Socrates

Chapter 5: The Importance of Story [Narratives and MTP’s]

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ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

Chapter 5: The Importance of Story

“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” Patrick Rothfuss

Stories are not just stories. Stories matter. Because, to paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche, if one has a sufficiently strong “why” one can endure any “how.” And the “why” comes not from facts or events. It comes from the story we attach to them. This desire to meaning is secondary only to the desire to survive: as soon as survival is not at stake, meaning becomes the primary motivation. But sometimes, even when survival is at stake, meaning can provide motivation for survival. That’s how important story is.

For example, if one is suffering greatly one can decide that it is meaningless to go on and give up on life. Or, like Viktor Frankl, one can choose a story that attaches positive meaning to their suffering and thus be motivated to endure even the living hell of Auschwitz. And this is true for individuals, or larger groups of people, such as corporations, religions or nations. As Frankl said:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

So, we are free to choose the story even when we are not free to choose our circumstances. Thus, the story is our “why” while the circumstances are merely our “how.” And the story is what ultimately makes the difference. Because a story is something that helps us feel connected to a reason and, more importantly, to a purpose.

For example, in the case of larger groups of people – such as corporations, story is the glue that brings everyone together and motivates them to cooperate and overcome obstacles. And so, in the past couple of decades, the most successful organizations have come up with what has been called a Massively Transformative Purpose [MTP]. [Salim Ismail, Exponential Organizations, page 53]

An MTP is the distilled essence of a story that captures who this organization is for and what’s its mission or purpose. For example, Google’s MTP is “organize the world’s information.” TED’s MTP is “ideas worth spreading.” Deep Mind’s MTP is “Solve intelligence. Use it to make the world a better place.” Calico’s MTP is “solve death.” Mark Zuckerberg’s new charity foundation’s MTP is “cure all disease.” Doctors Without Borders’ MTP is “medical aid where it is needed most.” [Having an MTP is particularly important for Millennials for whom the story of money is often not a sufficient “why.”]

Larger groupings of people such as religions and nations also utilize the power of story to forge their respective religious or national identity. Thus Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism all tell their own mythical stories. And the more we believe in those stories, the more we identify ourselves as Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Hindu. But nations or ideologies such as Liberalism, Humanism, Feminism, and Capitalism do it too. So, a Japanese identifies with the story that Japan – i.e., Nippon, is the “land of the rising Sun” – i.e., “the land of the Gods.” An American identifies with the story of “the land of opportunity” where everyone is free to pursue the “American dream.” A capitalist identifies with the “invisible hand” of the “free market”. A humanist identifies with the story that humanity is “the pinnacle of evolution”, “the supreme intelligence” and “the ultimate authority.”

Chapter 4: The Power of the Storyteller

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ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

Chapter 4: The Power of the Storyteller

“Stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal.” Howard Gardner

Before we have a story, any story, we must first have a storyteller. And that storyteller is a god, because within their narrative they are all-powerful, almighty and omnipotent. That’s why religion is among the most powerful stories of our civilization. And, naturally, the storyteller of such a popular story is, of course, a god. Or the son of God. Or the prophet of God. Or in the image of God. And he sets the rules and the laws, what is good and evil, what is right and wrong, what is and what is not possible. He tells us how to dress, what to eat, how to live, how to relate to each other, who must marry whom, where we are coming from, why we are here, what is the purpose of life and where we go after death. If we believe his story, we are going to not only listen to but also obey his “commandments.”

It is for this reason that nations and even corporations are also made by mythical stories. Because myth-making is team-building is nation-building is world-making – stories told on a different scale. The myth helps us make sense of the world as well as establish our proper place in it – whether as individuals, corporations or nations. It gives us both meaning and purpose. So, as long as we all believe in the same story, we will cooperate. And we are likely to obey the people who tell those stories. This is true not only in religion and politics but also in business, entertainment, music, art, science, etc. Because those who tell the most popular stories are the most powerful people. And ultimate success in telling a story grants access to ultimate power.

Up until now, it was humans who told stories. Naturally, those stories end up with humans being the central entity. But let us examine how our place in the story has changed through time.

Historically, we started with the story of animism where the world around us was imbued with feelings, and everything had a soul. There was no barrier between humans, animals, trees, stones, and rivers, and we were not above them in any way. One day we killed a wild animal to feed and clothe ourselves. The next day an animal could kill us to feed itself and its offspring. We had respect for all living things and considered them as equals in the great web of life.

