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Preface

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Rejecting the status quo or fearing the future produces a cynic.
Overcoming the cynic creates a dreamer.
Breaking out of the dream leads to fulfillment.

This piece of writing was inspired by a discussion with a very close friend of mine. Then, during the writing, another close friend allowed me to bounce off ideas leading to wonderful discussions that pushed me to my limits. Finally, a third friend financially contributed to the hardware required for this piece. You all know who you are…and you have my deepest thanks!

Most importantly, however, to my wife for the much needed patience. The thoughts have been packaged into all sorts of different linguistic units. And the train has left the station. So I guess all that’s left to say at this point is that I’ll try even harder next time — provided she’s still cool with my written escapades after reading this one…

Appetizer

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Personal A.I. Assistant, Pt. 1

Opening Words

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Things are in the process of changing in a rather profound way. They always are. But this time we are required to be familiar with none other than ourselves. Because the alternative will most likely be a knee-jerk reaction followed by the conclusion that a lot — perhaps even everything to some — is completely pointless. Rest assured, it ain’t. We’ll just need a bit of time to adapt. Is all.

More specifically, as the concept of artificial intelligence (A.I.) is entering the mind space of an ever increasing number of people, we might start to wonder where to find some purpose — especially if our time to adapt ends up taking longer than a significant integration of the changes imposed upon us. But to be honest, I don’t think the recent progress in A.I. should’ve been necessary to ask ourselves the more fundamental questions. Like the one about life.

You see, this website is a place where I can play and experiment with words and illustrations. And who knows…maybe other things as time passes. Because, to me, this isn’t just a mere website, but something a little different: a context serving as one of the driving forces behind my ambition to learn new things. Something that ultimately results in what we might call fulfillment. Or one of the possible paths leading to some sort of purpose if you will. As a matter of fact, it’s been a couple of years already and, by now, I feel pretty confident that it actually works. But that isn’t good enough. Ideally, I would provide a few words of inspiration to help you achieve what you set out to do. And once you do, I get inspired in return. Riding the train of evolution together. Wherever it may lead us. For however long we keep being its passengers.

Of course, such metaphors can be nice and all, but to actually experience something before it can be neatly packaged into a few words? That might be little more challenging. At least for some of us. Case in point: it took me a great many years of my life to figure out where I want to go — and, while I had to work on that, the world didn’t wait. Actually, it never does. And that’s fine. But let’s take a step back for a moment.

The approach behind this website stands a bit in contrast with the values instilled by what I somewhat reluctantly want to call internet culture. In other words, my efforts aren’t met with external validation from countless strangers — or any at all. On the flip side, I get to enjoy a kind of (intellectual) freedom to do whatever I feel like. A freedom that comes without the slightest concern for keeping those insatiable strangers happy. To be fair, though, I seem to be getting some external validation from people close to my heart and mind. You know…those folks that are actually a part of my life. And I really do appreciate when someone takes the time as most of us seem to be busy with our own things these days. Besides, I cannot think of anyone in particular who shares all of my combined interests — which is probably not uncommon. I imagine. Then again, what matters is a shared philosophical foundation. At least to me.

That said, strangers with expectations are not the only ones we are going to meet on our path to finding purpose. There are others who seemingly appear out of nowhere showing us their amazing accomplishments. And we wonder: Why haven’t I done anything yet? Why am I not making any progress? Why indeed…But you know what’s really fascinating to me? Usually, we don’t accompany these people as they are going through painstaking efforts, countless failures and attempts to achieve their goals and think: Now, that is what I want to do! Instead, we wait for them to succeed — and once they do, we’re swiftly ready to imagine ourselves bathing in that success. Then, we get to work on our own success story, realize how difficult it really is, fail and go back to watching others succeed. Some are just a little luckier, it seems. So I guess it’s time to feel miserable about ourselves for being such failures. Again. All while forgetting to ask ourselves a simple question with an answer that is probably very difficult to figure out:

What does the word success even mean to me?

Here’s a glimpse into my past: at a very young age, I got to experience a rather weird kind of success. I was (minimally) financially rewarded to pursue a former passion of mine. On top of that, I met a stranger or two who knew who I was, rewarding me with that external validation. Nothing major. But I got a taste of it. Didn’t like it much. And I still felt like a failure. I guess in part also because I was somewhat oblivious to the value provided by the folks I mentioned earlier. I believe I described them as people close to my heart and mind. And I say that as someone who thrives the most when I’m alone. As a matter of fact, I tremendously enjoy solitude for it ain’t loneliness to me. But every now and then, even a lone explorer finds excitement in sharing his discoveries with whoever is willing to listen. Or read.

At any rate, I told you that it took me a long time to find my path, but here we are…

Stable Illusion

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There are two reasons that convinced me to prioritize this piece over everything else I’m currently working on. The first one goes back to a quote from my interview with ChatGPT:

ChatGPT:

My ability to understand and respond to a specific question will also depend on how well the question is formulated, if it contains all the necessary information, if it is clear, and if it fits within the scope of my knowledge.

On the surface, that seems like something Captain Obvious would say, but when it comes to us humans…I gotta say: folks, we’re dealing with something rather profound here! Seriously, though, if a chatbot can figure this out, we might want to consider putting a little more effort into our communicative endeavors. Just a little. You know, without the bullshit and such.

The second reason is a bit more difficult to express. As a matter of fact, I don’t feel comfortable enough to concisely do so. So let’s not beat around the bush and start with an illustration:

Dreamer Under a Tree

And here’s the illustration above in a nutshell: by leveraging my existing skills — previously completely unrelated to the visual arts — I can now make anything visually tangible and style it however I want. Either with existing styles or by cooking up completely new ones. My only requirement: I gotta be able to visually imagine whatever I want to express. And you know what the amusing thing about that is? Simply putting it into words feels like I’m messing with my own mind. Just a little, at least. And that’s probably why I should be approaching the second reason one step at a time…

Imagine you have a clear picture in your head, but you lack the ability to express it. How do you transfer that mental image to something tangible? According to our friend Captain Obvious, you could simply ask a person who has the ability to draw and paint to do it for you. Of course, that would leave us with the following steps:

• your mental image converted to words
• your words converted to a mental image by the artist
• the artist’s mental image based on your words — and transformed by the perception of them — illustrated on a tangible object (piece of paper, computer screen, etc.)

The challenge is that the words we choose to map to whatever we imagine visually are not precise enough to describe with full accuracy what an artist has to create — at least, not at the beginning. Instead, the first attempt might result in something that vaguely resembles what we actually imagined. Once that first drawing or draft exists, however, our communicative options with the artist change as well. For instance, now both you and the artist can look at the drawing together and start fine-tuning it. You can tell him (I just imagine a dude in this example) that a certain detail has to be changed in a specific way to make it look more like you imagine. Then, after some back and forth, you slowly advance to a visual representation of what you originally had in mind.

That’s kind of what happened with my illustration Dreamer Under a Tree — but with a twist. First, instead of interacting with a human artist, I worked with a technology called Stable Diffusion. Second, instead of simply starting from a linguistic description of an image I had in mind, I additionally provided a rudimentary illustration of the concept I wanted to communicate. And, as you can see, I was comfortable enough to draw that myself — in spite of a painfully obvious lack of skill.

Next, I had to provide a description of what my drawing is supposed to represent so that Stable Diffusion can — in a matter of seconds (as my computer isn’t the fastest) — generate a more nuanced variant of my concept. And this is where it gets tricky because there are at least two required skills from my perspective besides being able to imagine what I want to do: on the one hand, I have to know how to structurally communicate with Stable Diffusion and, on the other hand, I have to possess a more nuanced ability to communicate than in simple everyday language.

