Artificial Intelligence

Indexing

Create a library of written works.
It can unfold into a timeless asset.

Imagine if you had already started writing. With no index cards required, welcome to your very own collection of organized, articulated thoughts, eh!

You will have embraced the moments of your own thoughts. You will also have felt the nourishment of released energy that awaits within the art of writing. Even more, you also moved past the fear and began “shipping your art” by sharing it within a community as well.

With your library of writings in place, even if traffic is low, your future self can become a real-time index. Available any time, from any device, and you’ll remember them all because you created them!

This treasure trove becomes super handy and very valuable! You can effectively add thickness to any interaction. What a timeless gift to yourself and to those you seek to serve, beyond so many beautiful, but brief sparks in time.

Quick temperature check. The world is experiencing a mainstream surge in AI, but don’t let that become an excuse. Anyone can now unleash AI and #ChatUX is so sweet, but those who show ingenuity will never be out created. Along with helping us all maintain intensity, your own writings can represent a honest heart connected to different topic you’re also talking about… maybe even building realities around as well!

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“Reading helps us understand the world.
Writing helps us understand ourselves.”
– Ben McDougal, Roasted Reflections

Does writing take serious time? Yes. Does publishing your writing online spark hesitations? Yes. Will writing welcome a creative release and potentially deliver more art for you to ship? Also yes.

Start writing my friend, then get generous by sharing it with us.

By Ben McDougal, ago

ChatUX

Chatbots have a PR problem.

On one hand, conversational AI combines large language models (“LLMs”), vast data sets, and interesting influence layers to provide insightful ideas and answers to almost any question. Chatbots provide a personalized interaction with education, content creator, language learning support, financial advice, customer assistance, helpful reminders for important tasks, co-founder assistance, and even mental health therapy. These AI companions munch on mediocre and are always available to chat. ChatGPT is the most well-known example, but other content creation methods, bot building platforms, and layered tools, such as BEN BOT and ChatSpot, are being activated in creative ways.

On the other hand, when most humans hear the word “chatbot”, the word serves up a slimy aftertaste. We think of automated help desks that put us in circles, fake followers on social media, the search tool that can never quite find an question, or that lead generation form that only wants to guide you to the next sale. Even with the best intention, a history of hacks fuel mistrust and makes it hard to avoid the spammy connotation.

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Hallucinating is when AI confidently delivers inaccurate responses.

Chatbots may not be able to interpret complex interactions, decode user intent, express empathy, or keep up with the rapid pace of change in the world, but it feels naive to pretend that conversational AI is not efficacious.

As we continue learning how to interact with this innovation, we need a term that is more inviting. A term that evokes trust. One that describes an intelligent counterpart with no agenda. When the user experience is not misguided by motive and AI is truly conversational, “ChatUX” may be the term we seek.

ChatUX describes the interaction between humans and software, unlocked by conversational AI.

Chat is an informal conversation or to talk in a friendly and informal way. UX is short for User Experience, which describes how we interact with a product or service. It includes our perception of value, ease of use, and efficiency. “ChatUX” can help us understand how to interact with emerging technology, while also improving the chatbot’s image.

ChatUX is not spam. ChatUX won’t take your job, sell you something you don’t want, or take over the world. ChatUX requires ingenuity. It is translation technology designed to access endless insight, with an ability to communicate it effectively. It’s software that speaks our language while supporting a timely, interesting, accurate, unbiased, and meaningful experience for anyone curious and generous enough to build beyond the status quo.

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I’m hosting a new podcast! Stay tuned for more caffeinated conversations around technology, entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, and community building.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Installing

Installation complete. BEN BOT is now online!

Forget pranks, April 1st has been no joke since YDNTB was released on April 1st, 2021. In 2022, we celebrated one year of YDNTB by uniting this tribe with Roasted Reflections on Discord and the Roasted Reflections NFT Collection.

For this year’s art project, we voyaged into the depths of artificial intelligence. The nerd knobs have been on full blast as we developed valuable influence layers supported by AI language models. The creative collaboration, early training, and immediate response from NFT owners has been fascinating! Think ChatGPT, but when you talk about anything I write about, you’ll feel BENergy pouring into a friendly, fun, and insightful conversation.