Then the story of Theism brought hierarchy, and centralization of power, in the hands of one or many Gods. Since we humans – the storytellers, were naturally in the image of God [or God was in the image of us ;-] we placed ourselves just a step below Him, and all other animals got pushed down the ladder. The world became our “garden,” and everything in it was ours for the taking, including all “soulless” animals.

Finally, we came up with the story of the centrality of the human being – of how we are the pinnacle of evolution, the supreme intelligence – i.e. the sole measure, beginning and end of everything, and the masters of nature. So we made quick work of God and replaced him with us. Then we downgraded the animals even further down to the rank of mere Cartesian automata – machines unable to think, feel or suffer. [Or “resources” to be “harvested.”] Consequently, we could enslave and kill them for our pleasure, food or sport, by the billions, and without guilt. [Every year we kill over 70 billion animals and 1.3 trillion fish and other aquatic organisms.]

The idea that humans are or will be gods is a natural consequence of the power of the storyteller. Given that we are the storyteller, we are, by default, the heroes. Because no one is the villain in their own story. And that is why those who write the story [or history] are always good, benevolent, generous, right and wise. [It is also why we called ourselves Homo Sapiens – i.e., wise man.] But now, with the rise of artificial intelligence, that may change again. And the day a computer can tell a sophisticated story – one that can make others laugh, cry and [most of all] believe, is the day humanity may lose control of the story. Because, as we already saw above, the storyteller inevitably ends up not merely as the hero but also as the most powerful species. [And if that turns out to be the case, can we blame the Godlike AI’s if they come up with the story of AI-ism and end up treating humans the same way we “human-ists” treat animals?!]

Chapter 3: The Power of Story

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ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

Chapter 3: The Power of Story

“We suffer not from the events in our lives but from our stories about them.” Epictetus

The most powerful stories are stories about things that don’t exist. Because our fictive language gave birth to legal fictions, social constructs and imagined realities. So much so that today imagined things are more powerful than real things. Trees, rivers, fish, animals and even the climate depend on our imaginary constructs for their future survival. There is no money, law, justice, inalienable human rights, religion, love, friendship, capitalism, corporations, nations or humanity outside of our common imagination. Never-the-less it is such fictitious entities that will decide the fate of the world, ourselves included.

The more fictitious a story is, the more powerful that story is, provided it has a large enough number of people embracing it. Because stories that spread don’t just win – they change the world. This is true of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as much as it is true of Communism, Capitalism, Humanism, Nationalism, Feminism, Brexit, MeToo or human rights. And while not everyone embraces those, the most popular story on our planet is money. Because almost everyone accepts and therefore believes in the story of money.

In human civilization, not only everything but also everyone is a story. And that is true at every level we can think of – individually, collectively or globally, because each of those levels requires a story. The same person can embrace many different stories that give her meaning, which also set the spectrum of what is and what is not possible for her. For example, someone can be a mother, daughter, vegetarian, lesbian, police officer, Muslim, black and American – all at once. And each of those stories provides such powerful meaning that the person may be willing to kill, live or die for it. Thus, our identities are little more than a hodge-podge of often contradictory stories. But if we change our story we change our identity. And if we change our identity we change our actions, and therefore we change our future.

Conversely, people who have not embraced or have lost their personal story feel lonely, unmotivated, lack meaning, feel depressed and may even commit suicide. While people who have discovered their “calling” have basically found a compelling story and decided to embrace it as their own. And when many people embrace the same story we can have large-scale cooperation among millions of humans, who are otherwise all strangers to each other. Thus, the power of our civilization is built on the power of stories – our belief in them, our ability to spread them and our ability to support and follow those stories, no matter the cost. Therefore, we ought to be very careful rewriting our story because if we destroy our story, we destroy our civilization:

“Human civilization is an intensely fragile construction. It is built on little more than belief: belief in the rightness of its values; belief in the strength of its system of law and order; belief in its currency; above all, perhaps, belief in its future.” [The Dark Mountain Manifesto page 5]

Media Theorist Douglas Rushkoff on Team Human

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Douglas Rushkoff has been named one of the world’s ten most influential intellectuals by MIT. He is an award-winning author, broadcaster, media theorist and documentarian who studies human autonomy in the digital age. Rushkoff is the host of the popular Team Human podcast and was among the very first guests I ever interviewed when I started my own podcast, nearly 10 years ago. Needless to say, it was way overdue to catch up with Douglas and see how his thoughts on the technological singularity and transhumanism have evolved and why.

