taryn on expo tech
taryn southern @TarynSouthern on surfing the expo tech.. convo w michael garfield
via michel bauwens tweet [https://x.com/mbauwens/status/1979066388892520519]:
* Taryn Southern on Surfing the Exponential Tech Tsunami https://michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/h-24? “On self-transformation as a way of life, its promises and occupational hazards.” (conversation with Michael Garfield)
and more from michel [https://x.com/mbauwens/status/1979066790769832224]:
person of interest: * Taryn Southern, https://michaelgarfield.substack.com/p/h-24? “Internet famous for being an early YouTube influencer and her album I Am AI, the first LP composed and produced with an LLM, she caught air at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2019 with the premier of her documentary I Am Human (co-directed with Elena Gaby), an intimate look at the lives of three people with implantable brain interfaces and the medical, ethical and societal implications.” She’s also produced an award-winning musical VR series for Google using Tiltbrush and Blocks, worked as Chief Storyteller for Blackrock Neurotech, minted the first song token on the Ethereum blockchain
and wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taryn_Southern]:
Taryn Southern (born 1986/1987) is an American public speaker, artist, and brand strategist who works with emerging technologies. She was formerly known for her work as a TV host, actress and YouTuber.
While in school, she competed in American Idol and received a grant to travel to Peru to study the shamanic use of ayahuasca among rainforest communities
In 2017, Southern received a grant from the Google Creator Lab to create experimental VR content. One piece, New World, won AT&T’s 2020 Film Award and another, Life Support, was nominated for a Streamy Award. Southern was also chosen to be an ambassador for The Geena Davis Institute Gender in Media #ShesGotDrive campaign to promote female voices in media.
Southern’s immersive content work led her to begin producing music with AI-based musical composition tools. In 2018, she released a music album titled I AM AI, where the instrumental backing music was generated using a variety of AI-based tools including Amper, an open source product which allows users to create music based on user generated inputs, IBM Watson Beat, Google Magenta and AIVA. ..Her song “New World” was tokenized using blockchain technology to enable hundreds of collaborators to split backend royalties on sales and streams of the track.
In April 2019, Southern debuted her first full-length feature documentary, I AM HUMAN, which explored the co-evolution of the human brain and technology. ..I AM HUMAN chronicled the journey of three real-world pioneers with implantable brain-computer interfaces.
By 2017, Southern had stopped posting regular content on her YouTube channel. She cited the YouTube algorithm as problematic for the digital community, and a desire to focus on other creative endeavors and experiments with emerging technology
In 2019, Southern was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. She completed a year of treatment in the summer of 2020, and has raised funds for an organization that provides cold cap medical treatments to young women with breast cancer
notes/quotes from 75 min video with michael garfield:
13 min – m: on visionary exploration.. who saw it differently.. being deprived.. feeling lack.. or intentionally limiting scope of one’s experience to allow other dimensions to flower in way that blind people have exquisite hearing
14 min – t: idea of being an explorer of modern era.. we’ve all been looking for next thing to explore.. born in 80s 90s it was tech/internet and ability to connect to new ideas/ways..
15 min – t: i remember being handed a meaning making game.. we’re all meaning making.. need that.. usually something like (in ks) .. here’s the bible.. if do will this be happy.. for some.. that’s enough.. others have to go out and experience everything to define own meaning making game.. want to collect as much data about world around me to create my own reality
to me.. meaning ness is a cancerous distraction.. not sure legit free people would be spending their days searching for it.. thinking they needed it..
17 min – m: on vagabonding.. and how travel/explore are transformative.. when come back.. what it means to try and find one’s place in the familiar that is in certain ways now very far in rearview.. i’ve always felt like an alien .. even w/my friends.. comfortable w solitude and social distance.. but we are human.. social creatures.. how do you deal with it.. as we exercise more and more agency.. what is it that keeps us together as a species.. how to remain a human species when talking about people living on diff planets.. how do we cohere thru this process
warning ness et al
20 min – t: i think the trick is in just accepting that coherence is a construct .. i become increasingly comfortable in chaos.. as a young person it felt very exciting and not very dark.. wasn’t until life started happening.. then you’re like.. who cares about this big existential.. whatever defn i have of being human i hold very lightly.. i don’t feel any threat about not being special .. or all my beliefs being disseminated over night.. i’m open to all of it being true and it shifting my sense of reality.. i love the idea that i’m not a real person.. if we are an assimilation.. highly unpredictable.. i’m just this agent w/o control.. i don’t find that threatening at all.. i don’t think it would change my behavior.. but i would find it very funny
23 min – m: comfortable w diff is a big trend.. response to knowing that are beliefs are starting to fray .. questions like.. what if you didn’t need a job.. over long term.. next 20-50 yrs.. will see people becoming more comfortable w what you are saying.. ie: no matter how diff we are.. we still all live in same planet.. at some point we tunnel all the way around and meet each other.. all reliant on same life chains.. have to agree/coord our behavior..
