I'm really rooting for this 👉 TechFreedom, a short course for social purpose orgs who want to understand their tech risks and DO SOMETHING about it.
Importantly you leave with a plan for reducing your dependency on US Big Tech 🙌🙌🙌 techfreedom.eu
via @dougbelshaw.com @tomcw.xyz #digitalsovereignty
Have you heard me banging on about tech sovereignty, adaptability, big tech and resiliency? About how your tech is an organisational cultural choice? If not, how? If you have...well, would you like some more?
tomcw.xyz/why-we-creat...
And recap it he does. In a kinda formal, stilted way, that feels like a #genAI summary... 🤖
Suddenly cold sweat washes over me. I’m sitting on the AI train to the future, reading an AI recap of a genAI’d comic of an AI-advocate’s podcast.
This is the train to the future! Toot toot! 🚂
But phew, luckily the huge awks of this moment are brought to an end… by the end of the comic!
And so it’s over to the author Jakob, to handily recap what we’ve been reading.
28/
Woah! Let's not get started on a discussion of conquering and colonialism! Because I don’t want to consider what it means to be colonised when talking about #AI. Let's leave politics out of it, ok?
Anyway I bought a ticket to BUILD the future. Not have the future to be DONE to me, ok?
27 /
And whilst I’m at it, something else is bothering me. Why is it always Alexander the Great in these kind of arguments? Rather than another conqueror like… I don’t know… Genghis Khan? 🥷
26/
I thought that this was the route to being super-empowered? That's what you promised earlier.
So do the masses get the AI-filtered stuff, whilst the direct access goes to those who can afford it? 🤯🤔
25/
Didn’t we say earlier that one-to-one, direct access to thinkers was for the super-privileged elite? I thought we were accessing education through the lens of genAI? That it was doing the thought for us?
24/
“Marc prizes direct access to domain practitioners: founders, researchers, experts who actually do the work”
Yes! So muscular! So alpha! People! Direct access! Like, one-on-one style! It’s like my very own, one-to-one education!
BUT HOLD ON A SECOND!! 🤯
23/
No time to figure it out! I’ve just got to keep my lunch down and bask in the “tremendous amount of alpha” smashing into my eyes!
A term that’s definitely not eewww, btw. I should focus instead on everything I’m benefitting from right now. Like "direct access to experts"!
22/
BTw... as I push my face into the X content firehose, how am I meant to filter out the massive amount of “wrong” predictions from its 6,000 tweets per second?
21/
I'm definitely going to do this. Although... maybe ideas in old books are so relevant because of natural filtering?
I mean, aren’t there so many ‘good’ old books because… the crap & irrelevant ones fell out of print? No?
20/
The dumbbell approach. Hey, we made reading tough! Muscular reading.
Yes I’m still kicking sand in your face, Newton. Haha what a dweeb.
19/
Comic panels. Marc Andrees explains his "barbell strategy" for consuming media (whilst sitting under a floating barbell). He reads old books only. He consumes X content. And he listens to actual practitioners in the field. There's so much "alpha" in that.
God damn. I like all this big, muscular imagery in this newsletter. Dams. Infrastructure. Warriors on horseback. If only everything could be muscular. Like reading. BUT WAIT, IT CAN!
18/
Damn straight Marc, where ARE the new cities?! We’ve wasted the last 100 years building the invisible! Rights. Social care. Economic security. Wellbeing. 😡
We need more monuments and statues to point to!
17/
Comic panels. March Andreeson pointing at large infrastructure like dams, built in the 1930s. He demands to know where the new dams are? The new cities? Uh oh here's a mid-build railway bridge tied up in reams of red tape (handily labelled "regulations").
Here comes Marc again, pointing at all the big things:
16/
Comic panels showing dark clouds, shuttered schools, empty playgrounds, charts showing a downward trend. Marc Andreeson explains that we are self-euthanising our economy through depopulation, and that we need AI to do all the jobs people aren't available to do.
That’s right. We’d be in a land of trouble without AI!