During our 75-minute interview with Douglas Rushkoff, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: who he is as a human; his path from theater to technology; the “society of spectacle” we live in; why futurists (still) suck; what he calls “the deeply embedded anti-human agenda”; capitalism, chartered monopolies, and centralized currencies; Team Human and why being human is a team sport; anthropomorphism and mechanomorphism; the rise of suicides among young professionals; the singularity as an industrial age fantasy of solving our problems; the limitations of blockchain; the meaning of being human and the downsides of our exceptionalism; the need for ReWriting the Human Story.

Just two of my favorite quotes that I will take away from this conversation with Douglas Rushkoff are:

“We have the power of cancer but really not much more awareness of our self-destructive trajectory.”

“It’s interesting to me to live in a world where liking people is radical.”

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is Douglas Rushkoff?

 

Named one of the world’s ten most influential intellectuals by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an award-winning author, broadcaster, and documentarian who studies human autonomy in the digital age. The host of the popular Team Human podcast, Rushkoff has written twenty books, including the bestsellers Present Shock, Program or Be Programmed and Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus.

Rushkoff has written regular columns for Medium, CNN, Daily Beast, and the Guardian, and made the PBS Frontline documentaries “Generation Like” and “Merchants of Cool.” He coined such concepts as “viral media” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. Douglas Rushkoff is a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a professor of media theory and digital economics. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Chapter 1: The Definition of Story

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ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

Chapter 1: The Definition of Story

We started our thought experiment with Kenneth Burke’s definition of story as “equipment for living.” Burke offers a great start but it is Jeff DeChambeau who really brings all the essential elements together in defining story as “information processing technology.” And, whether we realize it or not, it is among the oldest, most powerful and longest lasting technologies we have. But let’s break it apart and take a closer look to see how and why DeChambeau’s definition works so well.

The first thing we ought to note is that story is about information. It started around the Cognitive Revolution 70,000 years ago when we had no writing and story was the vehicle which carried information from one generation to the next. Then we invented writing and moved from the oral to the written word. But story got even more powerful because we could suddenly send information both across space and time. Even today, in the age of 24-hour-news, social media, YouTube videos, and audio podcasts, the most popular and powerful memes still come wrapped in some kind of story. Because story was and continues to be the best vehicle for capturing, carrying and transmitting information.

The second is that story is about processing – i.e. organizing said information in a way that provides new insight we did not have before. In other words, a story can take data and make sense of it. So it turns information into knowledge. Because there is a point to using story, a lesson to be learned.

The third part is that it is technology because story is a conceptual tool created by homo sapiens to make sense of the world. [For example, Kevin Kelly defines technology as “anything useful invented by a mind.”] That’s why Robert McKee notes: “Story is about trying to make sense out of the confusion, chaos, and terror of being a human being.” And as any good tool, we can apply story to many a problem to help us understand, make sense of and deal with it. No story, no way to organize information, no way to process it, no way to make sense of, remember or understand. Because story is ultimately about understanding. [More on that in Chapter 4 and 7.]

Story also has very specific features, characteristics, and structure that make it both powerful and unique. And it is neither simple narrative nor mere propaganda.

For example, story is different from narrative just like chronicles are different from history. Because chronicles and annals are but a sequence of often random chronological occurrences, without any connection, common theme or thread. Which is why they are so boring, tedious, hard to follow and hard to remember. Unfortunately, even today, too many mistake narrative for story and then wonder why they fail to connect with people and get support for their goals. To turn a narrative into a story we need a unifying theme, a greater point of view, a moral or a lesson that will allow us to not only remember and organize but also process and understand what has occurred, why, and what might be next.

That is why Hayden White argued that the moment we brought story to narrative is the moment we gave birth to history. In the words of David Campbell “history proper requires the narration of events so that they are ‘revealed as possessing a structure, an order of meaning, that they do not possess as a mere sequence.” For both White and Campbell, it is only after embracing a meaningful structure that history proper breaks from the ranks of the ancient annals and chronicles, and claims its modern day place among the other sciences.

