I talked before about building a business after the age of 50
And rebuilding a body that will last another 40 years
I still “think” we’re headed toward something good
I just “know” it’s gonna be rough getting there
But what does rough look like
When I think about history and the things we know about it
This time period doesn’t feel any worse than any previous time period
When I was in my early twenties, there was a genocide in Uganda that rivaled the Holocaust
When I was crawling around in diapers, there was a genocide in Cambodia that put the Holocaust to shame
Mao’s Red Revolution was a terrible time to be alive
In China
The Russian Revolution when they lined up the Romaov’s and machine gunned them in a basement
And then killed tens of millions of peasants through re-education and starvation in the early 1900’s
Sounds pretty terrible too
But those were major events, and major changes always end up with major consequences
I don’t know if the shift into all AI is going to be one fell swoop or something we look back on and say…
Oh, that’s when it happened
Will AI turn into skynet and decide humans are a pest?
Or will it just give us everything we ever want out of life until we no longer populate the species
And we die off?
Will Luddites declare AI is the devil and start an anti-technology war where normal people get caught in the middle?
Or will things just keep… evolving and the next generation just adapts to it
Like your kids (or grandkids) with a tablet or phone
Fingers moving like it’s second nature
Whereas older generations sometimes fumble to learn how to be half as profiecient as a toddler on an iPhone
And again, looking back through history, each subsequent generation had something they bemoaned that was going to ruin society
And their kids adopted it, evolved it, and lived it
Until it became weird not too
My Dad never had a computer in his house
He started using one at work in the late 90’s, but he never saw the need to have one at home
Neither did my grandparents
But I bought my first desktop from Best Buy for $900 in the early 90’s
Got AOL dial up on a free CD they gave away on check out
And have had a computer station in every home I’ve ever had growing up
I have a laptop with me almost all the time
And when I don’t, my phone has the programs I need on it
My children all have computers, phones and tablets at the ready
Looking at my brother’s kids, who are younger, they are so comfortable with tech that it’s almost annoying
So when I see what’s coming down the road as a major event
I think, I hope the tech catches up with the dreaming and plans by then
Augmented humans
Nueralink has passed another trial and is one step closer to becoming reality
The first gen gave a man who couldn’t move or talk the ability to communicate with his mind
The next is making quadrapalegics and parapalegics walk and able to move again
Then, some smart people are going to get implants and have access to AGI
Artificial General Intelligence
And that will give them a 10X advantage over the non-augmented folks
They’ll be smarter, have access to more information and be faster than the speed of thought on most things
It will allow those first adopters to accumulate the things that folks do that give them power over others
A new generation of barons we hope aren’t the robber types
Astors. Morgans. Rockerfellers.
I bet we see a family name who uses AGI augmentation like Joe Kennedy used bootlegging
First, to get rich
Then to buy politicians
Then to buy an election
Which makes the family name legitimate in the eyes of the public
Except AGI Aug will take that fifty year timeline and compress it to only five
Or five months
I’ve half joked before that I hope we get to the point we can download our consciousness into a cloud before I die
Because I want to see what’s coming next
And if I can put that digital me into a practically indestructable Bot, well, that would be pretty cool too
And if I can partition off a piece of the Cloud and create multiple interconnected versions of my mind that stay connected and then put each version into bots
Can you imagine what we could know or do
One bot to the Moon to build
One bot to Mars to pioneer
A bot into the heart of disasters to help
Another exploring oceans or Antartica
And all of them feeding data back to the cloud for the main VR brain of me to know things and see things and have had done things
While I watch my grand-kid’s children pick up on the next evolution of tech that makes all bot me’s obsolete
I just hope my voice cloned program works well enough for them to hear me say,
Back in my day…
One of my favorite catchy songs makes me smile every time I hear it on the radio
But it’s an oldie
One More Last Chance
Yes, I’m dating myself
Yes, it will make you tap your toes
And you’re right, it would make a good title for a western noir thriller, so I’ll take your advice
Like I did building out the Mission Brief a 5 book for $5 boxset of The Shadowboxer files.
And also, I told you that we’re running up against a hard out on the MASSIVE THRILLER BIG BOXSET because it’s just too many books for too little price
So here is your ONE MORE LAST CHANCE to pick up 25 books for only $20
Til Friday
That’s because I have some changes in May and This MASSIVE THRILLER BIG BOXSET will go up in Price.
If you’ve been on the fence, or just waiting, go grab your copy today before the price goes up at midnight.
Keep your head on a swivel, and get ready for a brand new Shadowboxer File in ten days!
What would we do with knowledge of the future?