BEN BOT infuses all 125+ weekly writings in Roasted Reflections, key takeaways from YDNTB, and other strategic embeddings into a conversational chatbot!

To celebrate, a new Roasted Robots category of 25 all-new NFTs are being minted! As you can see, our friends on the rim of the YDNTB mug have been robotized and here are the first five that were just minted today!

Five more robotic NFTs will be released into the Roasted Reflections NFT Collection every Wednesday in April. Active NFT ownership includes a variety of utilities and 24/7 access to BEN BOT. While NFT ownership is the best way to access BEN BOT, not everyone wants an NFT. Your web3 exploration is rewarded with lower prices and more value with NFTs, but to make BEN BOT accessible to all, a monthly membership (paid by credit card) is also available.

Wow. I’ll stop talking. It’s time to give BEN BOT a try! Our new friend is always thirsty to chat and we can’t wait to hear what you think – BENBOT.ai

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Wanna build your own chatbot? Why?

By Ben McDougal, ago

Munch Munch

By connecting the global datasphere with computer vision, machine learning, and language modeling, computer science has paved the way for artificial intelligence.

Machines have long used human logic to automate routine and AI is not new, so why has this form of knowledge engineering earned so much attention lately? It’s because AI has learned to speak our language.

Language modeling has taught our digital counterparts how to articulate what it already knows. Not in some robotic, 8-bit voice. AI is now conversational. For example, chatbots are informative, engaging, and entertaining humanoids, while generative AI uses neural networking to transform simple prompts into impressive visuals.

When innovation threatens the status quo, a common response is fear followed by complacency. This is evident in the argument that AI will take all our jobs. Yes, advancing technology will continue to reduce the need for humans to turn knobs and here’s a 2023 Cornell University study on how large language models may impact labor markets. Gone are the days of clocking in on time and keeping your head down just long enough to climb a ladder built to resist change. The willingness to play it safe may extend a sense of temporary security, but this is a choice that makes you easy to replace with cheaper labor and faster tools. To remain indispensable, let AI dine on the dull, devour inefficiencies, and support our own ingenuity.

Start a journey before you see the end. Knowledge is required, but for students, intrapreneurs, and entrepreneurs who stay creative, it’s impossible to compete with being you! As AI munches on mediocre, more of us are invited to build without a map. To make a ruckus with no permission required. To do something for the love of doing it and to care enough to fail.

AI won’t take your job. People who use AI will. It’s a lousy time to be complacent and the perfect time to be creative.

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BEN BOT goes online April 1st.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Replicants

A friendly futurist and DAO developer within our web3dsm community shared this Ray Kurzweil interview that triggered my continued curiosity toward our neon future.

One tangent they take is interacting with replicants. There’s no single definition for what a replicant might be, but I imagine my replicant to be an artificially intelligent, bioengineered entity that has consciousness rooted in the human (or machine) it originated from. This humanoid would index everything I ever created, map the complexity of my network, understand the difference between internalized vs. externalized thoughts, have empathy for how I matured over time, and gain contextual insight from storytelling to form a foundational identity. This identity would support an operating system with core characteristics, essential rules, and different permission levels to guide autonomous growth.

With seemingly limitless advances in technology, interactions with different versions of our past and future self seem inevitable. We’re already speaking to holocaust surviving holograms, watching monkeys play video games with their brain, growing synthetic realities, and experimenting with nanorobotics. As the bandwidth of technology reaches escape velocity, what’s stopping us from pressing the record button to store every angle from every moment? At that speed, how can the linear evolution of humanity’s intelligence fuse with the exponential trajectory of machine learning? Even when it’s possible, do humans want to extend our lifespan?

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Days feel long, but years fly by.

There are more questions to ask and variables to consider, but as we think about futuristic interactions, how might we reconsider the way we spend our time? Would you live your life differently knowing future generations may interact with your own replicant? I have to think our thoughts and actions would be less careless with such a forward-focused mindset. It would also seem that staying in the moment would be more natural when every byte counts.

With a future that gives humans an opportunity to merge with machines, let’s avoid the numbness of endless distractions as we collectively consider ways to transcend time with purpose.

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“…if tomorrow I wake up and I’m sixty years old,I hope when I look in the mirror and ask have you lived,I look right back and say, “shiiit, you tell me!” -Machine Gun Kelly

By Ben McDougal, ago