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.

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