Holding Onto Our Humanity
It doesn't have to be a magic act. It's all about intention in an era of AI.
Pardon the interruption. But this is something we all need to hear. What follows is a blend of poetry, philosophy and a cautionary tale to an ever-changing industry.
It is not a magic act? No. You might say it’s an unrequited letter to humanity asking us all “How can we hold on to our humanity in an age of AI?”
We ponder. We wonder. So, let’s begin with a poem titled “Awoken Within”
The journey began when I was awoken by a star. I didn't know it then, but my journey would lead me on a search for who I am. Along the way I experienced growth. I encountered glances of the galactic. I chose to listen inward, everward. As a result, I lost the script. I gained my words. When I reached my destination, I learned all I need to know resides within. Because of my journey I know I will write the stories that need to be told. I trust the deepening of our journeys.
I read those lines in the opening of a recent discussion with Amy Lynn Durham on her podcast, “Create Magic at Work.” It’s garnered quite a response. Understandably so.
Artificial Intelligence used to seem like a fantasy from the future. And felt like a magic trick the first time we saw it before our very eyes. But here is the thing, it’s not magic. It’s a model. And it is mirroring what we already know. And if we look close enough, we will see the unseen, the ways to hold on to our humanity.
Each time we enter a prompt, I feel like we are shooting arrows into the sky, each attached with a note of intention, tied with possibility and secured with gratitude. We never know where these arrows will land. Just like each prompt we enter renders results that are different each time.
And with the unexpected and over promoted, it has been amazing to watch it all unfold with the pace of change we’ve never seen in our lifetime. Just like with every technology that influences our lives, we find ourselves and our humanity emerging and converging all at once.
And we are just getting started.
I recently heard a term ascribed to me for the work I am doing in this nexus of technology and humanity. Edgewalker. And I have referred to myself in recent interviews as a rebel healer. And I think to strike the chord that resounds in all of us, the tune to our humanity, we all need to rebel at just the right time. That time is now.
I first started this dance with AI in 2021. I call it a dance because it requires different motions, different movements, and a deep listening while finding a newfound frequency. And I found myself at attuned to this frequency and at the forefront of this apex when I worked at Microsoft a number of years ago.
Having lead teams and organizations and people through change for close to 25 years, I've seen many acts and arcs of change in my day. And this AI trend as we're seeing in this era of AI is that next evolution for us, all of us. And it is significantly consequential for our generation, probably the most significant change we've seen since the advent of the World Wide Web.
My professional path and pursuits led me to be invited to work at Microsoft to help some of the people that were designing these tools understand the impact on our humanity. And early on it was my conversations with the people that were designing the product, engineering the product, and talking with customers, that led to a shift in my perspective and their predictions.
While I didn’t know it then, I was probably the one person in the room, digital room or otherwise, that was asking the question: “How is this going to impact our livelihood?” And people were responding with even more questions: “What do you mean?” looking puzzled at me through the screen.
And I responded, “Well if AI can do all of these things that we used to do personally or manually or even collaboratively, and it can do it for us, my next question is how are people expected to spend their time when in fact all the things that made us valuable, all the things that made us adequate, can now be done faster more efficiently in some cases more creatively?”
“Who am I left to be? If my entire identity was wrapped up in this producing something that can now be replicated by something that is not human? Who am I?”
And I believe that precise question “Who am I?” is one of the hardest questions that any human can sit with. And it kept coming up, in every conversation, but nobody had an answer for it.
And so, I chose to dive headfirst into this quandary, right into this paradox, headfirst into this conundrum, and ultimately try and figure out, not the answers, but rather what are the additional questions that keep coming up that we're not asking when it comes to AI?
And as a result, I found myself at the intersection now guiding large companies, teams, nonprofits, schools and institutions when they're looking at AI.
See, it's not just about the benefit and productivity and efficiency but rather it's wholeheartedly what about the humanity? What does it do to us? What do we give over to it?
And part of the reason I chose to start my publishing career with poetry is because we're in this soup of generated content, and it is coagulating. There is so much content being generated by machines today, not by humans, and that's only going to accelerate.