25 min – m: so question to you.. people like primavera de filippi.. on collab monster.. to incent positive sum interactions between strangers.. we don’t need to assume competitions.. ai could help us coord even if we hate each other
26 min – t: i hope.. this sythesis of people coming together and realizing we’re all of the same ilk.. all this narrative id stuff.. is nothing more than narrative.. i think ai will be transformative in facil ing these kinds of communication/collab.. for one.. just having an unemotional moderator who can use non violent communication in the face of really tough challenging interactions .. we’ve seen people being dissuaded/calmed after having 1 hr long convos guided by ai.. it’s going to be amazing.. a total meaning making crisis.. challenges we run into are people holding their beliefs so tightly.. i think we need a meaning making crisis
deeper than non violent.. unemotional.. ie: nonjudgmental..
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..
thurman interconnectedness law.. pearson unconditional law..
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
we need a problem deep enough to resonate w/8b today.. via a mechanism simple enough to be accessible/usable to 8b today.. in an ecosystem open enough to set/keep 8b legit free
ie: org around a problem deep enough (aka: org around legit needs) to resonate w/8b today.. via a mechanism simple enough (aka: tech as it could be) to be accessible/usable to 8b today.. and an ecosystem open enough (aka: sans any form of m\a\p) to set/keep 8b legit free
28 min – m: i’m really interested in using this show as surfacing the projects that are doing a really good job of the kind of utilization of ai to enhance processes of reflection you’re talking about.. and strategies people can adopt w the tools we have ie: using chatgpt to id blindspots on a daily basis.. this introspective dimension not getting enough air time in sales pitch for ai
29 min – t: i think it’s the most important element.. from lots of therapy over the years.. now you have this unlimited partner to help you navigate the hardest aspects of life.. some people don’t even know they have cognitive biases.. so won’t ask ai to help.. so tool asks people what they want in life.. they know.. just not how to get there.. so ie: they say: more present, less stressed et al .. so ai can look at those goals and back into various strategies to achieve those objectives by pulling in these diff tools
30 min – t: and every morning you could have convo with ai.. much like you would a therapist.. it asks you questions.. it helps id these areas that can use improvement.. that’s the key.. ai now is benefitting people who know what they want.. t
but no one really does.. need global detox leap.. otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness
so deeper than ie: non violent convos.. rather.. radically diff convos
ie: a nother way book et al
31 min – t: for me.. it’s navigating difficult convos.. where i struggle.. so to map out all my rough draft thoughts and ai can help me get better at arguing.. et al.. this would have been a total life changer for me.. the possibilities are endless.. will make everyone better communicators.. better project managers.. definitely made me less stressed.. using chatgpt for these convos..
so 1/2 of ai (whatever) capabilities.. missing the expo part.. of a global detox leap
ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
35 min – m: like alison gopnick talks about explorer.. of all people i’ve seen worried about diplacement by ai.. i think therapists fear it most
37 min – t: i think a lot of people are afraid of displacement.. i think it will take time for language/cultural transform.. concepts intrinsic to development movement weren’t around in my parent’s gen.. used to say that’s just crazy talk.. now we think if change thoughts in mind can change reality.. it think we’ll reach next version of ai.. not sure what articulation is.. but using these tools will massively improve your (personal) lives.. the more we can develop that language on what the end goals will be..
39 min – m: if i were a counselor and not making headway.. people still regard success and survival as prereq for art/philosophy/spiritual/transform work.. that you have to be self actualized first.. when in fact.. woven into concrete concerns like.. knowing right way when walking in woods.. now.. not as easy to divorce navigation from one’s ability to function in the world
aka: perpetuating survival triage.. need life over survival ness..
43 min – m: on getting used to google glass then they stop it.. how to deal w cory doctorow’s entshitification.. not answering to you but to board of directors.. but you’re still ie: locked on fb.. what do you see as adaptive strategies..
cory doctorow.. cory on ai et al
44 min – t: first i think we have to remove the veil of the ignorant.. ie: as long as we live in a capitalistic society w incentives being what they are.. we are all acting in ways mis aligned with that we believe is right/true/possible.. that doesn’t make me an anti capitalist.. i’m not well studied enough on all the ways to build our system to know which is the right system.. but certainly i’m under no illusion that these systems we’re regularly engaging with are in our best interests.. individual or collective.. we just don’t know.. we’re designing things that have not yet existed.. ie: giving everyone a voice.. but not realizing monster we’re creating et al.. in all spaces.. i’m initially attracted by the promise of what could be.. but in beginning can’t see 3rd/4th order.. i’d buy my own bs.. at the end of the day.. we have no idea what we’re building/destroying.. so some day i might just quit and live on a farm
black science of people/whales law et al
47 min – m @michaelgarfield: but.. who made your ax.. or when you are relying on people’s couches.. so don’t think that’s the solution either.. you’ve lived thru so many of these waves.. i think people get jaded.. and it’s cool to think you don’t.. i’ve experienced people jaded before they even see the promise.. like people abused as children and don’t want to have children.. so i’m really curious 1\ community oversight 2\ tech and parenting have a lot in common.. so what consistent patterns have you observed in failure mode.. that you can start to anticipate.. are there ways we can start drawing from bigger picture.. and say.. do things diff.. t things we should be mindful of attending to as a society.. what are those things
got you there.. wish we could talk.. nothing to date has gotten to the root of problem.. so nothing to date has been legit diff..
