In his three Laws, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke stated the following:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Ten or twenty years ago, creating a video from a still image—like A Girl Running in the Rain on Puławska Street—would have seemed a bit like magic to us. Today, we almost take it for granted that our technology makes this possible.
Bill Gates is also often quoted as saying
Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.
The best example of this is a comparison of photos from 2005 and 2015. Both show worshippers in the Vatican waiting for the new pope to be announced. In 2005, it was Pope Benedict XVI; in 2015, it was Pope Francis. Within ten years, the situation had completely changed. Smartphones were introduced in 2007, and by 2013 they were so widespread that they dominate the scene in the photos.
The general public, in particular, is often taken by surprise by these technologies. Bill Buxton, a former Microsoft executive, coined the concept of “The Long Nose of Innovation,” in which he illustrates how a technology remains under the radar for a long time—visible only to experts who are working on it—until it suddenly appears out of nowhere and overwhelms the surprised public—often fascinating them, being welcomed with open arms, or instantly instilling fear and conjuring up doomsday scenarios.
Let’s recall a few technologies from recent years that took the world by storm. I’ve already mentioned the smartphone. Artificial intelligence, in the form of ChatGPT, showed people just how powerful and useful it can be. Self-driving cars, which we’ve been talking about for years and which have repeatedly been met with skepticism, are now part of everyday life in San Francisco, and in Germany, the Tesla FSD demonstration left testers in shock. They hadn’t expected it to work so well in Germany, having previously seen only videos that focused on failed FSD drives.
The Holy Fuck Gap
In a Substack post from February 2026—referring to AI—Judith Dada called this “The Holy Fuck Gap.” On one side are the scientists, researchers, and engineers who are working on a new technology and developing it step by step. On the other side is the unsuspecting general public, which is suddenly confronted with a powerful and useful technology.
In doing so, she distinguishes between several paradoxes:
- In the same world, there is a growing gap between the experiences of experts at the forefront of technological development and the rest of us.
- Although both camps are increasingly using AI, the gap between them is widening. The technology pioneers are redoubling their efforts and investments, while the others are using it but view it merely as a useful technology on the periphery.
- Both sides are right; they accurately describe their respective realities.
The reason for this gap between our lived realities stems from the uneven capabilities of a new technology. In some areas, it demonstrates superhuman abilities, yet in others, it fails at tasks that seem simple to us. The Austrian computer scientist Hans Moravec described this phenomenon in the paradox named after him.
It is relatively easy to get computers to perform at an adult level on intelligence tests or when playing checkers, but difficult or impossible to teach them the perceptual and motor skills of a one-year-old.
So while experts at the forefront of technological development are using AI to create new drugs or provide mathematical proofs that humanity has failed to produce for a hundred years, the general public keeps seeing AI fail when it comes to the number of “e”s in the word “strawberry.” Similar examples can be found with self-driving cars. On the one hand, they react with near-superhuman precision and avoid accidents, and then they block a road or an emergency vehicle yet again and don’t know what to do next. In this regard, humans are no different from machines, for they, too, have many weaknesses, as accident statistics and every compilation of idiotic behavior on video platforms impressively demonstrate.
Every complex real-life task consists of a mix of subtasks that AI (or a human) handles with varying degrees of proficiency. And that’s where the kinks in the system come in. Because if the AI can’t reliably handle one or more of these subtasks, the potential for errors increases, as does the need for human intervention. But it quickly becomes apparent that AI can fully perform important tasks in a particular professional field, and the adoption of the technology happens almost immediately there. This “holy-fuck” moment in one profession widens the “holy-fuck” gap with others that aren’t quite there yet.
The Holy Fuck Moment
Tim Urban of the blog Wait But Why humorously illustrated the gap between people’s perception of reality and their expectations regarding the development of technologies—as Clarke, Gates, and Moravec had already done—in a graphic back in 2015. The general public sees technologies like AI progressing along the following curve:
But the reality is quite different:
The first glimpses the general public gets of new technologies are usually demonstrations of dubious value. A humanoid robot dancing or performing kung fu moves, or a funny-yet-disturbing AI video of Will Smith eating spaghetti. Or an autonomous delivery robot that falls into a ditch. A robotaxi that drives into a flooded street. But that’s exactly what happens to people, too, as any Google search will confirm.
But the laughter and giggling at the clunky technology soon gets stuck in your throat and is replaced by that “holy fuck” moment when you suddenly realize just how effortlessly the technology handles its tasks.
The best example of a “holy fuck” moment? I took a German friend for a ride in a robotaxi in San Francisco, and she was completely speechless. The whole ride, she couldn’t believe what she was experiencing, and her mouth stayed open in amazement the entire time.
One such moment for me was definitely the videos by British creator Jonathan Laramy, who released the video series Chloe vs History and has the fictional influencer Chloe travel back in time.
What was your “holy fuck” moment?