I chose very intentionally to start with poetry because I believe poetry is an art. It is a craft. And at its purest, it is an act of rebellion.
It is a spiritual speaking that no machine can do as beautifully as a human. So, I wanted to make my imprint and tell people I have a point of view on this, and I think we need to work really hard to hold on to our humanity at this time.
And so that's how I got into AI. And the more I learned the more I continue to learn because it's changing every day. I have to reacquaint everyday with the word “inadequate.” I think it's a beautiful word. How do we hold the inadequacy and hold on to our humanity? These are the questions I'm asking when it comes to AI.
It's not just about implementation. It's about implication. It's not just about collaboration. It's about culture. It's not just about savings. It's about spirituality.
And anyone can read the headlines right now. The ones I read say Scarlett Johansson with action against OpenAI because they used the likeness of her voice from the movie HER on their latest model. That is an essence of someone's humanity that has been taken and replicated and put out there.
All while during the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony the world got to hear one of the purest voices sing once again, after we thought we wouldn’t. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the world responded to that event as it did. It is the epitome of our humanity in song.
If we continue to do accept what is inhumane, it means by default, we are rejecting our humanity. And without honoring it, without recognizing it and without healing it we're going to lose who we are. And I for one don't want to do that.
This is a quantum conundrum, and so how do we proceed and succeed?
I think there's a couple things that come to mind for me because we're talking about quantum computing, the power of quantum computing and the resources it takes that make all this possible. The other piece I want others to think about is quantum entanglement. To me it's very much about the intention and the manifestation that you put into these technologies that determine how we live.
We are at this precipice now where it used to be culture that influenced the technology that we built to improve or enhance our lives. It is now technology that we are building to either influence and impact or enhance our culture. And I think that switch happened almost overnight.
And while we weren't looking, and if we're not careful, and in some cases this is already happening, there are many people that are sleepwalking through this and they think that they are in fact guiding the ship, but the ship is guiding them. Do we need to rewatch the Alien film saga? Do you remember where the ship, MOTHER took them and why?
So, when I think about the quantum element of this, and the inherent quantum leadership of this, I encourage people to go back to the core basics of stillness of intention of meditation of nature. I don't believe that we can stop this train. I do believe that we can make sure that we don't lose who we are while on this train.
There are some things that to me will always be true. Nature will always be true the elements will always be true our breath will always be true. The ability to sit in stillness and let your own mind wander and daydream and in many cases dream. And some people have these dreams that tell them things. A lot of stuff downloads to us when we're in a state of rest a deep, deep rest.
To me that is where the sanctity and the sacred art is going to come from in the future. That's where the poetry is going to come from beyond. That's where innovations that will not be made by machines but will only be crafted by man or woman will be possible. And to me it's almost like we're going to have a different kind of renaissance.
There is an awakening happening. I think I was early on in that awakening. Like Neo, who woke up too early in his pod. I think there's a number of people that silently are having an awakening and choosing to use this technology differently not to give over to it but to let it augment to let it be a companion.
And that's where I get excited because it can open up a lot of possibilities.
The currency still resides in the questions, not in the answers.
There's a level of loneliness that the world is battling. It has been battling for a really long time. And when people type into a ChatGPT or a Copilot or anything of that realm there's a few things I know to happen. One is those non-human entities will never tell the person that's entering the query that they're wrong. And that's a wonderful feeling, but it's a false feeling.
The other observation of mine is the people that enter that query, oftentimes, they're doing it from a place of loneliness. Of wanting to belong. Of wanting to know so that they can belong. Yes, there is a dangerously ignored undercurrent to all of this. And we’ve no warning flags on the beach.
You and I have seen, loneliness can come in many forms. I want to be connected to another person. I want to be connected to more knowledge. I want to be connected to an experience that reminds me I'm alive. That's the pursuit of knowledge. That’s the reason we get up each morning. It’s to belong.