Although why does the economy getting smaller - in an age where growth is eating the planet - mean we're “self-euthanising”?
But never mind that! We need the robots to help us maintain consumption at our current levels. Hooray! 🥳💃
14/
And we’ve got to get on this quick, right? Because what’s that I see in the distance? Dark clouds ahead!
13/
Let’s get building. Especially “building” the kids. Because like you say, “The goal is to make them spectacularly great. To build the super-empowered individual.”
Which is definitely not dystopian sounding at all!
12/
And thanks for helping me focus on the REAL work of “building” guys! 👷🛠️
Not that *non-work* of caring, maintaining, fixing. Or making systems, social care, processes, rights, legal frameworks, healthcare. 🥱
That’s the "passive" stuff that “observers” are doing. BORING!
11/
So… we’re *not* bothered about democratising education for everyone? Now we’re only benefitting kids with “agency”?
Okay, got it. I’ll update my notes. This is a do-ocracy after all. We want “participants” rather than “passive observers”.
Participants like you and me, I guess Marc? Agency!
10/
"Agency"?
Says author: “The term describes initiative, the willingness to just do things, being a “live player” who participates in events rather than passively observing.” 😊
But wait.... 9/
Comic panels. Kids are shown pulling AI levers, burning books with the title "Old Rules" whilst Marc Andreeson says "AI should be the ultimate lever for a kid with agency to say, 'I can fully participate. I can change things.'"
Ah, our AI train is truly underway now and chugging into a future full of productive cities with high performing schools and offices. Why?
Because they’re rich with AI - of course! - which rewards citizens who are “participants” and who have “agency”. 🦸 8/
Anyway! Thanks to #AI, we’re all going to be GREAT. Our kids are going to be top achievers! Apparently AI means everyone's going to be "in the 98th percentile"!
'tho I’m not sure who’s going to be left in the other percentiles if everyone’s now in the top bracket. I mean *that’s* confusing but 🤷
7/
Comic panels. Marc Andreeson explains that the ideal education was once one-on-one. Like Aristotle, shown here, teaching a young (and very blonde) Alexander the Great. Then we see a modern kid talking to a weird floaty AI teacher owl. Now a horse-riding adult Alexander juxtaposed in a split pane with the same modern kid in a very screen-filled metal room of the future.
Gah, using Alexander the Great here? He’s a bit of a macho fanboy measure of ability isn’t he? Were there no other examples of super-achievers you could refer to? Isaac Newton maybe?
No wait, nerdy Isaac never achieved alchemy like us. Haha! Isaac Newtown. What a doofus. 6/
But let's not get hung up on details. Because we need to talk about the potential of AI to transform education.
Apparently (says the author) this is "one of AI’s most profound social contributions"! 👀 5/
That’s right, we’ve done it Isaac, making value from nothing! Turning sand into silicon into (AI) thought! 🎉
Wow. Wow! I mean, we already had *people* turning matter into thought. But I suppose this process does it anew by… removing people from the equation? Is that it? 🤔 4/
Comic panels. Isaac Newton struggles with turning lead into gold. Suddenly Marc Andreeson appears behind him to inform him that we've achieved alchemy - turning silicon into something far more valuable: thought!
With the cover done, we’re off. Now here’s a normal-sized Marc, creeping up on Isaac Newton to let him know that we’ve finally achieved alchemy - creating ‘gold’ out of everyday matter 3/
It’s a podcast episode retold as a comic! And here’s a city-stomping Marc Andreesson, to explain that AI will transform education & deliver super-powers to us all. 🎉
**So much gold! So much future!** See how this famed venture capitalist is crushing the grey and boring present! ✊ 2/
A comic-book style cover of a titan-sized Marc Andreessen crushing a city whilst pulling a lever labelled "AI". The title is "Time to Build: Marc Adreessen on Lenny's Podcast".
Jakob's Nielsen's UX newsletter has dropped in my inbox. Let's see if I can gird my loins and board his techno-optimist #AI train! Hot takes ahead!
What’s this? A comic. We'll begin with its rousing cover! 1/