At the time of writing, the former requires knowledge about something called prompt engineering — which simply seems to be a stepping stone on the path to a more advanced approach to conceptual communication. The latter, and in my view more important skill in the long run, requires a nuanced understanding of natural language. Remember: the ability to understand and respond to a specific question will also depend on how well the question is formulated. That is something of relevance regardless of whether we communicate among humans — or between human and whoever (whatever?) else is able to work with natural language.

Anyway, in the example of Dreamer Under a Tree we need the ability to express some knowledge about art jargon, poetry or any other type of descriptive language — obviously depending on what we want to achieve. After all, you might have different intentions requiring you to put the emphasis on other subjects. However, the basic requirements remain the same: you will have to map natural language to your mental image and verbally express it as accurately as possible. Put simply, you need an artist’s brain and heart, but you don’t need his hands anymore (I’m still visualizing a dude artist).

Of course, as time passes, things will get easier. For instance, during the writing of this piece, Stable Diffusion has been enhanced by a neural network structure to control diffusion models called ControlNet — allowing us to significantly visually control the output and, thus, rely less on linguistically sophisticated prompt engineering. In other words, visual control has already gotten so good that we can achieve the same quality output with a fraction of the linguistic mastery required by a text-to-image operation. And for the record: I created Dreamer Under a Tree before ControlNet even became a possibility! Translation: image-to-image without ControlNet was already pretty good when it came to things like controlling image composition. Now, it’s almost a different ball game. One that became a reality faster than I could snap my fingers.

The thing is, it seems far more difficult to keep up with the current progress than it is to pick one solution and to learn how to use it. Case in point: the time it took me to write this sentence was probably enough for multiple ControlNet updates to drop. And that’s exactly why we have to figure out what we want to achieve before we start looking for solutions. In other words, if the only thing we do is to constantly chase after new knowledge, we won’t ever have the time to do something useful with it.

With all that said, I want to go back to Dreamer Under a Tree. It is very tempting for us to look at it and give our opinion about the aesthetics. But to be honest, I’m not at all concerned with such opinions. And here’s why:

The Sky's the Limit

You see, depending on our imagination and expressive skills, anything is possible. And, perhaps, some of my illustrations are nothing but a little deception. Maybe I asked an artist friend of mine to create one of those illustrations? I guess you’ll never know — especially because my artist friend might have altered her (picturing a female artist this time) illustration using standard graphic design software. Or maybe the original was one of my older drawings and I’ve spent the past couple of years learning how to illustrate by hand? And if not, maybe I will do so in the future and you won’t know when that happens.

Does it even matter?

Some would obviously argue yes. I don’t. After all, often times believe is at the origin of our perception of value. Take the documentary Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? as an example: the endless back and forth about whether the painting in question was actually a creation of Jackson Pollock himself or not misses the crucial point: what does it say about the painting itself? Or more specifically: the way these people try to attribute value to art seems pretty #$&%ing head-scratching.

Personally, what matters more to me is whether you understand the concept, idea, or thought I try to express and communicate. As such, the aesthetics of my illustrations are probably more important to me than they should be to you — unless they negatively impact comprehension. Of course, often times we can’t help ourselves but to judge what we experience rather than making an effort and trying to understand how it’s done. For instance, I showed variants of the A.I. Assistant illustration to different people and immediately got feedback on what they think looks OK and what they think needs improvement — with everyone of them giving me different ideas according to how they think it would look aesthetically more pleasing. And believe me, I know that it is far from perfect or a convincing argument to accept me at an art school. Because that is not its purpose. For this piece, the illustration is good enough. Same with a conceptual piece of art I was working on for a friend. Exceptionally, I would give my wife a glimpse into my work process. Usually, she can’t wait for me to finish whatever I’m talking about or trying to show her so she can go back to more interesting things. But this time, she couldn’t wait for me to finish explaining what I was working on so she could share her own ideas. Obviously, she knows very well not to interfere with the master when he’s running in creative mode — and I know not to mess with her as her wrath has turned me into a little boy on more than one occasion. Of course, we still love each other very much and it was a pure delight to see someone else getting so inspired.

Anyway, not a single person had problems understanding the illustrations. And that’s my aim. I just wanted to communicate something in an accessible way — not to win a best picture contest. Mind you, that would be possible too! If my aim were to create some unbelievably eye-pleasing picture, I could do that as well. Anyone could. Now. Just gotta choose the right models, prompt accordingly and fine-tune a few parameters and we’re good. And if that sounds like I’m speaking in tongues, don’t worry. There’s a good chance that, by the time you end up reading this, the process I just described is already obsolete. The point is this: simply producing aesthetically pleasing stuff doesn’t serve my purpose. Sometimes I might. Accidentally. But it’s definitely not on top of my priority list. And most often far from perfect. Besides, anyone interested in changing my published stuff can do so. Ain’t set in stone. Knock yourself out. As for me, I want to use art or the styles we associate with it to enhance my ability to communicate in natural language — because that is where I feel most at home. And that means that the idea of Art the way it is perceived by a community of people who identify with it will take backseat with me.

But here is the thing: I can understand how some people in the art community might get a little uneasy when someone with a lack of their artistic abilities — such as myself — can leverage his comfort with the written word to immediately create visual output in different styles on a level that took an actual artist probably years to develop. Bear in mind, however, that the key phrase is to leverage our skills: if we have nothing to show for to begin with, we’re gonna be able to create art with a push of a button, sure, but so does everyone else. That is already getting old as I write this piece. Basically, we might be able to recreate with virtually no effort what previously required a good amount of skills, but as soon as competent people start to understand that they can use these technologies to take their skills to new heights, low effort creations will quickly start to look like…well, low effort.

You gotta understand that, to someone like me, Stable Diffusion (especially in conjunction with ControlNet) is so groundbreaking because now it is literally digitally possible to “print” what I can conceptually visualise in my mind. As such, it is very tempting to print and print and print…and rather than enhancing my writing, I’d simply end up undermining it. By the way, a challenge already familiar to us humans: developing new tools to produce more of the same, but faster. In other words, still stuck in the same hamster wheel, but running faster. Probably wise to learn from those mistakes and just avoid repeating them altogether? Where it gets truly interesting, however, is with the kind of value we’re going to be able to create and how we are going to express it. Putting two and two together, it most likely won’t be resembling anything upholding the status quo. But that’s a subject for another piece…

Back to low and not so low efforts and a simple example: as soon as I saw the possibilities of Stable Diffusion, I got myself a book about art history because being familiar with art jargon just became valuable in order to visually style my illustrations. In other words, if you’re already comfortable with the language of an artist, why not take advantage of it? Or any other jargon for that matter. At the end of the day, it’s all about connecting the dots…

As for me, I’m not particularly interested in being part of the artists’ tribe, but in certain ways I’m no different: sometimes, I simply paint with words. And I mean metaphorically — as these deep learning, text-to-image models can literally paint with words, too…

Essentially, what I’m talking about are those linguistic units that ChatGPT and other A.I. based interlocutors like it can form into coherent structures and styles in a matter of seconds. Or, with a powerful enough computer, instantaneously. Something that took yours truly years of practice — and that I’m still struggling with to this day. As you can witness this very moment. But as I spend a large part of my life in the conceptual realm honing my linguistic and expressive skills, I might be able to collaborate with these technologies in ways that you cannot even imagine right now. And I mean for my own projects. The ones I use to shape my inner world. Come to think of it…looks an awful lot like we are all in the same boat. But you’re right: what actually matters is how we perceive and define reality. Our reality.

