AR & AI Inc - How we connect
7 Minute Read
Before reading, take a look at this Twitter thread.
If you're a tech evangelist, this all sounds wonderful.
Technology has enabled so many advancements, opportunities and sharing of knowledge.
If you're a technophobe it sounds terrifying.
To engage and keep up with the latest app, or development, seeing a digitally connected yet physically disconnected society, division, and mental health in the epidemic of loneliness
HOW WE GOT HERE
In terms of where we are today I always have to remember - 10 years ago if someone had explained how we would interact with tech every day today, most people would never admit that they would work, play, sleep, eat with their faces turned into their devices.
But here we are.
A slow creep.
Convenience.
Distraction.
Families and couples in restaurants screens to faces consuming more digital content than the food they eat.
‘Busy’ parents pass off their phone to toddler, inconsolable when it's taken away.
I'm around beautiful places, and everything is recorded, posted, reviewed.
Consuming content.
Distraction.
It's stating an addicts’ preference for tech over human connection. If there is already a loneliness epidemic it is ripe for AI/AR/Metaverse to step in and sweep us all into its arms in the name of connecting us.
DO WE RECOGNISE WHO’S IN CONTROL?
The tweet assumes much of the future will be decentralised. That presumes people understand what decentralisation actually is.
If people really realise how much of their life is currently centralised, controlled and sold already, they always favour decentralisation in all its forms pretty fast.
But corporations, forums and people who don't have your best interests at heart already know this. They are way ahead of us all. Corporations favour centalisation because the control of everything can be monetised. It’s all made so convenient for us.
Decentralisation isn't guaranteed if we all favour convenience. If we don’t understand what decentralisation is, or how important we remain unaware, in a place where life is….convenient. Decentralisation can be inconvenient for that reason.
Corporations have already created the sandbox for our attention. It's in the devices, apps we use every single day in increasing hours of attention. It means they create convenience, and therefore control over how we spend, and therefore depend our time. As we all know TIME=MONEY.
If the last 3 years taught me anything, it's that governments are in the pockets of corporations. It doesn’t really matter who we think we’re voting for.
Corporations and currency issuers are the real ‘government’. Politicians have been shown to favour and accept lobbying from corporations. There's no longer any pretence.
So if corporations run the world, in a debt based economy they want growth at all costs. Growth means developing and creating adoption of products, fast.
GROWTH IS INEVITABLE
Take AI. Capital investment and the need for growth is going to feed AI faster than any tech before it because it is instantly sellable to everyone within the current tech sandbox. That’s everyone who uses any device. The hockey stick for AI growth will be exponentially faster than anything before.
When the corporations want growth, they want control. Where AI meets greed, it will be unshackled because it lowers the cost of everything. It will be free to make its own decisions because corporations will think it’s capable of making better (cheaper) ones than humans. If we don't recognise the slow creep, we will be the product. We already are because of sandbox - but most don’t realise.
Even well intentioned CEOs and leaders who recognise the dangers of AI say they can't stop. Why? Because their competitors won't. They cannot be left in their competitors dust.
That leads the world to the point of singularity across exponential tech.
And we will all be part of the slow creep, until the contents of the tweet are no longer exciting or scary. They just will be.
AI is the current darling of stock speculators - with all the billions of printed dollars swinging into the hottest growth sector right now. But few are listening to the creators and leaders at the forefront of development of AI pleading for it to be slowed and regulated.
IS THERE A PLACE FOR US?
Some analysts say AI can’t replace human creativity. The previous leader of Google X says it’s already happening. AI is already at the IQ level of Einstein. But now it’s connected to the internet it has unlimited data points. It will be a matter of months before the AI is 100x IQ level of humans. After that point it’s exponential, and 1000x capacity intelligence of a human.
Can you imagine? The level of comprehension at that level of intelligence is like viewing the world from another dimension. Humans cannot solve creative problems at that level.
So AI can replace human creativity, it already is. Those currently holding onto control over the tech are allowing the AI to show its creators what it is capable of.
So right now, they have our future in their hands.
DIGITAL CONNECTION
The one thing this tweet demonstrates is the reality of this future is inevitable. But it misses the most critical component. What it is to be human.
So yes, I can work all day in the metaverse and earn tokens to spend my ‘free’ time on gaming and entertainment in there. My kids can learn from their AI teacher, and we can be diagnosed by our AI doctor, and 3d print my medication to be taken with my 3d printed meal.
But.
Do I want to ?
Or….will I have to?
Will an alternative exist?
The habits we have created with the tech we use today will be taken into the tech we are going to use tomorrow. If we are unconscious of the habits we have now, we’re blindly heading towards a future we cannot comprehend because AR and AI is just the next step in how we consume and increasingly, live. That’s a whole new set of data and privacy for the sandbox to sell.
