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Happy Holidays - Thank you, good luck, and let's get to work!
🕑 Added 2023-12-24 13:34:31 +0000 UTCDear Patrons,
For those who celebrate it, merry Christmas Eve! For those of us who don't, happy solstice, happy Saturnalia, and Happy New Year!
This year, 2023, has been a wild ride. It's difficult to look back and reflect without being staggered by some level of awe. A year ago, we had just gotten our hands on ChatGPT. Today, there are several Big Tech competitors and countless Open Source competitors. We blasted past dozens of cognitive and productivity milestones in AI models, and now multimodal models are the new standard. On top of all that, AI agents are on the ascendency.
It's impossible to oversell how pivotal this year will be recorded in history. This was the year that it started. We're no longer just talking about AGI, but ASI (artificial super intelligence) as not on the horizon, somewhere in the distant murky future, but a near-term possibility.
Suffice to say, 2024 is going to be intense.
There are many challenges ahead of us - technical, social, economic, and political. To that end, I will be working on expanding my YouTube platform to four channels.
- David Shapiro - Original AI Channel (no changes)
- Systems Thinking (formerly Neurospicy)
- Pragmatic Progressive (newest channel)
- Mythic Archetypes (fiction, universal symbols)
On that note, I have six videos on deck with my new editing team. My goal is to churn out 4 high quality videos per week, one per channel. So, thank you for your support! Because of your ongoing support and feedback, the quality AND quantity of my output should increase significantly.
Now, many of you have asked where is it all going? What are my goals here? I figured this would be a good time to break it down for you:
Original AI Channel
My best performing videos, far and away, are my prediction videos regarding the social, political, and economic impact of AGI. As we ramp up to AGI, I suspect this trend is going to continue or increase. I'll be keeping my finger on the macroeconomic and geopolitical pulse of the ramp up to AGI and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This includes looking at military, economic, finance, business, and social impacts, as well as how we can adapt.
People want a shepherd, guiding them through the stormy seas. I'll do the best I can.
I've had hundreds of people reach out on LinkedIn saying that my videos are helping them acclimate to the trends. Everyone from European financiers to Canadian educators. This global reach, this world-spanning platform is optimal for solving the coordination problem. Creating new, coherent, salient, and perspicacious narratives is part and parcel for my mission - my mandate that has been built and reinforced by and for you.
Systems Thinking
The world needs more systems thinking! I learned, nearly two years ago now, that I was "neurospicy" - mostly on the ADHD side of the spectrum, with a sprinkling of HSP and other flavors. This has been pivotal for me coming to terms with my life and has given me a new lens to look at the world through. My Systems Thinking channel was originally my Neurospicy channel, but I found that the systems thinking videos were the most popular (by a mile) on the channel and they are already evergreen content (they keep generating views and comments consistently). So, following that signal, I realized that systems thinking was a unique thing I had to offer the world.
After writing four and a half drafts of my Systems Thinking book, I had a revelation - talking to fellow systems thinkers would reveal even more critical insights and help me create a more well-rounded and well-researched book! As such, I've launched a Systems Thinking interview series as well as systems thinking tutorials.
But why? What does this have to do with neurospicy? Well, I realized that all the most powerful business leaders, tech leaders, problem solvers, and high impact individuals are all systems thinkers. From Mr. Beast to Elon Musk, they are ALL systems thinkers. But, like myself, they were all born with a natural predilection for systems thinking. However, as I was working on my book, I had a key insight: learning systems thinking is like learning to read and write.
Systems thinking is the new critical thinking!
Literacy is not natural or instinctive, but we possess the neural plasticity to do it. Likewise, I believe that EVERYONE has the capacity to learn systems thinking. And I believe that the world will trend towards a far better outcome if there are more systems thinkers. Thus, my mission with this channel is to mint as many new systems thinkers as possible.
Pragmatic Progressive
I've been called everything from a communist to a neoconservative in the comments, which is mostly amusing to me. But the fact that people have a hard time categorizing me was an important signal - I realized that I don't classify myself in any particular bucket. I'm not a Democrat or Republican. I'm not a conservative or a progressive. I'm not left or right. Now, I'm not saying that I'm a special snowflake, nor am I a centrist. I'm Something Else.
Now, what often happens during these major paradigm shifts (AI and the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is that you end up with new social, economic, and political paradigms. In other words, gigantic technological shifts inevitably impact everything else. Progress is being inflicted on us, whether we're ready or not. So, I'm progressive insofar as I see the writing on the wall - technology is ramping up fast and it WILL change a lot.
Technology is good, therefore more technology is better!*
Yes, but technology is also a double-edged sword. Think of it this way, the only reason we have the ability to destroy ourselves and the planet is technology. Back in the 1500's we could no more harm the planet than could a pack of displaced wolves on a new continent. Yes, we had caused a few extinctions here and there (woolly mammoths have exited the chat) but the scope and scale of our impact was limited.
As Uncle Ben said: With great power comes great responsibility. Technology is a rising great power.