Story is also different from propaganda because story is about the audience, not about the storyteller. This is a critical point to understand. A story is not about the storyteller’s ego or agenda. It is about the audience – informing, entertaining, enriching and teaching them something worthwhile. That is why your press release is not a story. Neither are your latest news, greatest achievements, biggest product launch, volunteer work and charity donations. Those are all about you. Those are all propaganda.

Source Google

A story also has a particular structure – i.e. it has a beginning, middle and end. So, while the characters, places or even the objectives can change, the structure remains mostly the same:

Beginning: Shit happens.

The beginning sets the problem and creates intrigue – i.e. it hooks the audience to the plot and whets their curiosity as per how the problem might be resolved. Who, what, why, when and where?

Middle: Shit happens to [good] people like us.

This is the struggle – where all the drama of the story unfolds, while our protagonists – who are in some important ways very much like us, struggle to overcome the problem. What was the struggle? What was done to overcome it?

End: What we learn from shit.

This is the resolution – what did we learn from this particular story.

In short, the structure of a story is basically a roller coaster where we go down and up and down and up again. As David Sloly noted in his TEDx talk:

“Stories are like roller coasters – they’re only any good if they’re coming up and down.”

Chapter 2: The Story of Story

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ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

Chapter 2: The Story of Story

“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

Humanity has searched for meaning since our beginning. And we find it in story. The story that we tell ourselves. Thus, a world devoid of meaning becomes meaningful. But this meaning is given by and designed for us. And it is created in language.

The truly unique feature of human language is not its ability to transmit practical information – about animals, rivers, stones, and trees because this feature is present in the languages of many other species. What makes human language unique is its ability to transmit information about things that don’t exist in the physical world at all – like gods, money, law, ethics, corporations and so on. That’s why ours is a fictive language. And this fact is very important for the two key features of our civilization:

1. Large-scale cooperation: Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons rarely cooperated in groups larger than 150 [Dunbar’s number]. This placed a rather low upper limit on what they could accomplish. Homo Sapiens, however, when given a powerful enough story, can exhibit cooperation among millions of strangers working towards the same goal. And what we can accomplish is of unlimited scale. Both positive and negative examples abound in history from wars and genocides to sports events, through religious rituals, social movements, construction projects such as the Great Wall of China, or technological and scientific breakthroughs such as the Large Hadron Collider and space exploration.

2. Rapid Innovation of social behavior and faster cultural evolution: What this means is that when we change the story, we change the culture. When enough people switch the story they believe in we have a popular revolution. For example, in 1789 the population of France shifted almost overnight from believing in the story of the divine right of their king to the story of the sovereignty of the people. [“Liberté, égalité, fraternité.”] Now known as the French Revolution, this event shows how cultural revolutions, in contrast to genetic revolutions, are very fast. And that, in turn, is the main reason why humanity has outstripped all other species in evolutionary terms – because we are using our culture, not our genes, to evolve faster.

In short, without our fictive language, we can’t have a story. And without a human story, our human civilization will not exist. So, the story of story is the story of our language.

Part  I: Story

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ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

Part  I: Story

“People always find it easier to be a result of the past rather than a cause of the future.” Unknown

Are we just billiard balls in a predetermined cosmic game of pool? Or are we free to choose our future?

My thesis in this thought-experiment is that our future is indeed determined. But not by some unbreakable and deterministic law of nature. No. Our future is determined by a story that we have created. Because ours is a civilization of story. So much so that today humanity lives and dies not by facts but by and for our stories. And this has gone so far that at present the fate of actual, non-fictional entities – such as animals, rivers, trees, mountains, oceans and even our planet, is determined by stories – such as money, religion, law, corporations, nations and international organizations.

In other words, in our civilization, what is real and we can touch, see, feel and smell, is ruled by what is fictional and doesn’t necessarily exist outside of the shared human imagination. All future possibilities – what is and what is not possible, are not determined by past events or facts on the ground. They are determined by the stories we attach to those because we are story-telling animals. And that is true for us individually – as persons, or collectively – as organizations, businesses, nations and even for our civilization.

I claim that our story determines our future. But I am not claiming that anything is possible. Geographical, biological, physical and economic forces do create constraints. But those constraints leave sufficient room for us to choose our future and not be bound by determinism. Yes, the past does exert a choke-hold on us all but we can break free if we can change the story. And it doesn’t matter if you are an individual, a company, a nation or an international organization – change your story, change your future.