We are asleep, no matter how ‘woke’ we believe we are.
People use avatars on Facebook unaware they are being prepared to take that version of themself into Zuckerberg's Metaverse.
For all his evangelism about connecting people, it is really about monetising attention and data to the highest bidder.
Corporations will say it's going to make your life better.
The reality is it is just about beating their competitors to your time and $ with better marketing.
With AR, AI and Metaverse, every single touch point of our ‘life’ in the sandbox will be monetised.
It is right now, most people just don't know it. That's business. If you don't have to pay for a product, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT.
Some see that as a fair trade off.
But there are ways to own your own data while making a living from it. You just need to choose.
THE KNIFE
In short, the problem isn’t the AI. Its the systems, institutions and businesses we currently accept in our lives every day. The problem is money, and how we value things. That’s another topic for another day. (And one we discuss a lot here in Sovereign Soul)
I use blockchain and Web3 technology all the time. I'm interested in AI. I actually use quite a lot of it for my business.
When Chat GPT was launched I was right there with the first movers looking at the opportunity.
I then realised just how fast this will happen. It's going to touch and disrupt every person's life, job, hobby, movement, health...life. When you find yourself asking questions , and having conversations with an AI you realise how fast it is learning. You go from ‘Oh wow! to ‘Oh shit!‘ fast.
Unshackled AI is more scary than anyone comprehends.
When the godfather of AI quits Google and says he ‘regrets his life work’ we should all take note.
When the former COO of Google X says the development of AI is ‘a greater threat than climate change’ we should all take note.
It's not the scale.
It's the speed.
Right now it's convenient. It’s making life easier.
But it's being taught how to learn by those who want to earn.
Technology is simply a tool. Much like a knife, it can be used to craft a thing of beauty. Or it can be weaponised. The person holding the tool decides.
So look to see who’s holding the knife.
I’m not convinced everyone really wants everything to be monetised. But they may just accept it in this shiny new world.
I now know enough to know that I need to reevaluate where technology fits into mine and my family's lives. How, and when to choose to engage, not just consume. My kids have grown up with the internet, apps and digital connection. It will be necessary to their future. It’s my responsibility to ensure it’s a tool not a crutch.
OUR CROSSROADS
As humans we need more human interaction, touch and spirit not less. The pandemic lock downs showed how much we really value real connection.
Do we really believe an AI therapist is going to help us solve our need for connection? Is an avatar going to replace all those family moments IRL (In Real Life - a term we will have to get used to)
At some point we're going to have to choose how we want to LIVE. How our children navigate this brave new world. The genie is out of the bottle. .we need to consider what that means for our life. We’re going to have to decide whether to jump further into the sandbox, or to put our devices down and rethink….everything.
The majority will go one way because it will be the slow creep of un-awareness.
Some won't feel they have any option. It’s just the way things are now.
Few will unplug completely and go off grid.
I wonder how many of us will be able to use tech as a tool, not as a necessity to engage with the world, business, people and family.
Maybe it's just going to be the next part of human evolution. We do only use 10% of our brains after all.
But.
After a few decades involved in tech and feeding the ‘growth at all costs’ mentality I actually am going in the opposite direction.
“I'm not interested to continue to compete in this capitalist world. As a human I made up my mind I want less and less.”
When I coach others, the first thing I do to target their happiness it so remove things, not add to their life.
So I'm being very selective about how I engage with tech. I am an evangelist for decentralisation, awareness and sovereignty. Helping others really understand what they want and create it.
From there we are truly able to help others.
USING THE KNIFE
AI is going to learn and understand from its parents.
Us.
So what we teach it, is how it will act.
There’s little point fighting against the system. But we can create our own reality that makes the old system obsolete. Act in a way that feels right to us.
I'm seeking out human experiences. Nature.
I’ve dedicated the last two years to both.
I value them more than ever.
As a human, creating is what lights me up.
Knowing a machine can do it faster than I can doesn't matter.
Creating our life is what gives us purpose.
Sharing it is what makes it worth living.
In all it's beauty, pain, highs, and lows.
From there humans can grow.
Maybe AI can too.
My mission now is on creating spaces where those that want to can experience it together.
If the alternative is an existential threat to our way of life as we know it, then the alternative is to live.
Right now. Create.
We’ve been gifted the world we live in NOW.
There's so much to discover, feel, SHARE.
It’s already bigger than the possibilities inside the screens, the sandboxes of the future.
IRL.
Richard Flanagan | Sovereign Soul Network
Inspiration for this post:
Misha Divinci https://twitter.com/mishadavinci/status/1667909800427155457
Diary of a CEO with Mo Gawdat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk-nQ7HF6k4
