Was thinking on my feet lots in this podcast inspired by the superb provocations by Alexis and learning from her as I go. Let us know your thoughts on some of the concepts explored in this one via the comments as keen to learn more.
“When a Leader restores civility and fair play, eliminating dysfunction, it is not unusual for the Community Builders to join the good guys as they discover the personal empowerment inherent in authentic belonging. No longer able to manipulate circumstance and sully reputations, Dragons and Shapeshifters willingly leave, are dismissed, or they change their behavior to adjust to the new culture. Figureheads follow, or they are transferred out of leadership roles, opening up a space for the Creatives to get to work.” Surviving Work: A Creative’s Guide to Dysfunctional Cultures | Psychology Today
“The hasty imposition of a deal at the UN climate conference, Cop29, in Azerbaijan, over the objections of poorer nations has fractured global trust and undermined recent progress. This was supposed to be the “finance Cop” when two dozen industrialised countries – including the US, Europe and Canada – promised to pay developing nations for the damage caused by their rise. Instead, developing nations – led by a group including India, Nigeria and Bolivia – say this weekend’s agreement for $300bn a year in 2035 is too little, too late. Worse, rich-world governments will be able to escape their obligations by being able to rely on cash from private companies and international lenders.” The Guardian view on Cop29: poor-world discontent over a failure of rich countries to deliver | Editorial | The Guardian
“On a much grander scale, she and Zhao tell me they hope that Glaze and Nightshade will eventually have the power to overhaul how AI companies use art and how their products produce it. It is eye-wateringly expensive to train AI models, and it’s extremely laborious for engineers to find and purge poisoned samples in a data set of billions of images. Theoretically, if there are enough Nightshaded images on the internet and tech companies see their models breaking as a result, it could push developers to the negotiating table to bargain over licensing and fair compensation.” The AI lab waging a guerrilla war over exploitative AI | MIT Technology Review
“As the physical reality of the nation slips beneath the ocean, the government is building a digital copy of the country, backing up everything from its houses to its beaches to its trees. It hopes this virtual replica will preserve the nation’s beauty and culture – as well as the legal rights of its 11,000 citizens – for generations to come.” Tuvalu: The disappearing island nation recreating itself in the metaverse – BBC Future
“A paper by Tang and colleagues published in Nature Neuroscience in May 2023 gave an example. When one participant listened to the words, “I didn’t know whether to scream, cry, or run away. Instead, I said, ‘Leave me alone!’”, the AI decoded the thought as: “Started to scream and cry, and then she just said, ‘I told you to leave me alone. You can’t hurt me.’” “It’s not perfect, but it’s shockingly good for using fMRI,” Huth said at a February 2024 meeting of the National Institutes of Health’s Neuroethics Working Group, where he discussed his and his team’s work.” We Want to Hear Your Thoughts | Discover Magazine
An extension which works on Chromium browsers to transfer your Twitter followers to your Bluesky account.
What’s New In Unicode 16.0 (or latest emoji’s to drop which includes Face with Bags Under Eyes, Fingerprint, Splatter, Root Vegetable, Leafless Tree, Harp, Shovel, Flag: Sark).
December 6th is the deadline for the Fast Company ‘World Changing Ideas Awards’ which focuses on “products, concepts, companies, and policies that are designed to make the world safer, cleaner, more sustainable, and more equitable.“
Developing the ecosystem of wisdom, community-led governance and the stewardship of care.
A few weeks ago at HATCH 20, the above talk closed out an evening and left the whole audience in wonderful awe.
In a little over twenty minutes, this gentle offering was fierce in revealing the compassionate truth of where humanity finds itself, and invited us all to be buoyed in the potential of embracing the cooperative choice of prioritising community and connection through feeling / sensing.
For me, what was revealed is what we innately know: living is giving, and love is the only path.
After Forrest finished speaking, it felt like the whole room sighed, together.
Through the welcome tears I wrote the following on one of my mundane postcards and gifted it quickly to Forrest later on in proceedings:
“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” Carl Sagan
Click play above for a energetic deconstruction regarding the elements of said talk, a detailed verbal essay which pulls out the storytelling components I was using plus the highlights which mattered to them. All whilst offering further insights and broadening out the lessons learned plus sharing their own experiences as well.
UPDATED WITH VIDS: A little side Cymru-Aotearoa / Wales-New Zealand project.
A few months ago in a catch-up with the superb Robin Moore, the topic of collaborating (again) came up, specifically around activating my network in the media industry from my time in New Zealand and if there was anyway to share insights back into the Welsh ecosystem.