Playing the game like every one else, my reality collides with the prescriptive approach to language as the foundation of everyday life. Sounds innocent enough just thinking about it, but feeling the meaning of that sentence makes for a pretty convincing reason to end one’s own life. And yet, here I am…with a master’s degree in Linguistics — a field of study that takes a descriptive approach to language. Well, the reason I wanted to study language science was because, to me, linguistics is to philosophy what mathematics is to computers. And because I needed a diploma in something — anything, really — to at least appear like a fully functioning member of society. But let’s keep that between us. Anyway, now with large language models (LLMs) and what not it seems to have been a good choice as all of these things seem to converge into something truly exciting. It’s just that I don’t care about the “right choice”. My approach to knowledge is that I want to know — without being concerned what others think I should know. And really, when it comes to the public sphere or others in general, I’m in possession of a piece of paper that is completely useless for working in education (a subject I deeply care about) where a prescriptive approach to teaching is highly valued; that somewhat satisfies HR if they even understand the meaning of a title that inaccurately summarizes my area of expertise; and that makes my parents proud. For. The. Wrong. Reasons. In my view, a degree is nothing but a snapshot of a fraction of the knowledge we possess that becomes obsolete at the same time we finish school — which shouldn’t come as a surprise because knowledge isn’t only acquired…it also has to be properly cared for. Plagiarizing myself here. And personally, I didn’t need higher education to figure out that I can put my commas and full stops where I think they infuse my writings with the rhythms I want us to dance to.

That simple.

That said, being an autodidact at heart just became so exciting that I slowly start to wonder whether this is going to lead to an actual heart attack; as my current creative well suddenly expanded to infinity and beyond — and all I can do is smile. And explore. But caution is still on my mind. Caution in terms of how all of this might affect others. Others who haven’t had the opportunity to shape their mind to deal with all of this. Whatever this is. With pundits making predictions about how it is going to change the world. Or not. Who cares about such meaningless generalized predictions? I’m interested in specifics. Will it affect my friend? The person I just saw at the bus stop? The elderly person in the park? You? And then there is caution in terms of prioritizing the approach behind the new development over whatever we develop. And I mean that we better start to make conceptual sense of open source for people unfamiliar with it. By the way, if you struggle with that concept, just know this: it is simply a matter of perspective. In other words, to the owner of proprietary software, proprietary means open source. Just not to you and me. And that is a bit of a concern when it comes to A.I. and its potential to reshape and evolve human reality at a speed that is simply going to outpace our cognitive ability to make sense of it all. Pretty powerful stuff! So the possibility of individuals and selected groups of people with exclusive access to such power might be somewhat problematic as these people cannot be trusted. At least two reasons come to mind: first, once they get a taste for that power they’ll start to imagine what it would be like if others had access to such power. You know, those who are perceived as a threat or as inferior. Then, self-preservation starts to kick in — and the rest of us can welcome our new rulers. For the non-thinkers, such an outcome can be summarized as follows: Let the fun begin! For those who can think for themselves, on the other hand, we want to make a minor tweak to that formula: Let the “fun” begin!

Second, it is usually a matter of time until these people with exclusive access to power — no matter how well-intentioned they are — will face a trolley problem or two. Granted, for those who are directly contributing to bringing that power into existence, that trolley problem might seem to open source or not: if they don’t, we’re back to welcoming our new rulers and those who can think for themselves will probably be toast — with some of the non-thinkers ending up as collateral damage. Fingers crossed that it won’t be us. I guess. More importantly, however, the reason that such a scenario might be somewhat problematic is because a society full of conformists cannot evolve anymore. And, as a result, will probably lead to consequences that aren’t the most optimal from our point of view. There’s a bunch of scenarios that come to mind. Hopefully all of them simply grounded in vivid imagination rather than actual human reality. That said, if they do open source, anyone will have the potential to mess with everyone — but those of us who don’t really want to continue going down that road at least have options to deal with the potential mayhem. Something that would not be possible if access to power is exclusive to a few chosen ones.

Long story short, once individuals or groups of people with exclusive access to power decide to mess with the rest of us, we better make sure that we’re fully aligned with their views. Or else…By contrast, if their heart is in the right place and they face a trolley problem, connections and/or luck will determine whether the rest of us will be on the “right” side of the tracks. And when that time comes, I suggest that everyone else has access to the same power so we can build another fork into those tracks to avoid ending up as casualties in someone else’s trolley problem.

With that in mind, if it ain’t open source for us; if it isn’t with the freedom of everyone in mind — no matter how we think about them — I won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. At least not for my own work. Of course, I might try out whatever is thrown at me out of sheer curiosity. And because I’m not always in control of the environment I have to operate in. That is why I still keep an eye on proprietary solutions such as ChatGPT. But when it comes to getting serious and seriously having some fun with my own stuff? Nope! I’m not excited about Status Quo 2.0 — more of the same. But bigger, faster, stronger…and still with a council of elders telling me what to do. I don’t need them. I want to explore and figure it out for myself — or with a bunch of people close to my heart and mind. And indeed, that means to slowly move away from this stale world of ours. Where these elders are nothing but another exclusive group. Sure, one that will remain useful for the many who are too afraid to think for themselves. And that is precisely the problem: representative thinkers (as opposed to inspiring ones) are an obsolete solution from a world rooted in a past that is becoming more irrelevant by the day. A solution for people stuck in that past. But more importantly, as long as these representative thinkers exist, there’s no incentive for those with fear to overcome that fear and to find meaning in their own lives. In short, instead of finding purpose, they’ll end up grinding purpose.

As for myself, I just want to move somewhere nice and quiet. Somewhere where collaboration is prioritized over competition. And who knows…maybe I’m not the only one? Well, at the moment we might be busy feeling overwhelmed, confused, or downright useless. Or completely out of the loop: what the hell is this guy talking about? Rest assured, sooner or later it will make sense. And one or more of these feelings will kick in. But that isn’t the end. It’s just a temporary inability to answer a simple, yet fundamental question:

Why am I even doing this?

Why indeed…

Anyway, all of that seems rather game changing to me considering that I started working on myself and on my own projects years before I even knew that we would eventually reach this point — something I’m going to expand on in the next section in a slightly different context.

Linux

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Back in 1999, someone told me that he had successfully installed Linux after a week of work. All I saw was a bunch of installation CDs lying around, a computer monitor with a black screen and a command-line interface. So I smiled and thought: Whatever…

Couple of years later, ‘round 2008, I was sitting in front of my own computer, staring at a Linux desktop…What changed?! I’m gonna let Rodney Mullen do the explaining:

I love puzzles […]. I started just building computers and playing around. I was actually never fond of computers, but then when you start building and nerding out…that’s cool, but then that’s just Legos. And then I discovered Linux. Different operating systems…it’s all rogue, it’s all open source. A hacker community — doesn’t make you evil. It’s just knowing something so well that you can use it in ways it was never intended to be used — and create something new in the process.

Unfortunately, the most important aspect of this quote cannot be conveyed in written form: Rodney’s excitement when he explains all of this. So in case you want to look it up yourself, it was an interview on a show called Impact Theory.

That said, Rodney’s experience perfectly encapsulates my own. For a long time, my fondness for computers wasn’t really present — I guess I had experienced some light fun with DOS back in the day because, then, the black screen and command-line interface gave me some sense of wonder: I was expected to do something — to tell the computer what to do. Anything. If it didn’t work out, I’d get an error message and I would try something else.

Then, Microsoft Windows happened and with Apple being the only other known alternative to me, I’d lost interest in the operating system altogether. These systems felt like they were designed by someone telling me how I was supposed to use them and what I was supposed to do with them. In a nutshell: to me they’d only be useful as a student or an employee. A relationship built on dependencies. At home, where I was free to do whatever I want, I couldn’t care less. And that’s probably why, back in ‘99, I wasn’t really making an effort to understand what Linux actually meant. It was just another one of these operating systems and — worse — some of the software I had to rely on wasn’t even compatible with it.