So, to me it's wonderful that we are at a place where technology can attempt to address loneliness, but we mustn’t be fooled by its output just yet. As an example, I can go into ChatGPT and enter a prompt:
“How would I help a friend who is struggling with substance addiction?” OR “What's a way in which I could write a letter to a family that's trying to help a family member that is encountering anxiety.”
Those are all big questions, and when we sit with them alone, we immediately are gripped by not knowing where to start. It's too big. Too big to get your arms around, much less your heartbroken for.
And it all seems so wonderful that we have this non-human entity that can go scrape all this knowledge and help us get started. Some people call it the first draft advantage, but I for one don't want it to replace the heartbreak. It will never replace the hope. And it will never replace the heartbreak that comes along with being human through learning and trying and relating.
And that's where I get a little bit worried. I mean those of you have seen the movie HER. Or how about the film The Creator. It's all coming true.
And our emerging habits, like the race to the bottom of the brainstem, are not too dissimilar from the way that we came to use social media. Think about the way we use social media, how we give over to it. We've all seen the examples where people endlessly scroll, whether it's on TikTok or Instagram or Reels or Shorts or whatever it is that you choose to spend your time on.
Whether we know it or not we're putting our energy force into that. We are feeding the machine with our attention, our gestures and our intention. And each time we are scrolling or watch, like the slot machines at casinos, we are feeding the machine we will never win against.
We are feeding it input and data and it's feeding us the algorithm. And that algorithm is hijacking our senses. It knows what a dopamine hit is. It knows what color to use, what audio tracks to use, what haptics to introduce. It knows how to intentionally trick you into thinking that you're being served up the thing that you need most in that moment. And that is all done unconsciously, and I think quite dangerously.
There's a lot that people can read about how families and organizations are trying to take back that sacred power. And sadly, I think we're losing that war. And the reason is because at the base we're animals. We're humans, but we are animals. And we can easily be hijacked by that sort of pleasure principle or that sense of connection which is false connection.
If you take that into AI, I think it gets more complex, and it's more profound more quickly because we now have introduced this new place where we can say, almost perplexed, “Wait, this container in which I can go into, I can ask it questions. I can have a conversation with it I can create with it. I can tell it to play devil's advocate. I can tell it to be my best friend. I can tell his to do things for me.
All of this is creating essentially this falsification of the human experience. There already are personas being created. Kendall Jenner has one out there right that you yourself can have essentially what appears to be to you a conversation with Kendall Jenner. But it's not really Kendall Jenner. It's an avatar that has been backed up by a large language model to make it seem that Kendall Jenner can be your best friend.
This is what I mean when I worry about us all sleepwalking through all of this. Because when we make decisions knowingly with baked in falsehoods and phantoms we blissfully overlook, we are choosing a dangerous fate. We know the fact that this is not real, and we choose to do it anyway for the pleasure and for the sense of phantom connectedness. That to me is sleepwalking through it.
And that is dangerous because we lose a sense of what is real, we lose a sense of what is pure. And that's why I believe that beyond all this I think we're going to turn back to the stoics. We're going to turn back to the philosophers. We're going to turn to the poets because at some point in the future those creations, those manifestos, those stanzas are going to be the only sources of knowledge that weren't written or co-written or co created by a machine.
So that's where I'm spending my time to make sure that I'm not sleepwalking. And that is where this poem titled “Fight the Autofill” emerged from, and active fight to not sleepwalk into this next era.
Isn't every entry a tug of war with a wiser machine?
Suggestions are supposed to be shaping but it feels like it's just excavating eviscerating me.
If not for my words my purest thoughts unheard then who am I left to be in a sea of soliloquy?
When I say my every when I mean my every when.
Don't force your wheres and days on me so suggestively, surreptitiously, lazily
Will we ever, see?
I fight I choose to fight. Every tap I zap that floating x keeps coming back.
Those grayed out letters tease me seducing me like the coming of a familiar song on a list that plays you
Hovering saying wouldn't it just be easy to let me complete thee?
I am not here to teach the lifeless envisioning idea of silica.
To speak for me is to truncate me, efficiency be damned.
It's suffocating who we are who we strive and strain to be free.
Fight the autocorrect. Fuck your autofill.