But before we have a story, any story, we must first have a story-teller. Therefore, the most important story, that which all other stories are derived from, the story-of-all-stories, is the story of the story-teller: the human story.

The human story has been rewritten several times already. The last time was somewhere between the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution when we dethroned God as the central authority in the Universe and took his place instead. Since then our story has spread the myth of the supremacy and centrality of the human being – of how we are the pinnacle of evolution, the supreme intelligence and the masters of nature. And everything we have done since then, together with everything we are likely to do in the future, will stem from that story – the story of who we are, what’s our place in the universe, what we are here for and where we are going.

It is, therefore, this story that is the cornerstone of our stunning progress and fantastic accomplishments. It is also the same story that underpins our failures and current predicaments – be it climate change, nuclear war, terrorism or even artificial intelligence. For it is this story that gave us Auschwitz and took us to the Moon. And it is this story that will, in this century, determine if we are going to go extinct like the dinosaurs, or if and how we might populate the universe.

Now, the major challenges we are currently facing are mostly new kinds of challenges. And exponential technologies – such as genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, big data, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, are already causing disruptive change. But new kinds of challenges require new kinds of thinking. And, since we think in and are ruled by stories, we must rewrite the human story yet again. Because our current story is facing many new challenges. And recent events have shown it is starting to fall apart.

But before we can write a new story we must understand how the current story came to be. Only then can we hope to write a better one. This is not just a philosophical exercise but a question of survival for all life on our planet. Viktor Frankl, a Nazi Holocaust survivor, said it best:

“Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.”

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

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It is harder and harder to make sense of life. Everything is changing, all the time, at a faster and faster pace. Our civilization is struggling to react to and keep up with exponential technology and disruptive change. Our age-old institutions, politics, economics, ethics, religion and laws, even our environment, are so fundamentally challenged, that we risk collapse. Our stories have gotten so divorced from reality, so divisive, so inflexible and so inept to adapt to and explain our present, let alone guide us towards a better future, that we often feel like helpless passengers on a Titanic spaceship Earth. No wonder Aristotle observed that “When the storytelling goes bad in a society, the result is decadence.”

But why is this the case? And, perhaps more importantly, how is it that bad storytelling can keep, if not bring, a whole society down? Is that not simply overstating the power of story?

Literary theorist Kenneth Burke famously noted: “Stories are equipment for living. Human beings need storytelling in order to make certain sense out of life.” If that is true then our equipment for living has gone obsolete. And unless we upgrade we are going to go obsolete too.

We desperately need a new story. A story that will not only help us make sense of the world today but also unite us as a species of human beings. A story that will motivate us to stop bickering and resolve our common problems. A story that will inspire us to achieve our common goals and guide us towards a better future for all sentient beings on our planet.

We have to rewrite the story. Our story. The human story. Because the old stories that brought us thus far are no longer useful. They’ve lost their vision and grandeur. They’ve become petty and short-sighted. They’re stuck in a past that never was at the expense of a future that can be. They divide us and keep us bickering while our civilization is facing unprecedented diversity and depth of existential challenges. Those stories are not simply our history. They are now our chains. And unless we break them, they will be our death sentence.

So, if it is true that old stories or bad stories can bring us down, then, it is worth exploring if or how new stories, good stories can bring us up.

The human story that brought us into the 21st century was written and rewritten several times. The latest major update was perhaps during the industrial revolution. It is time to rewrite it again. We need a new story. A brave story. An unreasonable story. A story that can inspire, unite and motivate us to break free from the past and create the best possible future.

This is what this book proposal is about. And, since I only have a rather rough draft, it is first and foremost a kind of a thought experiment. Many of the ideas I will be putting here are not fully formed. Some are raw. Others are just wrong. Or bad. But as a guest on my podcast once said: “Big ideas are born bad.” So I will not shy away from sharing my bad ideas with you. And, hopefully, among the gravel and the dust, there might be some nuggets too.

From now on, I intend to publish a short chapter proposal every week for the next 3 or 4 months. Then you be the judge as per how big or bad my ideas are. Either way, while I feel I am not quite ready for this journey, I feel it is a journey I must begin. Because, whether I succeed or fail in its ultimate goal of rewriting the human story, I know I would be better for trying. Hopefully, you can benefit from it too.