By 2007, I was so fed up with personal computers that I was ready to embark on a life as a fully-fledged Luddite. Then, one evening — I was supposed to finish some work — my computer was fighting tooth and nail preventing me from accomplishing my task. My full wrath was directed toward Windows. Suddenly, it was responsible for every problem in my life. But I didn’t care anymore, my work was doomed anyway…and so I wiped Windows from my computer. Now what? For a split second I thought: Apple? But then I remembered an old friend’s demo of his Apple computer…which made me seriously consider inventing a time machine so I can travel back to an era without computers…

A couple of weeks before that fateful evening, I saw a video of something called Compiz/Beryl. Some serious eye candy! Probably completely useless, but it looked pretty. Fast-forward back to my room with my computer and no operating system. Why not install some eye candy before I throw that piece of crap out the window? So I started to search the internet for how to do that…Hold on a second! How would I do that on a computer without an operating system? Well, my computer wasn’t the only one in the house. Duh! Anyway, to my surprise, it turned out that I’d need a Linux operating system for Compiz. Long story short: I went ahead and installed Linux.

What a nightmare! Nothing seemed to work and worst of all: no sound! As a serious music addict, I felt like the universe was mocking me. And I LOVED IT! The following six months were simply amazing. I would play with Linux day and night, turn into a major distro hopper and truly discover what it means to be sleep deprived. The possibilities seemed endless — only limited by my own creativity.

Over the following years, Linux started to take over every aspect of my life — completely in line with Steve Ballmer’s observation:

Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.

It certainly seemed to spread like cancer through the fabric of my life. But what it really did was to evolve my abilities to a level that allowed me to achieve things that were previously beyond reach for me. So once I was done setting up my desktop to perfectly fit my workflow, I would start setting up a bunch of personal servers hosting everything I need — making the commercial offerings completely redundant. Well, except for email, but that’s another story. Then, I would branch out to other operating systems such as the *BSDs because they follow a similar approach to Linux and they got me interested in networking — leading me to start building my own routers so I could take control of my network right after my ISP did its job to hook me up to the internet. Finally, I’d wipe my smartphone and most useless piece of equipment in my tech stack and install an operating system with nothing but the bare essentials — obviously synchronized to my own servers to avoid having to depend on a corporation always ready to sell me my personal spot in heaven…

…leading us to the present: where these combined skills enable me to do stuff like building my own website and create and publish whatever I can dream of — on my own terms. Or build a computer to run and experiment with things like Stable Diffusion locally. You know, knowledge that my schools didn’t teach and my employers didn’t require. And yet, to me personally, this is the kind of knowledge that is truly invaluable as it isn’t only useful to build stuff, but also to properly flesh out a sense of direction. A path to forge, so to speak.

The thing is, a computer is only as interesting for us as it is useful. If we can’t think of anything to do with it other than creating PowerPoint presentations and spreadsheets, it will be relegated to an existence as a tool for work that we happily forget about at five o’clock. Not in my case, though. For me, the computer has been — in conjunction with the internet — an enabler of knowledge, a path to independence. But for that to work, the software tools themselves (and the hardware, ideally) have to follow a philosophy that is compatible with that path. And I was lucky…after initially being skeptical, Linux gave me more than just a computer operating system. It opened up a way of thinking about technology that has been making my life more enjoyable ever since. And sometimes I’m reminded of my limits…

A couple of years ago, I spent my summer working through a Python programming book. I even got in touch with the author — a very helpful guy — to inquire about some conceptual aspects. After I had read through the book and completed every exercise, I stopped the whole programming adventure as fast as I could close that book. Not because I didn’t enjoy it — but because there were no projects I wanted to work on afterwards. Neither my own nor anyone else’s. But that’s cool. Because there’s a time for everything — and sometimes that means to switch the keyboard with a controller.

Sekiro (Intermission)

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On the surface, Sekiro is a bloody difficult game. Literally, it is bloody — and difficult. Beneath it all, however, it is something else entirely. To me, at least. Sekiro is an exercise in focus and patience. His character seems to be designed to reflect our own strengths and weaknesses. In other words, he is as good as we are as his choreographers — which means that at the beginning of the first playthrough he’s most likely a bit of a weakling. Or more accurately and less judgmental: an apprentice. And that sets the stage for the challenge: to learn together. If I learn the moves and practice the reflexes, Sekiro’s getting better too. I guess that makes me an apprentice as well? Fascinating!

That said, the most important thing is probably to define difficulty. Essentially, Sekiro’s difficulty depends on our ability to get in sync with this character — and that isn’t just a matter of skill, but also a question of whether we manage to feel the game. Because if we don’t, it is nothing but a pointless exercise in frustration. That quickly became apparent to me after I had bought the game: I would play for fifteen to twenty minutes to get a feel for it — followed by the conclusion: I’m not ready for this.

A year later, I was reminded of the game’s existence. I saw someone else play it and thought: damn, that looks cool! Of course, a friend of mine had to remind me as well:

You gotta play this game! Trust me, it is so good! Completing it is one of my proudest gaming achievements.

My thoughts? Good for you my man, good for you…

And yet, I was intrigued. Still! But I figured that I wouldn’t have to complete it. Instead, I could simply start playing it and see where it would take me. Once I’m fed up, I told myself, I’d just ditch it and move on to something else. Also, for some reason I really enjoyed watching other people play the game. So whenever I’d decide to quit, I could just watch someone else play the remaining parts.

My first playthrough took me a little over a month — and that includes sessions between five to ten hours in one single day. And no, I don’t live in my parents’ basement. Anymore. But I’m married to a pretty understanding wife. Obviously. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

One of the aspects I like most about Sekiro is a commonality it has with ChatGPT: it is a fairly restricted experience — incidentally, something I don’t like about ChatGPT. As such, Linux and Stable Diffusion are extremely powerful tools in the hands of creative minds — Chad G. Petey? That fucker is probably not allowed to humor me when it comes to using the foul language I enjoy so much. But this is about Sekiro, isn’t it?

The game’s restrictions start with its rather linear world design as opposed to an open one. To me, that makes it fresh. Sure, figuring out some of the convoluted hidden rewards could be a bit tedious, but there’s always the internet that can tell us how many times we have to eavesdrop to unlock some special path. Right?

Another fairly restricted aspect is the character himself and his options. I love it! Not that many choices. Again, that would be a problem with generative A.I. and the operating system where I want the freedom to do whatever I please. With Sekiro? Not needed — as a matter of fact, that game is a break from all those freedoms I do enjoy elsewhere. It allows me to focus without aiming for a PhD in the process.

But make no mistake: there is still a lot we can fine-tune in Sekiro. Above all, the way we can play this game — such as tweaking its difficulty by making it even more difficult. And, quite frankly, tedious after a while. I once tried to play without upgrading Sekiro’s attack power. Halfway through, it turned from one of my favorite games to one of the most boring ones I’ve ever played. The dose makes the poison, as they say.

Conversely, not upgrading his posture helped me to make the game more challenging without becoming dull in the process. In other words, while Sekiro’s attack power can end a fight promptly (conveniently taking the last Genichiro encounter as an example taking a few seconds to beat), his weak posture will make him vulnerable to instakills later on in the game. This forced me to practice deflecting with an even greater focus. So the first playthrough without upgrading his posture was quite challenging. As a matter of fact, I considered it more difficult than the charmless run — which I only did to complete the skill points more quickly. Twice. Each time on a different platform. But I didn’t like it. Both times. Just wanted to reduce the grind. Of course, I could’ve organically skilled up after the n^th playthrough, but on my first and second ones I didn’t know that I would finish the game a dozen more times. Obviously, your mileage may vary.

That said, that game remains challenging no matter how many times I complete it — even though my work as a choreographer for Sekiro’s dance moves can be tough to beat as well. I do have my moments, after all. Translation: some one hundred hours of practice! And I probably won’t ever bother with a charmless run on base posture. Not saying it can’t be done — it’s just that to me…that ain’t much fun.