We are too complex and ought to be completed mostly by the stars and layers long since deleted.
What's in that poem is the paradox, and it is the struggle. And I encourage people reading this to not run away from that feeling that you're feeling. You know that one in which you wonder: “Is this inadequacy I am holding or I'm feeling behind or perhaps I don't feel okay about all of this.”
And remember there's a reason you don’t. There's a fire that is unique inside of you. Every single one of us have it. Think of it like your pilot light. I think as we each face these challenges and look at these technologies and something inside of you will say do what you can to hold on to what makes you you.
I am that I am means we can seek out what is unique in others. Not to be mimicked, replicated or generated. If we can remember amidst all this noise that by seeing, by recognizing, by acknowledging the humanity in others, we bring out the humanity in us. It's why when people are in a state of depression or anxiety one of the first things people recommend that they can do is something to help another human.
Go volunteer. Go connect. Go be with an elderly person to hear their story. Take time to remember the beauty and the humanity and fragility in this entire experiment called life. And remember, gratitude is oftentimes our greatest medicine.
As I think in all this technology blur, I want so much for others seek out that clarity in our humanity and let it light up your own humanity. And get to that place where you're feeling that spiritual connection to all that that makes you unique to who you are.
Then, start writing, start journaling. Put something down in some place that is not a machine. Hold a pen, doodle on paper. Nearly every piece of poetry started off in a journal or diary somewhere. And that journey from journal to publication is never linear. Poems don’t come to life on sequential pages. They are spread across diaries over the course of 20 years.
Because at some point, in all our lives, we need to revisit those things. And rather than have a conversation with a chatbot, how about having a conversation with the young kid in you who once wrote a set of words in a diary or a journal. When the words emerged then, now pop off the page with a whole new vibrancy.
There is a power in the art of human writing or drawing or singing or crafting or sculpting… something that is divinely you and cannot be replicated is part of this journey.
I believe that's the only way we will find our way alongside some of this technology. We must dance back into our own humanity. There is no right move. No perfect step. The only right is what is pure and allows you to listen from the inside, to understand your convictions, stand in your values, and assess these things through those lenses. That's the only right answer.
When I close my eyes and imagine where we may be headed…
I can sense but not yet see that we will over index on all of this, that people will get to a place where they cannot trust anything as they do not know whether it has fidelity, whether it has provenance, whether it has credibility. And as a result, there will be a pushback, a rejection at a level unexpected by humanity of all things that are in fact not crafted made curated or touched by humans. And so, if I close my eyes and I think about it I can literally imagine us almost having a reverse revolution where people are going to want to go into spaces and places that have only ever been influenced, made structured, or put together by human ingenuity and human imperfection. And I think there's going to be these imprints of imperfection that suddenly become far more priceless than anything that resides in the realm of ones and zeros. We may find ourselves going to where it appears that we're going backwards, according to some. I hope that is not triggered by some cataclysmic event, but I sense that. And it's in those moments we will need our humanity.
If all of this turns off and all of the power is gone it doesn't really mean anything. And then we're left in our homes with our books and our candlelight, and our journal prompt cards hopefully. And that to me is what I sense but I cannot see yet. I'm trying not to paint too dark a picture, but I think you know where I'm going.
The world once gave us a quantum reminder that we don’t need permission to slow down. And part of what we've overlooked in that chrysalis of time is what would actually bring us progress in the art and the craft and the creativity of something that cannot be generated.
We keep hearing about Generative AI. I understand that what underlies it. What powers it is really powerful, and it can do a lot of things, but I want people to think about what society might need instead. What progress might be hinging upon that which cannot be generated, but can only be created by you, singly, individually spiritually, universally. That is what I want people to think about when they think about progress ahead.
There are wisdom nudges and they're coming from the other side of the void which we do not understand. The most direct path is from your mind, through a pen or pencil and onto paper.
I sometime rewatch movies like Interstellar to remind myself of all that we do not know. To acquaint with the little nudges from the other side. Maybe someday this extensible digital canvas will be that for someone who is reading, wondering and pondering who we once were in the early days of the age of AI.