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
these become your red flags ness
50 min – t: the things we should become mindful of as we reach the next cycle?.. i don’t know if i’ve become better at predicting.. the potential neg implications of tech.. it’s possible.. i certainly feel the inevitability of that.. and i think you become more resilient of that.. i have a lot less fear/anxiety about these cycles.. just having a really lose hold on id.. and how things should look.. ie: ai, longevity, robotics, self driving cars, .. what are neg implications of these
52 min – m: this project came out of in part.. time i sent at mozilla thinking about what wise innovation looks like.. how we make sure wisdom keeps pace.. ie: harder to abuse kids if village is involved.. what i see as a failure mode: we don’t seem as a civilization to be able to get around fact that innovation starts out producing novelty for an elite.. and if lucky trickles to everyone else.. so .. what if only richest people have access for first 50 yrs.. how do we make this more equitable straight out of the gates..
54 min – t: yeah.. that’s a big one.. i’m super concerned about all the big maniac millionaires.. sickening that’s transformed us via money.. and that’s just one of many
perhaps let’s try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting/people telling other people what to do) as the planned obsolescence.. where legit needs are met w/o money.. till people forget about measuring..ie: sabbatical ish transition
m: at same time we have fab labs everywhere.. w all due respect to tristan harris.. all the horrible things.. maybe it’s not a good idea to shut down w fear mongering.. maybe think about upside we would lose in that process.. where do see people winning in this regard
tristan harris.. fablab ness.. gershenfeld something else law et al
56 min – t: this is the right question.. because so easy to focus on negatives.. the wins to me are so obvious.. ie: ed.. the access to info.. one reason people kept in lower socio econ is because of lack of ed.. now available to everyone.. info is power.. that’s huge.. i think we’ll see a huge overhaul of govt set ups.. towards more transparency/efficiency
oh my.. people telling other people what to do in order to get money.. oi..
57 min – t: i think cost of living will be much cheaper.. more efficient models for what we need.. sharing econ has already transformed that.. uber ing.. lot more trading systems.. that’s exciting.. people making do w less
58 min – m: i had howard rheingold on show.. he said.. there’s ed and then there’s learning.. getting easier for people to learn whatever they want to learn w/o the dependence on institutional ed system.. one thing i’m really trying to promote with this discourse.. this paradox we have to live with right now.. the very things disabling society are same processes that are allowing for all this possibility.. yeah a lot of dark.. but ai in particular amplifies bias we feed into .. so need to be deliberate about it
1:00 – m: i’m dis illuded.. ie: cutting programs could be bad.. ed et al.. but could come to no (gate holders).. ie: mature forest no light hits ground until crisis.. web waiting underground to catch tree when that happens.. if we learn to horizontally org with one another.. better when this disruption comes
1:02 – m: on the meaning making game.. all this introspective work as beginnings of change in way we think about sacred texts.. i look to you as central authority on .. now we can ask weird question that hadn’t been funded..
1:04 – t: creating local models.. opp to dramatically reduce complexity.. making sure all stake holders get opp to speak .. using tech to survey.. one of problems is knowing right questions to ask.. usually person leading ignoring right question.. there’s a process that needs to happen to integrate into society.. would love to see how it happens in govt.. love to see mayor say city is going to be all ai.. and see how town decisions change as a result of that.. this is all going to happen quickly.. interest strategy in next 12-18 mos.. each person creating specific sets of data about their life.. ie: finance data .. spendings, credit, financial objectives.. then ai guides you.. and this will go across every facet of your life.. ie: career, building the knowledge base of you and seeing that it’s accurate.. that can go on our behalf and advocate for our needs.. but it has to be accurate.. i think that’s necessary to get this right..
whoa.. says accurate a lot.. but all her ie’s are whalespeak.. ooof
1:09 – t: other element.. can’t be sending agents off to advocate for us.. we have to have feedback loop.. constant dialogue.. value of civic duty brought back.. feel empowered.. that our knowledge bases will be heard.. and more informed.. to make sure rep ing us appropriately
1:10 – m: jamie joyce working on this to provide citizen participation.. i’ll connect you.. who do you think deserves more opp to think
1:11 – t: i would say sharade burrell.. (?)
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be you. 