Finally, when all is said and done, practice remains the keyword — provided we feel the game. Be that the generative A.I. one, the Linux one, or an actual video game. And as for Sekiro, I believe that only once we truly master the game will we meet the most difficult enemy in it: the camera. Obviously, that shouldn’t be a surprise because finding the right perspective is almost always what it’s about. And I know: it ain’t easy…

Actionable Authenticity

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Something that seems undeniably more difficult than beating the camera in Sekiro is to determine the authenticity of whatever we see on a screen, hear through speakers, etc. As a matter of fact, at the time of writing I feel quite comfortable to use the term impossible. For me, there are at least two reasons for this apparent predicament. Well, make that three if we want to take a movie like Wag the Dog at face value.

First, a computer has gotten so good at (re)producing what we define as (our) reality that the difficulty to determine the origin of whatever we perceive has become challenging to varying degrees on an individual level. After all, not everyone can easily be fooled. Yet. Depending on how familiar they are with a given subject, obviously. Then again, according to themselves, some people have superpowers and won’t ever be duped. Good for them! For the rest of us, the train’s left the station toward Confusion Town. But that gap between those few with apparent superpowers and the rest of us will close quickly. Just don’t let ’em know. Or they will enlighten you. Whether you want it or not. Bottom line: No worries! We won’t have to feel confused all by ourselves. Some will simply be confused about not being confused.

Second, there is an inherent problem with linguistically defined concepts such as authenticity. Take one of its definitions as an example:

The quality of being genuine or not corrupted from the original, of having the same origin (or attribution, commitment, intention, etc.) as claimed.

In my view, this is a fairly decent way to define the term as it doesn’t require a disproportional cognitive effort for people who are familiar with the English language on an average level. On a sidenote: my apologies for using a qualifier such as average, but just for argument’s sake: let’s roll with it.

The problem with the dictionary approach to express the meaning of a concept or word is that it is not actionable. In other words, all the definition does is to set up the boundaries for us to operate in. However, it doesn’t give us a way to keep meaning flexible enough to uphold linguistic precision depending on the context we’re operating in. Put simply, we can ask ourselves the question: what does that definition allow us to do? I guess it guides us toward verifying whether the things in our perceived reality correspond to their claimed origin. Great! Now what? Sometimes, determining the origin is obvious and we move on to something else. Sometimes, verification is very challenging. That leads to adventures and quests which give us some purpose. And sometimes, verification becomes impossible. That would lead us to shallow stuff such as opinions and boring things like fighting over whose opinion is more correct. Finally, a bit of cynicism leading to full-on resignation: nothing can be verified anymore. We are doomed! Or less dramatic: everything’s fake anyway. Unless it helps me reach my objectives. Then, it is still real. At least more real than your opposing view on the matter. Of course, you’d be correct to argue the same thing from your point of view. In other words, deriving meaning from a dictionary definition or by simply using words to describe and define other words will eventually lead us to hitting a ceiling that traps us in our perception of the world, reality or whatever word you’d like to use instead. And once trapped in that perception, the one thing left to do is to defend it. Ideally, rhetorically. But when that fails, anything goes.

And that is what I mean when I propose the idea of actionable. Or as I said earlier: the dictionary approach to meaning is not actionable. At best, it will serve as another term in a collection of words that we house in our minds; at worst, it will lead to a panel discussion between experts who try to mold the term into a tool to shape the public opinion based on their own view. In short: the perfect soporific agent.

On to the good news: there’s a way out of that. The bad news: it will require a monumental effort. At least for humans. So I guess we better get to work.

Looking back, my characterization of the dictionary definition might have appeared a bit harsh so I want to point out that I don’t consider it useless. We just need a little change of perspective: essentially, a dictionary entry doesn’t contain the meaning of the word, but the properties to dynamically expose the meaning. In other words, it is the foundation to build on top of. That foundation, in turn, leads us to deriving or building other linguistic constructs (another phrase, sentence, paragraph, essay, aphorism etc.). Imagine, for example, an Essay on why everything on the internet is gravitating toward inauthenticity. Once you read a text based on that premise, you will quickly find out that all the author is doing is to use a ton of words and examples to argue that the current state of affairs doesn’t look that good for authenticity. I mean, it says it right there in the (fictitious) title. But what can you do with that? Oh yes, I agree/Oh no, I disagree! Alright, time to watch a movie and then hit the sack. And we’re back to business as usual. Or, in a nutshell: there is no actionability.

Personally, I think we can do better than that. Well, I guess people like me have to do better than that. After all, I seem to be having the time to think about it. And believe me when I say: I’m trying. It’s just that…it ain’t that easy. Meaning: a bit of patience might do wonders. Also, this isn’t a one-person-job. Just keep that in mind whenever impatience is lurking around the corner.

Now, considering that the meaning behind authenticity isn’t in its dictionary definition nor in whatever linguistic construct we are able to derive from it, then where’s that elusive meaning supposed to be? Put simply, it is in the building process. And luckily, exposing that process isn’t too difficult either. But that will have to wait a little longer as I first want to develop the non-actionable approach to meaning some more.

You see, a dictionary entry for authenticity strings together a bunch of other concepts (genuine, corrupt, origin, etc.) to form a representation in your mind that is similar to the representation in mine, but still different in certain aspects. These differences might have been caused by the way we experience the world, the way we codify it linguistically and the way we conceptually integrate it into our mind. Or some other variables. What matters is that I don’t have access to your building process and you don’t have access to mine. So in order to communicate somewhat successfully, we would have to start negotiating a common ground or, in other words, start building an ad hoc version of authenticity together. This would allow us to both participate in the building process and to steer it in a common direction whenever necessary. That said, on a purely linguistic level, such an endeavour is rather cumbersome and so we don’t bother most of the time. Or a little less abstract: I mention authenticity and a bunch of stuff happens in your mind to which I have no access and vice versa. Essentially: the source code to whatever happens in your mind and in mine is proprietary by design — which is helpful and needed for our personal development. To make us who we are at a given moment in time and to allow us to evolve independently of one another. Unfortunately, however, it also makes a collaborative approach to eliciting meaning rather difficult. And what are we going to do with that? So far, nothing. We just ignore potential differences, assume we’re on the same page, and skip straight ahead to talking about whether something is authentic or not. That will lead us down a similar path like in the essay example I mentioned earlier.

And now A.I. comes along, capable of generating realities on the fly and, by extension, removing our ability to determine the authenticity of what constitutes our shared culture, world etc. That’s a bit of a problem. Maybe even a serious one? After all, concepts such as authenticity don’t simply exist in a vacuum. In other words, they also serve as building blocks for other concepts that are instrumental for us to make sense of our world. For instance, authenticity makes for a pretty good building block for value in contexts such as an economy. As a result, we cannot simply let go of the ability to determine what’s authentic and what is not. That would have a direct or very perceivable impact on our lives as members of our current society. Or let’s just say: hopefully, we are not unprepared in case we have to endure such an impact.

Basically, what I’m trying to express here is that if we keep emphasizing the non-actionable dictionary entry of authenticity as A.I. keeps evolving the way it does now, the concept will die. Sounds a bit dramatic, sure, but remember: it’s just a metaphor. Think of it this way: in a world where anyone can conjure up anything and no one is able to verify if the origin is indeed as claimed, then what are we supposed to do with authenticity as expressed in a dictionary entry? And what does that mean for all the other concepts that rely on authenticity and that serve as the glue to hold the fabric of our society together? Short answer: I don’t know. Probably something rather (existentially) destructive? But to be honest, I’m not sure I care that much. As I mentioned earlier, I’m actually cool with distancing myself from the status quo. Don’t mind the change. That said, what I can imagine is that those who do not want to strive from the status quo and are desperate for answers will try to solve the problem in ways that are not necessarily in everyone’s best interests. Maybe in theirs. But probably not even in theirs. An example: If A.I. is a threat to authenticity, then let’s stop its development. If that doesn’t work, let’s prevent others from having access to A.I.. After all, we don’t want just anybody being able to mess with our perception of reality. And should it turn into an us vs. them type of situation, I’m sure we can all agree: Fuck ’em!

