@billyb

Things I notice and want to remember.

[billyb]

“When you start working, everybody is in your studio — the past, your friends, enemies … and above all, your own ideas — all are there. But as you continue … they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then if you’re lucky, even you leave.” - John Cage

[billyb]

Justice is not a startup: AI and technology can’t be a quick-fix for meaningful reform

The obsession with digital solutions assumes seamless connectivity and know-how, which is exclusionary and dangerous in spaces of justice.

Instead of strengthening institutional capacity or evaluating existing legal and social remedies, the push is toward chasing the next prototype. In this race for innovation, it is easy to forget that justice is not a startup.

[billyb]

The Power of the Moving Image | Los Angeles Review of Books

Peter B. Kaufman argues that video has become our dominant cultural medium, yet we lack reliable archives for the audiovisual record.

The situation appears overwhelming, but it is not new. States, religious organizations, and publishers have always spread lies—they have been doing so for millennia. And for as long as there has been information, even information based solidly on facts, people have doubted it and dubbed it false. What is new is the power of the key players in what we might call the fact business—players that include audiovisual archives around the world. In the United States, this includes 4,000 institutions of higher education, 35,000 museums, 120,000 libraries, public service media, and vanguard actors in the information commons like Wikipedia and the Internet Archive. They can help correct the chaos. The activism of these institutions, together with the support of the world’s leading philanthropic organizations and government agencies, can flood the zone with antidotes and cleansers. Thanks to the internet, we have the power today to connect with one another and publish facts much more aggressively and systematically—as well as the potential to build new systems of verifying the truth of information wherever and however it appears. What is also new is the power and responsibility we have to advocate for legal and copyright reform, so that we can post and share more facts and analyses more freely online.

[billyb]

Some Wednesdays Feel Heavier Than Others

Some Wednesdays feel heavier than others. Maybe today's one of those. But here's the thing - somewhere between all the hard moments, there's usually this other story.

The one that makes you smile, even now, thinking about it.

The one you've kept close. Maybe because it felt too small to share, or too big. Or maybe just because you were waiting for the right moment, the right place to let it out.

This could be that place.

If something in these words make you smile, even a little, consider it a sign. Leave me an untold story. The one where you/she/they/it - shifts something ever so slightly about how you move through the world.

Doesn't matter if it happened today or 9 years ago.

Doesn't matter if your voice shakes or if you need to pause to find the words.

What matters is you're here, and so are we.

Hit record here https://www.speakpipe.com/TheWednesdayEffect

Take your time. Five minutes of Wednesday belongs to you.

6 November, 2024

[brucesterling]

[billyb]

Sing it. #veryexcellent

[billyb]

HENRI PELISSIER (1889 - 1935) Tour de France 1923. 10th Stage, July 12. Nice - Briançon.

[billyb]

The AI Crossroads

You're standing at a fork in the road. One path leads to a world where AI amplifies our best intentions, bridges divides, and accelerates solutions to our most pressing challenges. The other? It's paved with good intentions, but it's a shortcut to a digital dystopia where algorithms dictate and divide. Here's the kicker: You're not just choosing a path. You're building it. With every line of code, every policy decision, every project you greenlight. You have the power to shape AI's trajectory. But power without purpose is just noise. So, what's your purpose? Are you here to make a buck, or make a difference? (Spoiler: You can do both.) The AI revolution is here. And it's asking you a question: Will you be a passive consumer of the future, or an active author? Your answer starts now. Here's your toolkit for an AI future that serves us, not subjugates us: Here are 11 actions you can take today to shape an AI future that serves us: 1. Be a critical thinker: Use ChatGPT (https://chat.openai.com/), but fact-check it. Always. 2. Be an artist: Create with DALL-E 2 (https://lnkd.in/gNeHAk4d). Then ask: How did it change your art? 3. Be a contributor: Join Mozilla Common Voice (https://lnkd.in/gX3dG2Hd). Because language diversity matters. 4. Be ethical: Choose Anthropic (https://www.anthropic.com/). Because principles should come before profits. 5. Be a student: Take "AI for Everyone" on Coursera (https://lnkd.in/gvaEhf9G). Knowledge is power. 6. Be a leader: Start an AI ethics book club. Begin with "The Human Factor" by Crawford and Whittaker. 7. Be informed: Follow AI Ethics Brief (https://lnkd.in/gCZtEbg3). Stay ahead of the curve. 8. Be part of a group: Attend IEEE AI Ethics events (https://lnkd.in/gXBJGGAY). Your voice matters. 9. Exercise your voice: Engage with AI Policy Exchange (https://lnkd.in/g7xqN4bx). Democracy needs you. 10. Contribute to a more inclusive world: Support Masakhane (https://www.masakhane.io/). Because AI should speak every language. 11. Solve hard problems: Join AI for Good challenges (https://lnkd.in/gWt-jKBp). This isn't about fighting AI. It's about shaping it. With every choice, each interaction, you get to nudge AI towards a different kind of future. Your move. hashtag#ai hashtag#flow hashtag#action hashtag#now

[billyb]

The AI Conversation: Your Move

Imagine a world where every word is a coin toss.