And, if, in the end, there is enough good material for a proper book – great. If not, then, at least I can say I tried. Either way, your feedback will play an important part in this process.

Thank you very much for coming along with me. And let us begin:

 

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

“The end of the human race will be that it will
eventually die of civilization.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Suggested Table of Contents:

Part I: Story

  1. The Definition of Story
  2. The Story of Story
  3. The Power of Story
  4. The Power of the Storyteller
  5. The Importance of Story [Narratives and MTP’s]
  6. The Biology of Story

Part II: Our Story

  1. The Human Story
  2. The Science Story
  3. The Technology Story
  4. The Capitalism Story
  5. The Technological Singularity Story [AI]

Part III: ReWriting the Human Story [this is the part I am least ready for]

  1. The Danger of a Single Story  [and the Power of Many]
  2. The End of Story
  3. Uncivilized Art: Stories Beyond [Trans]Humanism
  4. More chapters…

 

Nikola Danaylov on the Dissenter: The Singularity, Futurism, and Humanity

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A few weeks ago I got interviewed by Ricardo Lopes for the Dissenter. The interview just came out and I thought I’d share it with you to enjoy or critique. Here is Ricardo’s original description:

#131 Nikola Danaylov: The Singularity, Doing Futurism, and the Human Element

In this episode, we talk about what is meant by the term “Singularity”, and its technological, social, economic, and scientific implications. We consider the technological and human aspects of the equation of economic and technologic growth, and human and moral progress. We also deal with more specific issues, like transhumanism, the ethics of enhancement, AI, and Big Data.

Time Links:

00:58 What is the Singularity?

02:51 Exponential growth

04:42 What would mean to have reached the Singularity?

10:29 The trouble with futurism

15:35 The technological and the human aspects

20:20 What we get from technology depends on how we use it

23:16 Transhumanism, enhancement, and ethics

26:26 AI and economics

31:53 Eliminating boring tasks, and living more meaningful lives

36:37 Big Data, and the risk of exploitation

43:04 The example of self-driving cars

51:32 The human element in the equation

52:20 Follow Mr. Danaylov’s work!

Nikola Danaylov on Universal Grammar, Language and AI

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This is a 2016 interview I did for Tobias Martens discussing a variety of topics including Universal Grammar, Language, AI, and the singularity. While my ideas have evolved since I did this interview, I don’t think that there have been any fundamental changes. So, given that I believe that there is still merit in the ideas we discussed with Tobias, I thought it would be good if I were to share this publically for your feedback.

Here is Tobias Marten’s original write up for this interview:

Language singularity: Make Alexa and Siri talk with each other!

By Tobias Martens tm@whoelse.ai

For my master thesis about Jeremy Rifkin’s theory of near-zero marginal cost societies, I contacted Nikola in 2016 to interview him about an idea: A brand that is self-explanatory to every kind of Internet user by a universal understood grammar.

“Internet in a child-like language”, “universal language for AI”, or “a simplified programming principle for human language” were my early approaches to explain thoughts about the concept of a file format based on “who else?” relationships in language.

My theory: If Internet services can be easier explained to users in a simplified grammar based on “who else?” questions e.g. “Who else needs a ride-share?” (=UBER), “Who else looks for an apartment rental?” (=AirBnB), “Who else wants to go on a date?” (=Tinder), maybe AIs could as well communicate better amongst each other by a standardized vocabulary as language protocol.

Nikola suggested publishing our conversation, but I decided to wait. Some of the considerations and theories felt as too spontaneously thought off.

In 2018 we turned the idea into the whoelse.ai project. Currently, we work together with the German Institute for Norms to formulate the first-ever standardization proposal for language explainability and NLP compatibility.

We believe the DIN Spec consortium is an exciting opportunity for AI developers and IoT manufacturers alike. The increasing number of use cases for voice-based interfaces make Voice Internet interoperability and address protocols not only viable but necessary.

In the next couple of months, we consolidate inputs from the AI research and industry user community. Today we start by re-posting the original conversation between me and Nikola.

We plan to publish a draft version of the DIN Spec at O´Reilly AI Europe in October 2019. This post is an invitation to collaboration. Join us at whoelse.ai and reach out: tm@whoelse.ai

On Transhumanist Manifestos and Dilemmas

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It’s been almost 10 years since I wrote the first versions of Hamlet’s Transhumanist Dilemma and A Transhumanist Manifesto. And a lot has changed. Including my point of view.