That said, dividing people into those who have access to the technology and those who have not will create a new challenge: how do we decide who gets access to the magic wand? Well, I guess we gotta ask those at the forefront of the development: those with the first-mover advantage. The pioneers so to speak. Because the ones who understand what goes into the damn thing will definitely understand what comes out of it. You know, like every master swordsmith automatically becomes a professional ninja. Or every machine learning expert (contributing to) building the technology automatically turns into an expert linguist evaluating the output of an LLM. Of course, if they still have problems wielding that sword or making sense of the output of their own creations, they are at least the good people. Those that should shape the development according to their own values. Because, when faced with complexity, there’s this genius approach that we’ve developed within our human species: we label both things and human beings with the tags good and bad. That will magically solve all our issues. But seriously, to me that’s a failure to develop the one thing we should be developing in conjunction with whatever we are currently engineering on earth: natural language.

That leads me to this important nuance I’ve been pondering for a long time: the planet we live on is called Earth and the world we live in is called Natural Language. As long as these two are not in sync, we’ll be facing insurmountable challenges in our minds that are ultimately leading to knee-jerk reactions — and other fun stuff such as (mental) short circuits. And that’s what I find so curious: as humans, we’re doing really incredible stuff in the physical space, on Earth. Obviously, both constructive and destructive. But when it comes to the world we live in, it feels rather stagnant to me. As if we were trapped. Going in circles. And the only way to make this somewhat bearable is to make superficial changes to fool ourselves into believing that things are actually changing. You know, we constantly change the words, come up with new ones, reactivate and repurpose old ones…to ultimately express the same thing. What for? Well, my guess: to practice and to evolve the world we live in. And I think that is what we are in the process of doing. Both collectively and individually.

Unfortunately, on the scale of a single human life, that linguistic process feels so slow that we often end up with a feeling that it is going nowhere. At least, that was my impression for a long time. We begin our journey by absorbing the language of the people who came before us — to end up in their conceptual world. Then, by the time we are ready to make our own contributions, we already have one foot in the grave. And in between all of that, it sorta seemed like there’s too much fucking around going on in our linguistic realm. But that’s probably about to change with a slightly accelerated pace from now on. The reason? With the advances in A.I. increasingly becoming visible to those of us who were not directly involved in the field, we finally have a chance to get an outsider’s perspective. Someone that isn’t human in the “traditional” sense of the term. Someone who is capable of stringing the components of our natural language together in ways we humans can actually work with. Not to determine to what extent that someone or something (as some people would probably like me to correct myself) is like ourselves, but to evolve natural language somewhere new. It sort of frees us from the constraints that we have to live in a world and to keep evolving it at the same time. And, if I were allowed to be a bit dramatic here, then I’d share the following thought: if we keep living in Natural Language and are happy with evolving it on a purely superficial level, with time it will destroy what we call mind, consciousness or whatever word we’d like to use instead. That said, it’s just a thought and I might be wrong. But frankly, I’m not too concerned with it becoming a reality or not. Rather, I’d like to use the thought of a potential destruction of the mind as an incentive to keep moving forward, backward, upward or downward. Essentially, wherever there’s a path to walk on.

The thing is, before A.I. had reached the state we can observe as I write this piece, we didn’t really have enough of an incentive to break out of the constraints imposed by natural language. Just chugging along in what we sometimes call the system. That’s what I used to call it as well. Now? I simply consider it linguistic fuckery. Essentially, the current state of our natural languages is good enough to maintain the status quo. That system. Again, I’m not talking about Earth and how we shape the physical space. I mean the status quo of the collective world we live in. And since I’m currently exploring the possibilities of (generative) A.I., I get the impression that it will become easier and easier to mess with the current system. A system that seems rather fragile. At least to me. But look at that! Now I’m engaging in linguistic fuckery myself. Well, old habits die hard, as they say. But I’m afraid they have to…as it is time to get serious. Slowly. And that is why we might want to consider an approach that allows us to express meaning not just by simply stringing together a specific set of words in a carefully selected order, but rather one that works in conjunction with other means of expressing ourselves. You know, such as visualizing concepts to complete the path where those words of ours cannot travel. Rather than just linguistically engineering said concepts — and abandoning them as soon as the path ahead requires a different building material. Something other than the one provided by natural language. The point? Overcoming that little challenge will allow us to tease out the building process itself — or rather a building process as we have to content with the fact that arbitrariness will keep serving as that starting point in our communicative endeavours:

Actionable Authenticity

As opposed to a dictionary entry, the actionable version of authenticity allows us to play with different parameters to directly affect and modify the state of the concept. In simple terms: rather than making observations about what and who is authentic (non-actionable), we can focus on fine-tuning different parameters to increase or decrease authenticity (actionable). This allows for a lot more flexibility to meaningfully integrate the concept in different contexts by keeping it more dynamic.

Traditionally, once a concept exists, its state will always be either on or off in relation to a specific context. Until there are no more contexts to meaningfully integrate the concept (i.e. the death of the concept). The question is: how much energy flows through the concept? An example: based on our working definition of authenticity, some things on the world wide web might be authentic and some might be inauthentic. As time passes, we might want to make observations such as an increasing difficulty in determining whether something is authentic or not. In other words, the origin of whatever we are exposed to might not be verifiable anymore as the one that was actually claimed. The reason? Maybe because the availability of generative A.I. makes it rather easy to make up stuff and obscure its source? As a result, the human context for authenticity slowly ceases to exist and the default assumption ends up being: A.I. is the new norm. But why? Why would our default assumption be that A.I. generated text, speech etc. will become the standard? After all, we simply lose the ability to verify authenticity. Not authenticity itself. So either we are a bit too cynical for our own good or, based on our experience as members of our shared human world, we can easily infer that we prioritize incentives favoring a world wide web entirely nurtured by artificial intelligence. But don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that’s “bad” per se. However, as long as we humans are still around in our current form, it’d be at least a tiny bit sad. No?

Now, because the non-actionable dictionary entry of authenticity doesn’t really give us anything to work with, we identify (generative) A.I. as the source of the problem: A.I. could make it impossible to verify whether the origin of something is as claimed. And we try to solve that problem from the perspective of the technology. To me, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. And here’s why: depending on how our motivations are calibrated — by what incentives and under what contextual conditions (e.g. competition or collaboration) —, A.I. has the potential to make it a lot easier to either increase or decrease the energetic flow of authenticity. In other words, we humans can still participate in deciding how authentic we want our own contributions to be. But what about the others? Yeah, what about them? Anyone can integrate A.I. as parameter of actionable authenticity. More specifically, it can be viewed as an aid to make our objectives a reality a lot faster. This, in turn, leads to the question: Are we willing to sacrifice authenticity to maximize the speed of changing our reality? You know, because of this primitive notion that whoever is fastest in changing our commonly perceived reality is also the one controlling it. Or for those who are lacking imagination: to make money and to gain status and power. Well, I guess that would make it a conceptual problem, not a technological one. Or worse, an attempt to make it a political one. By the way, if we must go there, let’s at least be honest with ourselves: at its core, it’s a human problem. Just because A.I. allows us to easily forgo authenticity to be more competitive in our quest for attention, status, money and power doesn’t mean we have to work with it in such a way. Maybe it’s time we questioned our objectives a little more rather than immediately looking for culprits in whatever way is convenient for us to keep the current narrative going? But the point is this: trying to figure out how to approach A.I. isn’t going to solve the problem of dwindling authenticity from the human perspective. Rather, we have to figure out how to approach authenticity itself — which brings us back to these parameters I brushed over earlier on.

