Yay! Today I was offered my first tiny baby research grant to work on someone’s data for a paper. One of many steps to pivot from clinical practice to demography, but in the right direction. (And it’s an interesting project!)

No, I live in Chicago, this happened last night April 15th. It happens every weekend when the weather is warm. Millennium Park and Grant Park and the Museum campus have become no go zones especially at night

It’s another tool, and I hope it will drive writers to be more creative and push conventional plot structures. I think readers will learn to tell what reads as AI generated, even if it’s just a gut feeling, they’ll feel a piece of AI generated work is unsatisfying, much like now how we feel about a book printed with clip art and stock photos vs a set of cohesive illustrations commissioned for the work.

Corporate owned IPs such as Marvel and Stars Wars films are soulless perhaps for different reasons than AI but maybe the resulting works end-up with the same blandness through different processes. Creative collectives working together can still make amazing things, and AI could be part of those teams.

I’ve used ProWritingAid forever for grammar checking. It’s saying it’s AI powered now. I’ve learned a lot using it and it picks up my typos. I’ve used bing search for research and it’s fun, but I have better resources. The internet lost a lot of research potential when ad-driven algorithms and password protected social networks took over the mainstream internet and I don’t know if AI will be able to get us back to late 2000s and 2010s search potential or if it will make it even harder to find genuine human opinions and experience.

Very pink!

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it Fate.” - Carl Jung

Three big global risks over the next decade, imo:

1. Insufficient energy security. Politicians pointing the direction for technology rather than technology itself leading the way.

2. Sovereign debt crisis combined with lack of establishment/institution credibility.

3. Widespread disregard for objectivity, combined with AI making it harder to verify what is true. Descent into tribalism.

In history, when existing institutions and power structures become antiquated/corrupted and are replaced, it's a highly vulnerable period for society. The shields are down.

What gets built in their place during that highly flexible period can be far better or worse. The tails of possible outcomes are fatter than usual.

The first two risks (severe energy and currency mismanagement) harm the remaining credibility of existing institutions and power structures and likely lead to their eventual demise.

The third risk affects the probabilities for what the new institutions and power structures will look like, in terms of being better or worse than what came before. It also affects the smoothness or severity of the transition from the current system/order towards the next system/order.

Tonight’s walk in the city