Hi Readers,
This is my third livestream of the year and I’m already seeing the benefits I derive simply from doing them.
I get to think out loud, stumble my way along, come to insights, repeat myself, come to an interesting insight, practice being in front of a mic under pressure, and do all of it in an unstructured and raw way. It serves as a nice complement to writing.
I am going to pivot from the livestream format and pre-record these instead. The nice thing about being early is that quick pivots are easy and smooth to make before they become embedded in process. I may bring back livestreams in the future solely for Q&A. We shall see what comes with time.
This livestream starts quite abruptly since the first few minutes were cut. This was a fun one to go through.
Notes are below.
Wishing you all a great weekend.
Take care, Everyone!
Dom
TLDR
Moved into the drafting phase of the novel.
Talked through my philosophy on AI and writing. Where I personally draw the line but what I think the industry gets wrong. As always, these ideas are my current thoughts, always subject to change considering the evolving nature of both the AI systems and the ideas I’m subject to.
Explored the “Connection Economy.”
Discussed the singularity, fast vs slow takeoff, and the Moltbook experiment.
Thought through how weird and unpredictable superintelligent AI could actually feel.
Thoughts on singularity timeline and improving social media.
Key Ideas & Flow
02:00–14:00 — AI & Writing Philosophy
My rule: AI does not put words on the page.
Use AI for:
Research
Brainstorming
Thesaurus-like support
My core belief: The act of human creation almost certainly has some emotionally embedded significance that we don’t explicitly understand and doing away with it would serve a massive harm to creators and consumers.
The nuance is, just because I don’t use it for my art, doesn’t mean that’s the only way. If someone manages to use it for a new artistic medium—or as an augmentation to old ones—and it enhances their specific creativity and they still derive some kind of emotional resonance significant to them, who am I to judge how they engage with the creative act. If they feel they get something important from it, Godspeed.
But…
The missing piece (which I’m surprised doesn’t exist already): a labeling mechanism along with some definitions so that consumers know what they’re consuming. I’d like to know if I’m consuming something from a human or an AI.
14:00–20:00 — The Connection Economy
Revisited an idea from an old frontier letter - The Connection Economy.
20:00–25:00 — Event Horizon - Is the Singularity Approaching?
Time feels like it’s going quicker. The speed of the news cycle is madness. AI development isn’t slowing.
I discuss what the Singularity is, thoughts on whether it’s approaching and what that would actually look like.
Hint: there’s no way of knowing.
25:00–33:00 — AI Agents Creating Religions or Human-Prompted Theater?
The Moltbook saga and my insights from it.
33:00–37:00 — What a Real Singularity Might Feel Like
An absurd but useful example of the Singularity:
You wake up. Get ready for your day. Step out your door. Boom. Stone monoliths are soaring through the sky and warping in ways we didn’t know stone could warp. Spherical stones…huh?
You drop to your knees. “Holy—” You reach for your phone. “ChatGPT, what’s going on?”
It responds in advanced hieroglyphic math.
A consortium of leading scientists form. They step to the podium. Poised for reassurance, everyone tunes in.
The scientists: “It appears there are stones in the sky, and the system only speaks in unknown terms.”
##
This is of course a wacky little story, but that’s the point: if the singularity is something that can actually happen, it would happen in such a way that we could not comprehend.
Imagine going back in time, and installing a working HVAC system in a medieval castle while everyone was out on a hunt. They would come back, greeted by the nice cool air. Yes, they’d reap the benefits, but even their smartest minds wouldn’t be able to understand what the system was doing because they didn’t have an understanding of advanced thermodynamics or electrical engineering.
If the singularity is a real point, what kind of technology would AI create given their knowledge being potentially thousands of years ahead of ours?
37:00–41:00 — Dead Internet Theory and the Collapse of Trust
41:00–43:00 — How Close Is the Singularity?
43:00–51:00 — If I Had a Magic Wand for Social Media, This is What I’d do
Kevin Kelly’s “1,000 True Fans.”
Ideal algorithm:
Distills reach to True Fans as quick and accurately as possible. Then, something like Substack is the portal which allows a creator to deliver anything the true fans might want.