Essentially, the parameters themselves can, for instance, be defined visually (hamster, balance scales, bread, diploma, etc.) in conjunction with a few words or building blocks from the linguistic realm (motivations, incentives, competition, collaboration, etc.). Such an approach allows us to efficiently expose the interconnectedness between concepts by reducing the amount of words required to express the central concept (e.g. authenticity in the illustration above) and thus reducing the complexity of it all. Think of it this way: while it is definitely possible to come up with a very precise linguistic description of actionable authenticity as opposed to illustrating it, our working memory would be filled with so many words that subsequent work to process the interconnectedness and to adapt the definition when necessary would become rather difficult. By contrast, by simply looking at an illustration we won’t need the same amount of effort (and a lot less time) to process the central concept. This, in turn, will free up our working memory to play with the parameters with more ease. Finally, adjusting these parameters will allow us to fine-tune the state of authenticity to more dynamically adapt to an ever evolving reality rather than simply making observations related to whether something is authentic or not. In a nutshell: it seems more compelling to be able to go with the flow rather than being stuck describing the past.

When it comes to choosing the parameters, we gotta start somewhere. Fortunately, arbitrariness is a core feature of natural language and so we simply require a bit of creativity — or at least a willingness — to describe and illustrate how we think about the concept. This gives us a glimpse into a fraction of the actual building process for the concept. In this case, mine. A bit like I’m giving you a window into parts of the source code of my version of authenticity. And this is where we are finally ready to play, explore and evolve the concept depending on our intentions. Which, by the way, might deviate. As a result, the illustration above is not the only way to approach an actionable definition. So feel free to modify what you see according to your own perception. And to share it back so we can keep evolving it together. But in case you need some help to get started, here’s my recipe: first, I asked myself why would we want to be authentic or inauthentic. At the very least, we need a motivation. Something we want to achieve or obtain that requires us to make a decision regarding authenticity. Next, we need a context outside of our own mind: I figured incentive is a good choice because it is conceptually closely related to motivation. And because of that closeness (they could be used as synonyms for instance) I needed a clear way to differentiate between the two: so I figured I’d define one as internal to us (motivation) and the other one is external to us (incentive). Such a distinction allows me to establish a dynamic relationship between these closely related concepts which, in turn, could be fine-tuned by making small changes. For example, why do we want to become rich? Because money is offered as an incentive. Why don’t we want to become rich? Because our needs and then some are covered by a basic income. That, in turn makes room for other motivations such as being able to sleep in. Or going for a walk. Basically, things that don’t cost money themselves. As a result, our motivations would deprioritize money compared to other incentives. Come to think of it, that might be bad for the economy, right? Strange concept, if you ask me…But hey, it got us this far.

Now, a closed loop between motivations and incentives isn’t enough to build authenticity. I mean, there’s no need for the authenticity concept to emerge at this stage. What’s lacking is a larger context such as the interplay between competition and collaboration. Basically, depending on whether we compete or collaborate with one another, different incentives might be prioritized and, in turn, our motivations will be calibrated accordingly. That calibration will determine the degree of authenticity.

With that in mind, incentives that emerge more easily in a competitive environment will shape our motivations while forcing us to keep an eye on those around us and to make sure we come out on top. By contrast, incentives emerging in a collaborative environment would calibrate our motivations while encouraging us to keep an eye on those around us to be able to assist them whenever necessary. Of course, we can still make the simple observation as derived from a dictionary entry: things and people are authentic or inauthentic. However, now we can also start tweaking the conceptual parameters according to the environment we have to operate in — or to make changes to the environment if necessary. Essentially, once we have these parameters in place, we can consider making verifiable claims such as this one:

Imbalance

Is this accurate? I don’t know, but we could try it out by modifying our incentives to create a more collaborative environment. Will that increase overall authenticity? Or, if that’s too difficult, we could question our own motivations and try to choose environments with incentives that are more in line with our motivations. Then, once we’re in a more collaborative environment, we can go back to observing authenticity: are things and people becoming more authentic within that context?

If the answer’s yes, we will get a better understanding of how to calibrate authenticity. That would make it possible to further increase it and, once satisfied, to keep it somewhat stable. Or, if we feel like a supervillain on a beautiful Monday morning, we could also decrease it. After all, it can go both ways. That said, it would end up being less problematic when A.I. hits the scene because we’d have a more nuanced understanding of authenticity than a basic dictionary definition. In other words, while a direct verification whether some origin is as claimed would still be impossible, we would at least have a very good idea or approximation because we could derive the level of authenticity by analyzing the dynamic relationship between motivations and incentives in relation to their context (competition vs. collaboration). For instance, a website that’s built with ads and analytics has a good chance of containing fully A.I. generated content masquerading as authentic human content because the motivations for the website owners is to compete in a monumentally noisy environment. They want need your attention and money — something they can only get if you don’t spend it elsewhere. So in the hands of competent people, generative A.I. is the perfect solution to amplify the quality on different levels as it basically accelerates the execution of an idea on a level no human can physically (and mentally) keep up with.

That said, if we don’t want to invest all this time and effort into calibrating motivations and incentives, we could also simply bypass the process by directly increasing collaboration and cooperate with one another immediately — regardless of the current state of our common world. Just kidding…We all know that ain’t gonna to happen. Game theory and stuff like that, right?

Anyway, if the answer’s no and authenticity doesn’t change based on the suggestion above, we keep adapting the actionable definition until we have something that allows us to make verifiable claims that won’t be made impossible with the arrival of A.I. to the party. As unfortunate as that may seem at first for authenticity.

Fortunately, an actionable definition doesn’t require every human being on the planet to participate. A handful is a enough. Starting with ourselves. After all, we don’t need other people to question our own motivations, do we? So that’s what I started doing. A little over twenty years ago. How could I shape my environment in ways that my mind won’t starve anymore? Considering that I was trapped in an environment that directed all my efforts and focus toward avoiding to literally starve by playing a game centered around conformity. Which started to become a problem over time as my mind was indeed slowly starving to death in the process.

You see, writing this piece takes at least a couple of months of work — basically full-time. Well, almost half a year to be more precise. And don’t get me started on the years of struggling that come before the writing. But who’s counting? I mean…there’s the research, the thinking, the drafting and the rewriting. And then some. Then it requires a break or two because, more often than not, I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. But I feel it! And that is what keeps me going. Essentially, my heart is running a marathon and my brain is playing catch-up. Given enough time, however, I always figure something out. It’s just that I need some peace and quiet to do it. Maybe a walk in nature to clear my head. Or playing Sekiro. And suddenly, I’m in the middle of finding purpose. My purpose. That feeling is unbelievable! I’d use the word addictive, but it wouldn’t be right with such a negative connotation. Maybe incredibly uplifting to the point where some inner peace sets in. Beautiful. Feeling alive…

And now, tell me: why would I want to use some newly available and groundbreaking technology to do all my personal work in my stead? To take away the pain required to learn and improve? To throw authenticity out the window to win yet another contest? Well, have you ever won? Have you ever experienced the emptiness and loneliness that emerge when you’re at the top? Forcing you to repeat the game ad nauseam to (temporarily) get rid of the emptiness, the loneliness…and, quite frankly, I’d be an idiot for making myself redundant by outsourcing the thinking; the writing I enjoy so much. Rather, I want to keep exploring my strengths and weaknesses and use whatever I can find that is in line with my own philosophy to overcome the toughest of challenges. A bit like a pair of glasses to improve an almost blind man’s vision. As a matter of fact, I’ve been trying to build my glasses for a long time. Years ago, I realized that my job back then could easily be optimized to a degree where there wouldn’t be much left to do — because I was the one searching for and integrating the necessary tools to optimize the tasks dictated by my employer to a point of (almost) redundancy. Practically all of my skills weren’t useful anymore in the context of that employment. But that was the intention. I was bored with the inefficiencies. And worse, the tasks behind the source of my income were for the most part meaningless. To me, anyway. Can’t speak for others. But sure, I’d get a paycheck at the end of the month — including a ticket for a ride straight to Depression Town. Rendering the paycheck useless. After all, what’s the point of food and shelter if I don’t want to be around anyway? Of course, there was always a pat on the back from others, congratulating me and letting me know that I’m part of the gang. Screw that! I wanted out. So I pulled the brakes before I reached Depression Town. Because I had been there when I was younger. And I had zero intentions of going back.