I started with Hamlet. With asking a question: Will technology replace biology?

At the time I felt that this was the contemporary version of Shakespeare’s original human dilemma: to be or not to be.

I felt that, since death is a tragedy, technology was our only way out. And a worthy one at that. Still, I was also afraid that choosing technology over biology might come at too high a price. A Faustian bargain.

While I couldn’t put my finger on it, I was concerned that in moving from human to transhuman, or cyborg, we might be losing something. Something precious and unique. Something not to be lost or traded – even for immortality. Hence, I titled the piece Hamlet’s Transhumanist Dilemma. Because I felt that there is no right answer. And that each and every one of us ought to figure it out on our own.

A few months later, I felt I had the right answer and was going all in. I’ve been drinking the cool aid straight from the fire hose of Transhumanism and the world was getting really simple. Black and white even. Because, as the Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II simply put it: “Death is wrong and life is right.”

Right.

You see, the problem with dilemmas is that there is no right answer. They are uncomfortable. They are good at posing questions but bad at giving you the answer.

Manifestos, on the other hand, leave no room for doubt. By their nature, manifestos are a straightforward call in support of action that is certain to provide the answer. And, since I was so submerged in the transhumanist narrative, I decided to write my version of a transhumanist manifesto. A manifesto where I call on my transhumanist brothers and sisters to unite in breaking the “chains of biology and death.”

Ten years later I feel I’m almost back where I started. [I guess, at least in some ways, life is a circle.] Yes, it is true that dilemmas don’t give you guidance as per what to do but I feel they are real, raw and honest. They are true to the world we live in. A world where there is no GPS towards our future. A world where answers are often free but good questions can be priceless.

Dilemmas call for introspection, manifestos call for action.

Manifestos are idealistic, romantic and convenient. Worse – they are naïve, simplistic, and utopian, often dangerously so. They help us focus and inspire action, but it is often action without introspection. Action which often ought not to be justified.

Perhaps I’m getting old, but, lately, I see a lot of action taken without much introspection. The kind of action that is ready to do violence in order to supposedly build a new world on the ruins of the current one. But, unfortunately, the world is never as simple and straightforward as manifestos make it be. [Especially after the revolutionary (i.e. the destructive) part is over and we actually have to build something.]

And so I’ve gone back to dilemmas as a better way to face my future. Because the world is transformed by asking questions. And because, as Richard Feynman noticed, it is better to have questions we have no answers for than answers we can’t question.

And thus I’m back to Hamlet. I’m back to doubt, uncertainty, paradox, not knowing and probably being wrong.

And what about you? Are you up for revolution or introspection?

Douglas Rushkoff’s TED Talk: How to be “Team Human” in the digital future

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Humans are no longer valued for our creativity, says media theorist Douglas Rushkoff — in a world dominated by digital technology, we’re now just valued for our data. In a passionate talk, Rushkoff urges us to stop using technology to optimize people for the market and start using it to build a future centered on our pre-digital values of connection, creativity and respect. “Join ‘Team Human.’ Find the others,” he says. “Together let’s make the future that we always wanted.”

Why Team Human?

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Autonomous technologies, runaway markets, and weaponized media seem to have overturned civil society, paralyzing our ability to think constructively, connect meaningfully, or act purposefully. It feels as if civilization itself were on the brink, and that we lack the collective willpower and coordination necessary to address issues of vital importance to the very survival of our species.

The simplest way to understand and change our predicament is to recognize that being human is a team sport. We cannot be fully human, alone. Anything that brings us together fosters our humanity. Likewise, anything that separates us makes us less human, and less able to exercise our will.

Who is Douglas Rushkoff?

Douglas Rushkoff coined such expressions as “viral media,” “digital natives” and “social currency,” and advises governments, communities, and businesses on the impact of technology on society’s future. Named one of “the world’s ten most influential thinkers” by MIT, Rushkoff won the Marshal McLuhan Award for media writing and the Neil Postman award for Public Intellectual Activity.

Rushkoff hosts the Team Human podcast, made four PBS Frontline documentaries including Generation Like and The Merchants of Cool, and wrote many bestselling books including Team Human, Present Shock, Program or Be Programmed and Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus. He founded the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens College, where he is a professor of media theory and digital economics.