Heads: truth. Tails: an AI's best guess.

This isn't sci-fi. It's tomorrow's headline.

Unregulated AI isn't just a tech issue. It's a democracy issue.

A human issue.

So what can you do?

Start here:

Demand transparency. Ask your representatives about AI regulation. What's their stance? Their plan?

Support responsible AI. Choose products and platforms that prioritize ethical AI development.

Educate yourself. Learn to spot AI-generated content. Teach others.

Engage in real conversations. IRL. Face-to-face. Remind yourself what genuine human interaction feels like.

Create, don't just consume. Write. Speak. Share your voice. It matters more than ever.

Because democracy?

It's not just a system. It's a conversation.

A global, messy, beautiful conversation that keeps going.

And it needs your voice.

Right now, the Supreme Court is grappling with NetChoice v. Paxton, a case that could reshape how we regulate online speech and AI-driven content moderation.

As we debate whether Texas can force social media platforms to host all viewpoints, we're really asking:

In an AI-dominated landscape, who decides what we see and hear?

The platforms? The government? The AI itself?

Our digital town square hangs in the balance, and with it, the future of our democratic discourse

We're at a crossroads.

One path leads to a cacophony of misinformation.

The other? A symphony of human-AI collaboration.

The choice is ours. But the window is closing.

Every tweet, every post, every conversation shapes our future.

What future are you speaking into existence?

Remember: In the age of AI, our words still count. Our actions echo.

What will your echo be?

Your move.

#regulate #ai

[billyb]

Hit Unmute

Unmute Your Workplace

Imagine a workplace where silence isn't golden, but costly.

Where the intern's crazy idea sparks the next big thing. Where the whispering over #slack becomes a game-changing new policy.

This isn't fantasy league. It's the future of work. And it's already here for those brave enough to unmute their culture.

Research doesn't just suggest it. It shouts it from the rooftops: Productivity soars when voices are heard.

When "Because that's how we do things here" is replaced with "What do you think?"

This isn't about the warm fuzzies. It's about cold, hard results.

But here's the rub: You can't fake this.

You can't slap "We value your input" on a poster and call it a day.

Real listening requires real effort.

The real change demands real action.

Respect in action, not just in words.

Are you ready to turn up the volume on your team's voices?

Or will you keep hitting mute, wondering why your competitors seem to be having all the breakthrough conversations?

The choice is yours.

#hitunmute

[billyb]

The Courage to Connect

We're all afraid of something. Often, it's the very thing that could set us free.

In relationships, that thing is direct communication.

It's easier to hint, to hope, to sidestep.

To leave things unsaid and cross our fingers that somehow, magically, the other person will just know.

But relationships don't thrive on magic. They thrive on courage.

The courage to say what needs to be said.

The courage to listen, really listen, even when it's uncomfortable.

Every time we choose directness over avoidance, we're making a deposit in the relationship bank.

Every time we let fear win, we're making a withdrawal.

Over time, those deposits and withdrawals add up.

They become the difference between a relationship that's thriving and one that's barely surviving.

The choice is always there.

Moment by moment. Conversation by conversation.

Will you choose courage? Will you choose connection?

The health of your relationships hangs in the balance.

Choose wisely.

#skillfulcommunication #relationships

[billyb]

1980

Among those born after 1980, happiness falls with each year of age. Among those born before 1965, life evaluations rise with age.

[billyb]

You have to have the talent for the art–the music, the acting, the writing, the art–but you also have to have the talent for being in the right place at the right time with the right people with the right approach. I had to become a certain physical person and I had to place myself in certain places in front of, beneath, and around the right people. It’s an art to be noticed; to be necessary; to be needed and desired. Develop it, if you can. If you can’t, then I don’t think any amount of talent will be of any use to you. Talent has to move. Talent has to walk up to people and ask to sit down and talk a bit. Most talent stays at home, and it remains a gift, but it doesn’t get out enough. Someone has to see it in the right context. The context is entirely your job. - Marlon Brando / Interview with James Grissom

[billyb]

Startups and the Sustainable Recode

The long-held idea that successful tech startups will inevitably create positive societal change is looking more and more like legacy code in dire need of a refactor. That trickle-down theory of impact has hit a scalability ceiling.

We're in an era of staggering innovation and entrepreneurial wealth. And yet, critical systems like education, health, environmental sustainability, economic mobility and democratic governance seem problematic as ever. It's as if we've been industriously building the future's hyper-loop transit without agreeing where it needs to go.

Economic success and cool new technologies are key enablers, but clearly not enough on their own to substantively move the needle on society's core challenges. In some cases, unchecked growth has disrupted foundational infrastructure in destabilizing ways. We need to recouple entrepreneurial energy with systemic solutions to existential risks.

This is the next logical step in keeping with the progressive arc of hacker principles.

Step #1: Rebel against corporate bloat and democratize startup hustle.

Step #2: Become maniacally user-focused in your design philosophy.