So, I'll be working on finding, curating, spinning, and weaving a new narrative. Narratives, after all, are how we coordinate nationally and globally.
Mythic Archetypes
This channel is probably my most artistic and personal. I just find mythic archetypes super fascinating. It's helpful for my writing, but also, I see the archetypes mirrored and echoed out in society. Even moreso, I've been doing a lot of dream work with the help of Claude (seriously, this chatbot is surprisingly good at dream interpretation, many times better than ChatGPT).
Depth psychology (Jung, in particular) is making a comeback. With the rise of mental health, psychedelics, shadow work, and dream work, I see mythic archetypes as part of creating a new (or reconstructed) spiritual language for humanity. No, I'm not going to burn and effigy to Moloch and chant "Feel the AGI." But I do believe that we have an archetypal instinct. Meaning that our capacity for abstract thought and reasoning intrinsically sets us on a path to use, create, and find archetypes. In other words, the neurocognitive ability to generalize necessitates the use of archetypes.
Understanding archetypes is critical not just for internal, personal growth, as well as crafting universal narratives, I believe it is also a key ingredient to unifying humanity. Shared stories will be how we come together as a planetary species, as a global community.
What's coming in 2024?
On my part, all I can promise to do is keep on what I've been doing. I will keep making content, keep learning, and continue to evolve as my part in all this comes into focus. I'll be continuing the Town Halls and Discord, but aside from that, I'll be focusing on content. Content is king.
I have a few side projects, like ACE and HAAS, which a few people have stepped up to take ownership of. However, these projects come in waves and cycles (as they have for the last couple of years.)
While I will keep experimenting, improving, growing, and learning, I think I've found my groove, my niche.
New Year's Resolution
I try to pick an aspirational resolution every year. A couple years ago it was "Get famous." - and here I am. Then I picked a bad one "Get rich." That led to repeated burnouts (still recovering from that), so instead I pivoted to honor (and discover) my mission and align to it. Next year, my resolution is to live more for myself.
I wanted to share this New Years Resolution because I thought it was poignant, given all the changes. We're all just along for the ride. The technology is advancing, and things are changing, whether we participate or not. We can all contribute in our own little way, but overall, it's just gonna happen. I believe we're ramping up to AGI and LEV (longevity escape velocity) and so as long as we survive the bad parts, the rest will be much better. Either way, it will be interesting. So, having accepted that my part in all this is relatively small, and I'm helping out as best I can, all that's left is to enjoy the ride.
My new year's resolution is to live more for myself.
So, enjoy the ride as best you can. Live for yourself, and those you love. In the end, I think that's all we really have control over anyways.
All my best,
Dave
Comments
Will Walsh
Hey, my resolution for 2024 is to make my hobby my job and finally get diagnosed with ADHD. Systems thinking vid 1 got me hooked on you, the checklist manifesto. Looking at super complex issues through Gawande's lens really takes away a bunch of anxiety in task planning. I also found a list is an easy way to get a dopamine fix, so once I get rolling things get super productive super quick. So 2024, replace anti depressants with stimulants and become an AI researcher!!! Thanks David!!!!
Eddie Sing
Wow! This is the first post I've read from any Discord Community (kind of a tech and real world loner) and it struck such a chord. The Jungian archetype, the looming AGI and I had to laugh, LEV (longevity escape velocity). Imagine if progress, were slowing down. Remember the original 'pollution' problem when it came to transportation was horse feces and now, I'd nearly do anything to get rid of all of the roads, all of the cars, and pave them over with grass, bring back the horses, free the chickens and have people recognize ALL that we have now, and how much better we could be doing for a.l.l. of us (A musical I'm working on as the answer to Hamilton-I'm the 6th Great Grandson of Richard Henry Lee, so A Little Lee, A.L.L., get it ; ). Anyway, forget the green grass pastures and singing Kum ba yah, during this moment of epochal change, we have a cold Civil War in America, with the former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump facing federal criminal charges that he obstructed the peaceful transfer of power, from one president to another, for the first time in this country's great history. That fuse is being lit March 5th or so, and like you David, I like to prognosticate. The American hot war, Rosemary's baby, will be born on the day of the verdict in Special Counsel Prosecutor Jack Smith's felony charges against the former President of the United States and current Republican candidate for president, who, according to land line, non-awake poll answer-ers, are there really any of these people ; ), that says that former President Trump has 70%. June 6th or so should come the Trump verdict, guilty or not-guitly, and it will be a trial with more eyeballs on it, metaphorically, as it probably won't be televised, but will have an audio feed, than the O.J. Simpson trial's car chase and verdict. Israel is at war with Hamas, after an invasion that they had received intelligence on a year before, and is now striking back with vehement force, in an attempt to rid the world of the Hamas leadership and military capabilities through all of the underground tunnels, with the Palestinian citizens, stateless and being slaughtered by the thousands. Russia invaded Ukraine and they have been fighting for over a year, with China eyeing Taiwan, as Iran, backed by Russia aids Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi's who are all throwing bombs at United States troops in Iraq as we, under President Biden's leadership have wed ourselves to Israel and Netanyahu.