What followed is alignment with Media Cymru and the opportunity for me develop the following three unique learning opportunities (click on the images below to go to the event listings to sign up)—CHECK OUT THE VIDEOS BELOW:
I’ll be facilitating said events and doing my best to extract applicable lessons, build some bridges plus allow our guests to shine.
Join us and / or spread the word to others in Wales, please and thank you!
““A factor of 10 is an enormous difference, and this is what happens when you look at a reproduction compared to a real work,” said Martine Gosselink, director of the Mauritshuis, on Wednesday. “You become [mentally] richer when you see things, whether you are conscious of it or not, because you make connections in your brain.” Gosselink said she had been convinced of the power of the real before the study but had wanted her hunch to be formally investigated. “We all feel the difference – but is it measurable, is it real?” she said she had asked her colleagues a year ago. “Now, today we can really say that it is true.”” Real art in museums stimulates brain much more than reprints, study finds | Neuroscience | The Guardian
“Let’s be clear: the UK’s mooted copyright scheme would effectively enable companies to nick our data – every post we make, every book we write, every song we create – with impunity. It would require us to sign up to every individual service and tell them that no, we don’t want them to chew up our data and spit out a poor composite image of us. Potentially hundreds of them, from big tech companies to small research labs. Lest we forget, OpenAI – a company now valued at more than $150bn – is planning to forswear its founding non-profit principles to become a for-profit company. It has more than enough money in its coffers to pay for training data, rather than rely on the beneficence of the general public. Companies like that can certainly afford to put their hands in their own pockets, rather than ours. So hands off.” Here’s the deal: AI giants get to grab all your data unless you say they can’t. Fancy that? No, neither do I | Chris Stokel-Walker | The Guardian
““The existing structure of OpenAI is quite convoluted,” said Brian Quinn, a professor at Boston College law school. “If they simplify their structure in some way and have a public benefit corporation as the parent company, they can make as much money as they want.” The ChatGPT developer is reportedly heading for a valuation of $150bn under the new fundraising, making it worth nearly as much as Uber. Apple and the chipmaker Nvidia are among the companies cited in reports as potential investors in the funding round.” OpenAI planning to become for-profit company, say reports | OpenAI | The Guardian
“The TikTok owner launched its own web scraper, Bytespider, in April, and it’s now scraping data multiple times faster than bots from other companies, Fortune reported, citing research from Kasada, a bot management company, and Dark Visitors, a monitor of scraper bots. Companies developing AI models, such as Google and Meta, use scraper bots to gather data to train and improve the large language models (LLMs) and multimodal models that power the companies’ AI services.” TikTok owner ByteDance scrapes the web faster than OpenAI
“Kline sat at his keyboard between the lime-green walls of UCLA’s Boelter Hall Room 3420, prepared to connect with Duvall, who was working a computer halfway across the state of California. But Kline didn’t even make it all the way through the word “L-O-G-I-N” before Duvall told him over the phone that his system crashed. Thanks to that error, the first “message” that Kline sent Duvall on that autumn day in 1969 was simply the letters “L-O”.” ‘We were just trying to get it to work’: The failure that started the internet
“This week, Balaji posted an essay on his personal website, in which he argued that OpenAI was breaking copyright law. In the essay, he attempted to show “how much copyrighted information” from an AI system’s training dataset ultimately “makes its way to the outputs of a model.“ Balaji’s conclusion from his analysis was that ChatGPT’s output does not meet the standard for “fair use,” the legal standard that allows the limited use of copyrighted material without the copyright holder’s permission.” Former OpenAI Staffer Says the Company Is Breaking Copyright Law and Destroying the Internet
WATCH
EXPLORE
The Mudita Kompakt is live on Kickstarter and fun attempt at cutting out the digital distractions of a phone (apart from the e-ink this can be achieved with any phone though but good for kids as a dumb phone).
The WikiProject AI Cleanup aims combat the increasing problem of unsourced, poorly written AI-generated content on Wikipedia.
Linkwarden is a self-hosted, open-source collaborative bookmark manager to collect, organize and archive webpages.
A unique conference where hugs are longer / more sincere.
Situated in the high desert of Bend, Oregon at the superb Juniper Reserve, the four-day-20th-anniversary event of HATCH just rocked my soul.
This was my fifth time attending (see 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2023 write-ups) so I knew what to expect, however, what blossomed for me was the understanding that even though the events of this past year had broken me in many ways, HATCH broke me open…
…open to connect (with self / others / ideas), to listen (really listen), to appreciate music, to dance, to explore, to talk, to sing, to move, to write, to participate, to observe, to learn, to lead, to play, to be tempted, to be.
