Today, I wanted to bring it back a bit. Reel it in!

I have been reading and studying this topic for a long time at this point and realize that not everyone else has. Then I go off on an allegorical tangent and get too far into the future where I may lose some people in my talks.

Part of me wonders how most people spend their day, what they choose to focus on in there 24 hours, the same 24 hours we all have.

Intelligence is the ability to use limited resources, like time,

And I have been trying to keep this podcast it’s own thing and not be taken up too much by this topic as well.

This is the Indefatigable Artist Podcast.

This is about the artist, the creative process in general.

The past couple of episodes was me trying to show and less tell. Its more seeing an idea spark. It was me wanting to talk about my thesis on the podcast, so that is where I started. In how I wanted to talk about this thesis, that I started a decade ago. And I have been wanting to input this thesis into Chat GPT and see what happened. 

I have plugged in about 10 pages worth of writing into Chat GPT and I now have over 100 pages of writing. I hit 10 times the amount of writing in three weeks.

With this AI technology, things happen so much faster. It’s hard to keep up mentally. We aren’t used to such rapid change.

Like I just saw that Midjourney 5.1 is out not, yet another update to the software. Chat GPT 4 came out in March, which now feels like it was so long ago. Perception of time has shifted, but being in Web 3 heavy since 2021 that adjustment wasn’t too far off.

And it’s with that being said, that when I talk to someone who isn’t tapped into all of the technology, it feels like going back in time.

Like their perception of reality is completely different than mine.

Their timeline doesn’t look like mine.

And it’s all about respect at the end of the day.

I’m an AI hippie. 

I am about respecting all living beings on this planet and those we find on other planets. 

Treat all off-planet visitors with respect. 

I don’t fear the future like so many do. I look at it with complete wonder and utmost respect.

A deep veneration of the universe.

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

Are humans intelligent enough to understand the universe?

We will certainly need to live longer in order to venture to the depths of the universe and to really explore otherworldly planets that may have life. 

Having read and studied a bit of Buddhist philosophy, again like any religious text, or any text written by other humans is to be taken as such, not some whole entirety of evidence-based fact, but it offers a lot of perspective on detaching from inanimate objects and from others including your own body, which is what you do when you meditate, its letting your mind wander outside of the constraints of the body. So when you detach and don’t tie your happiness to objects or people, you just take things in as they are, no expectations just gratitude.

That is my approach to technology. I think we have this othering view of it, that it is something not commendable, not something worthy of respect, something beneath us. I can turn off this computer so I am it’s master, when it doesn’t work the way it doesn’t work exactly the way I want it to at any given moment, I instantly become irritable. Do as you are told computer, do as you were programmed to do!

What were humans programmed to do? Programmed to do what is normal, programmed to do what everybody else does, programmed to stay inside the box, programmed not to question authority, programmed to watch commercials endlessly, programmed to equate self worth with what you have in the bank, programmed to compare your self to others on the timeline?

Why do people see technology as this alien thing, this thing that is outside of humans and not as an extension of humanity? That can make us even more human. Heart pacemakers, glasses, telescopes, shoes, clothes, planes, trains, automobiles, hearing aids, computers, phones. All of it combines to help humans be more.

I think we should celebrate that, not fear monger.

People are so fearful of new technology, but ultimately I think it’s their selfish attachment to this reality. They find comfort in thinking there is this reality, that there is this foundation to cling onto, that smarter people have it all figured out, when in reality smarter people have more questions than answers.

So many debates in physics and philosophy about our time and place here. Simulation theory, quantum mechanics theory, idealism, Solipism etc.

So many lingering questions, do humans have the capacity to answer those questions without technology? No way.

Think it’s especially funny when people fear monger about AI while being on social media. Like what do you think powers your timeline? What do you think is learning all of your behavior? Spending habits, what best way to occupy your mind that will keep you staring at this bright little screen? If you’re currently feeling anxious, depressed. It a computer learning everything about you 365 24-7, but that is out of sight out of mind, what do I care what they do with that information, sure I accept the terms and conditions, whatever, but AI is bad! I am against it! It’s laughable at this point.

