Julie McDougal shares a chat before she retired from IBM. Can you imagine being at IBM for over 35 years?! The featured guest in EP47 has lived on the edge of technology her entire career! Julie worked within the culture and this fun episode is a glance at how she united others. As you’ll hear, Julie is also Ben’s aunt. Fun! Cheers to everyone at IBM and cheers to a long, interesting, and impactful career. Happy retirement, Aunt Julie!
Joshua Larson is a video game developer, AI fashion designer, and web3 founder. We load in with Joshua’s experience building inside the Bitcoin Startup Lab, which has us talking about startup accelerators, pivoting, and tokenomics.. We then rewind to hear how he hacked his way into video game development, and here are a few games he helped to ship.
After the break, we blast through digital artifacts that are ordinals on-chain, generative AI, prompt engineering, #ChatUX, decentralized computing, and the 5 main layers within blockchain technologies. We close things down with a humbling 1-2-3 exercise, before Joshua drops the mic with perseverance.
I turn 41 at 1:41PM EST on May 19th, 2023.
As I reflect on a few recent birthday wishes, my 33rd birthday wish was granted, there’s less anticipation and a compelling sense of retirement from 39 remains on tap, and this year’s birthday definitely feels less poetic than Eclipsing 40, but I’m still here. Let’s celebrate.
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One word to sum up my work this year, is wild. I remain thankful for the privilege to perceptually learn through the art of connection, content creation, and exploration on the frontiers of technology. Here are a few ways we’ve continued to collaborate together!
Along with the wild in my work, I’m just as grateful for the health and happiness of family and friends. There are countless milestones that have brewed joy in different ways. While most will remain cherished without sharing, here are a few memorable moments that have art to accompany the adventure. Stay wild my friends!
©1982-2023
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.
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.