly lower brain-connectivity in networks tied to attention and creativity; many couldn’t recall what they’d written.
The article suggests that devices and services are increasingly optimised for ease and low friction, encouraging cognitive off-loading (using technology to do our remembering, thinking, navigation). At the same time, education studies hint that frequent AI use correlates with lower critical thinking and poorer academic outcomes. Ultimately, while these technologies hold tremendous potential, the concern is that by surrendering mental effort we may weaken our capacity to think deeply, remember meaningfully, and resist low-value information. Read more…
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Once you’ve done this, then you can easily set up A/B tests to flight different creative variants and Black Friday offers. If you’re a Shopify brand, you can even run shoppable ads directly on-screen so viewers can purchase with just a click of their Roku remote.
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That’s all for this week. If you enjoyed this edition, we’d really appreciate if you shared it with a friend, family member or colleague.
We’ll be back in your inbox 2 PM IST next Wednesday. Till then, have a productive week!
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organization, committee or other group or individual.
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