This is a translation of an article originally written in Spanish by Damaris Mendoza, Partner, 500 Global and published by Fast Company as Cómo sobrevivir la ansiedad de la vida en la era de la IA. 

Steps to avoid that damn feeling of falling behind when it comes to AI.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who wakes up anxious to get "up to speed" with what has happened with AI in the last 8 hours (if I'm lucky) while I was sleeping. Feeling like something new is always happening, and the overwhelming stress of being left behind… But look, it's not a lie either; things are happening every second... innovations, optimizations, everything is becoming more agile, faster, and smarter. However, if we position ourselves as if TODAY is our starting point, not only we are super late, but we will never catch up with others…

And you might say, “Well, what now? Do I just resign myself to losing?” No, sir, in this column nobody will be a loser. I'll tell you what I do, and what I suggest you try to avoid that feeling of falling behind when it comes to keepin’ up with AI:

Avoid information overload
The main mistake we all make is wanting to read EVERYTHING (and know it all).  According to ChatGPT (I just asked her), tens of thousands of articles about AI are published worldwide every day (between 3,000 and 6,000, BUT, if there is an OpenAI launch, that number can go up to 12,000 news items in a single day).

If you could read super fast at a rate of 200 to 250 words per minute, and we arbitrarily take the average article length to be 800 words, and you ONLY read articles or news published in top-tier media outlets specializing in technology and business, you will have to dedicate at least 50 hours a day to stay on top of what's happening. (For those who are confused, yes, I know the day has 24 hours, see? The math doesn't add up...) And if you were an expert and only needed to read the headlines to get a general idea of what is going on in the day, 5,000 headlines × 5 seconds = ~7 hours

So, step #1 – make peace with the fact that it's IMPOSSIBLE for you to read everything. That being said…

Curate your content
Choose a handful of reliable sources. The key? Be selective. Choose a handful of media outlets, personalities, or accounts that you find trustworthy, that consistently generate value in each publication, and whose points of view (because it's okay, we are all subjective in some way) you consider relevant.

Here are some of my favorites and why I think they're valuable:

• CVander News. Christian Van Der Henst, co-founder of Platzi, is always at the forefront of what's happening specifically in the Bay Area; Needless to say more.
• Sergio Nouvel's Substack. I've had the privilege of seeing up close how GetonBoard has been built, and I like how Sergio’s mind works; he puts words and form to related ideas that sometimes even I can't put words into.
• Jimena (Pime) Pardo's LinkedIn profile. A great colleague and friend, one of the most vocal VCs regarding the importance, impact, and benefits of AI for Latin America.
• Javier Rivero’s X account. Javi works at Stripe and currently leads the biggest community of AI builders in México, aibuilders.mx - he’s also a pop culture connoisseur.

Learn to separate noise from signal
Now, all of this is "consuming" information; it goes without saying that the most valuable aspect of it is the process of "digesting" that information and creating your own ideas and criteria.

Not everything that happens daily is transformational, nor is everything announced in big red letters the prelude to the apocalypse, and certainly, there’s not a machine rebellion every Tuesday. As you develop your own judgment, you will understand this. And you will live more peacefully.

Nothing like learning by doing.
It's that simple. I don't consider myself a technical person by definition, but about 15 months ago, I was able to build my first product and put it online, just from vibe coding , and it changed my life.

If you weren't aware of them, there are a lot of tools that today allow you to build minimum viable products, semi-functional prototypes (maybe not robust, we can talk about that later), or optimize repetitive processes that will make your everyday life easier.

There's Lovable, Replit , v0, Cursor, and many more. And if you're feeling intimidated and don't know where to start, I invite you to come to an RBR and we'll help you overcome your fear.