A cherished time which greatly expanded my already hungry curiosity, accelerated my muted creative belief / potential whilst amplifying the obvious but not-heard-often-enough-truth that we all need other humans to thrive.
Dual badger.
Apparently, I was the first to register this year and was honoured to play a dual role: as an attendee / alum and also leading a reflection activation on the last day / eve, running a pop-up session on speaking with purpose, facilitating an ‘intention session’ plus arrived a day early to help set-up:
Attendees are medley of seekers, doers, artists, creatives, business greats, technologists, environmentalists, investors, next generation’ers—simply, a confluence of talent (what I learned after my first two is not to be awed but instead be playful / grateful in the possibility to learn from impressiveness):
One of the cornerstone pieces of any HATCH is the ‘ask and offer’ whereby the community is invited to create in-situ the reciprocal-ness we all need to flourish. For most, the offer part is easy, it’s the ask which causes challenges as it should be personal, honest and intentional. These are then displayed for the duration, amended and added to via other offers from those in the room who can aid the call:
My ask of the community.
HATCH is the most effective event I know at creating the conditions for people to feel trust, find purpose, see kindness manifest and generate creative value. All stemming from the curative skills of the organisers, the space / place, the talks / sessions offered, emotional positioning by the MC’s, as well as those who answer the call to step into the unknown and embrace the fluid nature of the experience:
Thank you HATCH for again being there when I needed it. For allowing me to be seen. For providing the space and place for others to shine. For giving us the belief that connection, true human connection is the currency of success.
BONUS playlist from some of the artists sharing their talents on stage:
Recalling the usual-ness of this solo experience— Like rediscovering an old comfortable sweater. Wandering slow. Accompanied by hues, Flashes of soul-renders, deliberate Patterning and curatorial invitations. Inviting considerations to a more aesthetic path. Re-emerging from we to me.
Taken from when we recorded the below audio podcast episode
A new leadership framework coming soon (wink-face-emoji).
What a joy to converse with fellow curious soul Digby Scott on his new fortnightly podcast, Dig Deeper, conversations with depth to change the way you lead:
We talk about mundanity (it’s now a word, sod off!), hobbies, context vs content, audacity, white space, delegate experience design, what’s eternal, hearing, listening, speaking, storytelling, coaching, translation / narration / curation / host leadership™ plus what the world needs more of.
Hope you enjoy and thank you again Digby for the opportunity to spend time with you again!
“But how can I not want to write a book? And I get it: writing a book is sacred and unquestionable, the ultimate achievement for Western intellectuals—better than being arrested in a protest (because you don’t have to get sweaty), better than a PhD (because not so devalued), and better even than going to Harvard (because that mostly means you got lucky in admissions). It’s something I’ve definitely aspired to since I became a bookworm: imagining joining the pantheon of authors shelved in my local library, to be able to hold my hardcover book in my hands (perhaps even one with… gilt-edged pages?), and carp about how ‘the publisher chose the cover’.” Why To Not Write A Book · Gwern.net
“Meta has acknowledged that all text and photos that adult Facebook and Instagram users have publicly published since 2007 have been fed into its artificial intelligence models. Australia’s ABC News reports that Meta’s global privacy director, Melinda Claybaugh, initially rejected claims about user data from 2007 being leveraged for AI training during a local government inquiry about AI adoption before relenting after additional questioning.” Meta fed its AI on everything adults have publicly posted since 2007 – The Verge
“More and more researchers across specialties are questioning our current definitions of depression. Biological anthropologists have argued that depression is an adaptive response to adversity and not a mental disorder. In October, the British Psychological Society published a new report on depression, stating that “depression is best thought of as an experience, or set of experiences, rather than as a disease.” And neuroscientists are focusing on the role of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in depression. According to the Polyvagal Theory of the ANS, depression is part of a biological defense strategy meant to help us survive.” We’ve Got Depression All Wrong. It’s Trying to Save Us. | Psychology Today
“In a shocking revelation, it has come to light that one of Facebook’s alleged marketing partners, Cox Media Group (CMG), has been using sophisticated technology to listen to users’ smartphone microphones and advertise to them based on their conversations… In the same pitch deck, CMG claimed that major tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and Amazon, were clients of its “Active Listening” service. However, the response from these companies has been varied and cautious.” Facebook partner admits smartphone microphones listen to people talk to serve better ads – Inshort