Step #3: Level up again with societal progress as the new first principle and user.

The future belongs to startups optimizing humanity's quality of life across all domains – the ones aligning every microeconomic decision with catalyzing positive civic and ecological impacts at scale.

We need founders hellbent on radically improving factors like climate stability, public health, educational access, community resilience, governing responsiveness – the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Instead of just hockey-sticking user growth or an acquisition exit, the moonshot is sparking massively positive societal phase changes.

We'd rigorously measure those impacts the way today's startups measure activation and retention. Except our dashboards would track quantitative progress across all 17 SDGs – from ending poverty and achieving food security to securing clean water, affordable energy, sustainable cities, and climate action.

Our incentive structures and status games reorient around catalyzing verified real-world impacts across the balanced scorecard of human and environmental flourishing metrics.

Early-stage investors would be incentivized to fund the most promising vectors of civic and ecological progress.

This isn't just some philanthropic PR effort bolted on. It's an entirely new existential imperative and path to entrepreneurial success and legacy. The equity-compensated wealth creation remains, we'd simply be realigning those incentives with rapidly prototyping, measuring, and scaling regenerative societal solutions via tight build-measure-learn feedback loops.

Developing massively impactful "SDG-startups" would become the new prestige job for society's best and brightest – the heroic work of this era's problem-solvers, design thinkers, and startup storytellers.

Early bets on the right societal Phase Transitions would create VCs as famous as today's celebrity unicorn wranglers. Mayors and policy makers would fight to provide startup advantages in their locales.

This refocusing puts us back in sync with how human civilizations radically progressed in the past – by having their top entrepreneurial talents and creative resources intently focused on critical resilience breakthroughs for the greater good of society.

Now it's time for our modern entrepreneurial vanguards to wake up, look around, and rewrite the core code propelling humanity forward.

[billyb]

As I wrote about in an earlier essay, until recently human existence was dominated by solving problems in the physical world — most pressingly, the problems of obtaining food, shelter, and clothing. Nowadays, in our postindustrial service economy, the business of society is increasingly disconnected from physical problem-solving; instead, our preoccupations are ourselves and other people. I believe that this progress has had a profound and unfortunate side-effect: our mental lives are no longer disciplined by regularly bumping up against the hard, nonnegotiable demands of physical reality. Instead, our main reality is the murky, dreamy world of our and others’ thoughts and feelings, where everything is negotiable and what is popular or self-serving regularly trumps what is true. Losing our anchor in the physical world, I fear, has allowed us to drift off into all manner of morbid delusions and pointless status contests. Growing mental health problems among adolescents — the age cohort that is probably most thoroughly insulated from the hard surfaces and sharp edges of the physical world, and most thoroughly immersed in the preoccupations of identity and status — are one clear sign that we are adrift. Beyond that, there is the inconvenient fact that physical reality hasn’t gone anywhere: our dream world of identity and status rests on an immense foundation of rigorous and intricate problem-solving. I worry about the sustainability of a social order in which the vast majority of people have no understanding of how any of that foundation works and indeed lack the mental skills and habits that make such understanding possible.

Rebalancing Capitalism - by Brink Lindsey

[billyb]

To build and maintain strong relationships, people need to do things together — even if the thing in question is just hanging out. People need to share responsibilities and engage in joint projects. They need to depend on each other. Yet the development of urbanized consumerist capitalism has drained our personal relationships of their functional significance. The home was once an economic production center; now it is a locus of increasingly solitary consumption. Churches and friendly societies once sustained us in the face of life’s downside risks; now we look to the distant and impersonal welfare state. Conversation with friends was once the main alternative to the boredom of idleness; now we have endless options for absorbing entertainment and stimulation that we can enjoy as parties of one.

Rebalancing Capitalism - by Brink Lindsey

[brucesterling]

[billyb]

Human Needs, 2029

I was thinking about what it means to be human, and what people will continue to seek out b/c they are human, even if AI rolls on us and we end up collecting UBI in the next 5 years (Not likely!).

11 Things Humans Will Still Want in 2029:

1. We will want to learn (See: Lego) 2. We will want to create (See: Youtube) 3. We will want convenience (See: Amazon). 4. We will want things cheaper (See: Amazon). 5. We will want to feel like our life matters (purpose) (See: USMC, Nonprofits) 6. We will want to give/be generous (See: Salvation Army) 7. We will seek out ways to feel an emotional connection IRL and online (See: Airbnb Experiences, Art Museums, Theatre). 8. We will want things on-demand (See: DoorDash). 9. We will want to live longer (See: Rx & Supplements Industry). 10. We will want to look good IRL and online (See: Fashion industry) 11. We will not want to suffer or be ill (See: Insurance industry).

At the moment, I'm feeling like I want to shape my role so I can help people get more of #5 and #7 in their life.

What human needs are you addressing in your role or business? Which human needs are you best positioned to address, based on your idea of who you are, your experience and skills?

How are you thinking about what will change with your role as the technology and society changes around us in the next five years?