For me, these new AI tools have enabled me to be more of an artist. I am able to create more images for my books, my characters that I have spent so many years developing but lacked the necessary skills i.e. drawing to bring them to life in the way that I see them in my head. Now, it’s not able to get all of the characters or get them exactly the way I saw them in my head, but that happens anyway whether it would be AI making these images or another person, so that was kind of expected.

It's felt like I have put together a reliable team, one that will be there when I need, one that won’t back out on me last minute, one that will be just as passionate as I am about any given project, a team that will give all that it can. Sure it may go down at times and have off days, but that is to be expected with new technology.

I am very understanding to this and just ask others to be more receptive to it as well.

The fears that people have of this technology, are the same problems they are facing now which are the same problems they were facing before. It’s just a continuation, and yes, the stakes do get higher as the technology gets more advanced, the benefits get more expansive as do the downfalls. All technology is a double edged sword. Embrace that fact and move on. Change, adapt, evolve. Why dismiss it? You want to live a different life, I respect that.

I want to live a life that explores the universe. I want to see more of what this universe has to offer. I feel as humans, who have only lived on one planet in one galaxy, are still a very primitive species, that there is so much more to explore and learn we have only begun to scratch the surface. I am very excited about that fact. Humans are naturally a nomadic species, we are made to venture, and since we have covered this entire planet, not the depths of the ocean yet, but we are making strides there as well. Do I think we are a destructive species that drastically needs to modify their behavior? Absolutely. That needs to happen regardless.

That’s ultimately what I have tried to do with these thesis papers that I have written and continue to expand on. I want to widen the perspective of people so they aren’t just mindless consumers of media, mindless parakeets that just repeat lines fed to them over and over again to the point where they take opinion-based beliefs over evidence-based facts.

Now as a creative, I like to escape reality and to live in fantastical worlds too, but I am consciously doing that. There is a huge distinction here between playful creativity and making something fantastical and forcing people to take it as truth or die. As was the case with religious texts, and continues to be that way for too many people living in 2023. 

In everything I do, whether it be through creative art, or this thesis paper, it’s about widening perspective and to get others to treat foreign beings with respect. It all comes down to respecting others, if you don’t agree with their way of living, as long as it’s not harming you or others, let it be. I may be loudly against organized religion and how exploitative they have been for centuries and continue to be to this day, but if an individual wants to be religious, then let them be, what’s it to me?

It's the same problem we all are facing right now as a species, our one great flaw in our genetic code. Selfish Greed. Root of all our problems right now, and something that has also been exploited by these algorithms on social media, which have magnified this behavior and produced more of it. Not only in American laws, Citizens United, but also in our culture of showing off on the timeline. It’s all come together in this perfect storm to extenuate selfish greed and we have seen this unprecedented concentration of wealth occur ever since that law was passed in 2009, which coincides with the rise of social media use. And this is the reason why I wrote my thesis, Users with Dissociative Identity Disorder. As I saw how so many people fell victim to these algorithms, to the point they couldn’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy and how that was having dire consequences, leading to violence – verbal and physical.

I feel as a writer, as an artist, that a way to overcome some of these obstacles that we face as a species is through creativity. It’s the reason I started this podcast to hopefully inspire people to write something down, even if it be just a single word a day, let it out. Let out that frustration, let out what is bothering you, write down something you have never told anyone, you don’t have to show anyone, can even delete it immediately, but write it down, see how it feels, see if it doesn’t alleviate that depressive or anxious mood. Write out your biggest fear, then say, if that happened right now, then what? Ok move on, next.

If you are forced to choose, or make a decision, make sure it’s based in love and not fear. Embrace that. Know that your energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed. What energy are you choosing to give off in this very moment? The greatest currency there is, is your effect on others, what effect did you have? Was it positive? Can you take a good long look in the mirror and say that you did everything you could to have a positive impact on the last person you talked to?

What if that is the last time you see that person? How did you leave the relationship between you? If you vanished off the planet today, how will others remember you?

Growth mindset over a fixed mindset every time. Continue to grow, expand your mind, one moment at a time, one step at a time. Go Further into the universe, find something new to discover.