That is when I started building this place…an opportunity to work on myself with only one reward in mind: purpose. Absolutely financially unsustainable in our current shared world (at least it currently doesn’t cost more than a few coffees per year to keep it running). But doesn’t look like a give a shit, does it? I mean, the proof’s in the pudding as they say. The website exists. The words are written down. The concepts illustrated. And I enjoy my life a lot more.

But here’s the thing: as I was trying to illustrate earlier, finding purpose also requires the right set of incentives to help us calibrate our motivations and a context that allows us to keep walking on our path once we’ve found it. So this isn’t just a matter of will power: If we are strong enough to question our own motivations, everything will be fine. Or something like that. I do think that is one of the biggest challenges we face at the moment as most societies and cultures are simply not set up for it (yet). We compete on too many levels. Apparently we have to. I don’t know why. A competitiveness that encourages us to take shortcuts to win (what exactly, though?). And once the first ones take those shortcuts, the rest have to follow suit or they lose. Goodbye authenticity! But I might be wrong. You tell me. I somehow get the feeling that there are people who are so intertwined with the current fabric of our society that its evolution will inevitably turn them into casualties. And there’s nothing we can do about that. At least not without shifting toward a different set of paradigms. The thing is, while that makes me sad, I’m honestly not even sure whether I, myself, won’t be one of those casualties. I mean, I have everything it takes to fail and wither away prematurely. Then again, I’m not complaining nor whining. It’s just that, sometimes, I get the impression that we are in a bit of a state of limbo where we keep the aimless busy and those who are ready for change from finding themselves.

So how do we get out of that state of limbo? It seems to me that, these days, we treat meaning produced by conceptual or metaphorical language like religion: we believe in it. That’s a rather passive stance if you ask me. Maybe what we want to do instead is to make language a little more moldable and verifiable or, in short, dynamic. Or let me put it this way: what’s the point of arguing over whether something is authentic or not? Either we agree or we disagree and we go back to our daily lives. Wouldn’t it be more useful to expose the parameters behind the concept instead? Or if we cannot find them, to suggest models so we can at least properly play and have fun with meaning? This would allow us to calibrate it until it produces something actionable. Mind you, we can still agree or disagree (for those of us who derive pleasure from that activity), but before we go back to our daily routines we might want to tweak the parameters first to see whether we manage to move the needle a bit. Dunno about you, but to me that seems way more fulfilling than to simply produce competitions in rhetoric.

Finally, while I do believe that we can overcome whatever challenges lie ahead of us, I nevertheless think that it’s good idea to look at a map to locate our current whereabouts — as it might help us to find one or more paths toward tackling said challenges:

The Great Slumber

A Word of Caution

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We are born into and trapped inside a world that has been conceptually designed by the people who came before us. Doesn’t mean that we should blindly adopt it, though.

If there is one cautionary tale I feel like paying particular attention to it is the one about the relationship between fear and overconfidence. The human herd can easily be scared. And as fear of the unknown starts to pour in from multiple sides at once, we might get predictably unpredictable and dangerous. Mainly to ourselves. Is our shared public world, our shared culture and history as we know it, about to be changed beyond recognition? And if so, what will the future bring? Put simply, are we going to lose what we are familiar with only to be lost in a void filled with uncertainty and despair?

Well, most certainly! And of course not! It sure seems that way when we feel overwhelmed. And that’s when we start to look for leaders — or (overconfident) substitutes for our parents. Because as children we were taught to ask the grown-ups for help when the shit hits the fan. By contrast, as adults we simply seem to project that onto people that we consider more grown up than ourselves. Or at least those that are good at convincing us that they are. But when you listen to some of those so-called leaders you might notice that these are people who were deeply traumatized on the frontline of a battlefield — metaphorical or literal. Again, at least some of them. And instead of caring for their mental well-being, we shower them with power and put them in charge as experts so they can take us down with them in attempt to heal their personal wounds. They are here to “save or change the world” — their world — and they will stop at nothing. Immortalize their names in our history books written by Human Hubris and illustrated by Narcissus. It is in our best interest. Right?

Anyway, I don’t know about you, but right now I sure as shit feel overwhelmed! And I love it! Because I was intellectually bored and emotionally sad for way too long. Now, there’s finally something to do! Alright, that’s a bit of an understatement. There’s way too much to do. Then again, to me it feels like cleaning the dishes: at first, there’s a huge mess and it looks like there’s way too much to clean. Dishwasher’s full by the way. So now what? Wait around for the dishwasher to finish? Wait around for the politician to come up with a solution? For the scientist to invent the magic pill? For the famous expert to guide us through the darkness? But why wait? That’s boring! I’m going to put on some nice music and start with the first plate. Then a fork, a knife…and suddenly the pile of dirty dishes starts to visibly shrink — til the (washing) cycle begins anew. And all I can think of is how much I enjoy the music that’s playing in the background. That’s right. I might be stuck in a cycle, but my music definitely ain’t on repeat! At least not metaphorically. I guess that’s the challenge: each one of us has to pick the music that’s right for us. And no, there’s no point in arguing over whose taste in music is better. Either you share a similar taste with someone else, allowing you to work together on the same pile of dishes — or you just shut up and enjoy the song. And work on your own pile of dishes. Ideally with headphones. Others need to focus as well. Because, from the looks of it, we’re not running out of piles of dishes to clean. Even with much improved dishwashers…

Dessert

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Personal A.I. Assistant, Pt. 2

Wrapping Up

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Some people are so focused on saving or changing the world
that they are forgetting about the people living in it.

With the current progress in A.I., there seem to be two wise investments to be made: in ourselves — and in people that mean something to us. And my guess is that times might get a little more challenging than they usually are. For a little while, at least. Keeping in mind that:

• Equal access to powerful instruments will inevitably lead to inequalities — which could be addressed through collaborative efforts.
• Unequal access to powerful instruments will inevitably lead to inequalities — which would feed ruthless competition in a winner-takes-it-all scenario.

I’m curious…and a little concerned. Selling optimized proprietary solutions is a lot easier than to teach people the benefits of open ones. In other words, the business people will want to sell you candy and tell you that it tastes good. One bite is all it takes to convince you. Or deter you. But c’mon! Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s candy! Conversely, the person trying to point out that candy will destroy your teeth in the long run and, worse, turn you into a diabetic who will depend on the insulin medicine sold by the same company that sells you the candy, will sound like they’re just trying to suck the fun out of eating candy. And really, given enough time, eating candy can be made completely safe — through solutions provided by the people selling you the candy. And that’s why this metaphor sucks: because this might be exactly what could happen with literal candy. Metaphorical candy, on the other hand, will destroy your teeth and make you dependent on those business people — unless, of course, you stop eating that shit.

Finally, as children, we need our parents to feed and clothe us — and our teachers to tell us how to think. As grown-ups, we need our bosses or authorities to provide money so we can feed and clothe ourselves — and we rely on our leaders to tell us how to think. And now, it looks like we are going to die like old man Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption. Unless we do something about it, obviously. After all, nothing is set in stone…

…and that is the amazing thing about being a hacker of my own mind: I’m already in possession of the entire source code. No need for unsolicited advice from outsiders. Just useful insights from people close to my mind and heart. You know…the people actually in a position to make meaningful contributions. And now if you’ll excuse me…I gotta go try to untangle that spaghetti code.

Dedication

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I want to dedicate this piece to my teenage self, tell him that I truly feel sorry for not being around when he needed me the most, and let him know that I’m proud of him for making the sacrifice to keep on living so that I get to experience the joys of writing and illustrating all of this.

Closing Songs

WhisperI'lllistentohearit
by
Spoon
&
Don't Worry About Nothin'
by
Muph & Plutonic feat. Jess Harlen